Category: Bread Experiments
Gluten-Free Sourdough Waffles
I’m in the process of taking a course on sourdough bread from Recipes for Living. Out of respect for Chris, I’m not going to post details of what I’m doing under his tutelage – I may post photos! – but here’s some other action.
This morning we decided it was time to use the traditional waffle iron we bought a while back. I never ate waffles growing up, so had not experience of what they should be like. However, I hacked together a recipe based on one here together with the flour which we ground last night based on specifications from here.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup (4 oz or 115 g) melted butter
- 1 cup (250 ml) water
- 1 cup + 1 T (270ml) starter (flour mix #2)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp (packed) brown sugar
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 3/4 cup tapioca flour
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
Method:
The original recipe mixes everything bar the eggs and baking soda and leaves overnight. I didn’t have that luxury so went straight ahead and mixed in the eggs and baking soda upfront – and then simply heated the waffle iron on the gas burner and cooked about 1 cup of batter at a time for about 3 minutes a side.
Results:
I have not really eaten waffles before, but my partner has – and she was very positive. The waffles were crispy and brown on the outside with a chewy, soft core and a distinct sourdough taste. I think it could certainly be done without the sugar, and likely would benefit from adding some lemon. Savoury buckwheat waffles should also work well. More to follow!
I also made: Gluten-Free Banana Bread
Wanting to cook – per How We Montessori – we threw their method out and adapted the cornbread recipe to make a banana bread this afternoon. Worked out very well, tho it took a while to cook. However, pretty porr from a montessori / practical life perspective. Win some, lose some.
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 3 tablespoons ground sugar
- 2 eggs, divided, whites beaten to soft peaks
- 1 cup water
- 1 heaped tablespoon almond milk powder
- 1 & 2/3 cup flour blend # 2 + 1/3 tsp xanthan gum
- 2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 mashed banana
- 1 cup raisins
Method:
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and mix. Mix flour, salt, and powders and incorporate, mixing the cup of water in gradually to avoid clumping, and the banana and raisins at the end. Fold in egg whites and pour into a lined loaf tin. About 45 minutes at 425 F / 220 C.
Results:
Outstanding – not at all crumbly, moist (a bit too moist maybe – adjust the water down a little), and full of flavour.
I also made: Gluten-Free Cornbread
A while ago, the first thing I tried to make consciously gluten-free was cornbread – only, since I had purchased a bag of coconut flour, I wanted to make gluten-free coconut cornbread. Kind of niche, maybe? Who knows. In any case, amongst the paleo and the plain weird, I didn’t really get anything I wanted, and I started down the fermented gluten-free bread route.
Today, however, we wanted something to accompany a leftovers lunch, including the use of a half jar of maize or corn kernels. So it was that I took a look on the internet, finding this recipe. A great looking recipe, but since I live in Spain we find most non-standard (and nonUHT / longlife) milk products very hard to find. Also, we tend to be reasonably lacto-free (that is, we eat butter and cheese). Didn’t have enough butter, of course. So I made it as follows:
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/3 cup margarine
- 4 tablespoons coco sugar
- 2 eggs, divided, whites beaten to soft peaks
- 1 cup water
- 1 heaped tablespoon almond milk powder
- 1 cup flour blend # 2 + 1/3 tsp xanthan gum
- 2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
- 2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup corn kernels
Method:
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and mix (I didn’t mix). Mix flour, salt, and powders and incorporate, mixing the cup of water in gradually to avoid clumping, and the corn kernels at the end. I then folded in the egg whites and poured into a lined loaf tin. About 25-35 minutes at 425 F / 220 C.
Results:
This was by far the best loaf I have made gluten-free. Of course it was – it was chock-full of gums n powders – but hell, it was nice to eat a light, fully flavoured, cornbread. It reminded me of the bread at Watts Grocery in Durham NC. Update: I repeated this recipe a day later using only buckwheat flour. The only noticeable change was significant crumbliness compared with the earlier version.
Gluten-free Sourdough, lacto-fermented zucchini loaf (savory) #2
If the last one was thrown together, this was more of an insouciant blending. I ballsed up the ‘slurry’ again – I decided to mix it in dry but neglected to whisk the flours for a good blend, so I got some clumping. I switched up the starter and made it more of a 100% hydration (typically I have used about 65% hydration).
Ingredients:
- 2 cups flour mix #2 (with tweaks per prior posts) –
- 3/4 cup 5/6 day fermented grated zucchini – chilled, so why I am bothering to add this since it should have no active fermentation, I don’t know
- 3/4 tsp salt
- about a 1/4 cup sugar – I am not sure why I increased this
- 3/4 cup active (ie just went through a rise & fall cycle) starter
- 10g / 10g flax / chia ground and added as dry
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
Method:
I mixed everything together at once, as before, and let it rise 12 hours. There was some, not particularly appreciable activity, and so I baked an hour at 180. Disappointing.
Gluten-Free Cheese Scones
We used to eat these scones a lot in the past whenever we ran out of bread. They’re quick and easy. Yesterday’s experiment with a gluten-free mix was not a total success, but gave some good pointers. Needs revisiting – maybe with xanthan gum to see if that makes a difference, as the recipe is so quick. The original recipe is from The Big Book of Bread: 365 Recipes for Bread Machines and Home Baking
Ingredients:
- 15 g roughly equal of flax and chia seeds, ground
- 210g flour mix #2
- 1 T baking powder
- pinch salt
- pinch cayenne
- 40g butter, diced
- 115g parmesan, grated
- c 150ml water
Method:
In theory, it’s dry, rub in butter, add ‘milk’ (water in my case) to make a dough, roll out and bake 15 min at 200. In this case, I added too little water, and after 10 minutes in the fridge it was dry and almost crumbly. Inspired, I added more water, another 10 mins in the fridge, and then added flour mix to the outside of the dough as I rolled it out. Suggest this step is curtailed via addition of a quarter cup up-front … I also screwed up the addition of flax and chia, and instead of adding to 210 of flour I added to 360, mixed, and then realised my mistake and backed it out. So, all told a bit of a scramble. The parmesan should also really be 115 in at this stage and a further 25g to sprinkle on top before baking.
However – results were good. We rolled them out too thinky, but some that I rolled out fatly towards the end rose well. The others had promise – not too firm, but nicely browned. So, to be repeated.
I’m currently fermenting some zucchini for a gluten-free sourdough zucchini bread. I think Imma make it with the fermented honey water. Eggs => basket.
Update:
I made these again, without the screwups. Rise was terrible; however, the addition of oat bran made for an interesting texture (light) and colour (deep brown). Will try again, with the slurry as slurry, and with the temp a little lower.
Scraping Bottom
So, a few things done over the past days, but without any glory. To add insult to injury, this morning I just ditched the dough for a loaf – I didn’t bake. If I need bricks, I can easily get them.
I started the week thinking about the inclusion of fermented liquids. It seemed that if my simple ginger bug had worked previously, it might work again – but with increased volume. I popped a piece of ginger root and some sugar with 2 cups of water in a Mason jar and walked away. Bad call. Per this post (and countless others), the process is more active.
I also set up an experiment – honey water (a precursor to mead) but without cultured yeast – I just added a swirl of starter from the spoon leavin’s – about 2 T of natural honey with the 2 cups of water. Early days on that.
Finally I set to making a loaf yesterday with the following:
- 500g flour mix (3 cups – but decided to start adding in weights)
- 4.5 oz starter (a good mix of weights & measures to keep you guessing)
- 1 cup & a splash
- 45g chia / flax (as 20g chia and 25 flax) – intended to have 20 / 20 but my hand trembled
- 1 tsp salt
I mixed the dry ingredients (the flax & chia ground in with the flour and salt) and added the water and starter, mixing to a malleable dough. I think this was the start of the problem. The dough should be wet at this stage, and since it wasn’t, I think it was poorly hydrated. The plan was to have it rise 8 hours or so in the bread pan and then bake. Nothing – some very moderate rising activity but basically it sat and soured. This morning I decided I couldn’t face baking it.
I’m going to try the same mix (but with the 5.5oz starter I was using up front) adding more water to get a wet dough and rising in the gastronorm. The other major change has been that I ran out of the local polenta I use (a pair of women in the market place grind it specially for me) and had to buy a dubiously yellow packaged polenta. Not ‘instant’, but certainly not too natural. Organic, for sure.
Yesterday’s Recipe-Free, Gluten-Free Flatbreads
Driven by necessity, or at the very least to use some turnips (with carrots, in a ‘spicy carrot pita pocket’ or some such, from River Cottage Veg Every Day
Flour Mix / Starter: Same same but different – actually not different at all. I just used the mix I had re-fed in the morning after the pancakes. Waited a couple of hours and harvested what I could.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups flour mix
- 3 oz starter (following prior thinking, reduced relation to flour mix – the flour mix is at 66% of previous quantity, and the starter is at 55%)
- 15 / 15 / 60 flax / chia slurry
- 1 cup of water (this was a mistake – I intended on lowering to 2/3 and plain forgot. However, I didn’t add in the usual ‘splash’)
- 1 tsp salt
Method:
I mixed the slurry cold, and let sit for 10 mins. Then, when hydrating my starter with the 1 cup of water, I also added in the slurry and mixed with care. Not sure it made any difference, per ‘thought’ below. Added both to the flour and salt, gave it about 1.5 mins on 2nd speed in KitchenAid, and carefully placed in gastronorm.
Here’s where things departed. The weather was a lot cooler through the day yesterday, tho with warm spells, and that may have played a part – as might have the 55% to 66% shift in the starter to flour ratio. In any case, this dough developed over about 6 hours, and probably could have handled some more. Usually, my dough has doubled after 2 or 3 hours. I am wondering if it was the lingering impact of the ginger bug, and indeed (post the comments in The Art of Gluten Free Baking) have placed a half liter of both ginger bug and ‘honey water’ or mead to start fermenting on the side.
In any case, with some trepidation I turned out the dough and found it to be spongy but workable, if a bit fragile. I cut portions w/ a bench knife and used plenty of flour mix to roll these out. I reasoned that the mix would not be very likely to blend in with the dough since the latter was a product of many hours’ development.
I was able to work the dough with a rolling pin and created 9 unequal sized flatbreads (unequal due to my desire to move quickly up front, which I see now was unnecessary) which I then let rest for about 35 minutes. They could maybe have done with a little longer – but the usual enemy (hunger) was snapping at my heels.
I used a Le Creuset solid grill pan, heated for about 10 minutes, to cook the flatbreads. I brushed each with a little dark sesame oil (for S&G) and gave them maybe 4 minutes each side. The dough did not bubble up as much as conventional dough has done – the flatbreads, when done, were not something that could be sliced open – and it seemed I needed a little extra heat than when doing the same process with gluten flour.
That said, I won’t be filing this under ‘failures’. The flavour was good, even if the texture was a little dry and crumbly. I was thinking that for flatbreads, perhaps garbanzo flour in lieu of soy? No idea why. Also: Can using oat bran make for better whole grain but non-gluten products? In Europe, there doesn’t seem to be the problem of oats being ‘infected’ in the same way.
All that aside, I have made (and eaten) both better and worse flatbreads. Maria Elia
Flavour: 6/10
Consistency: 6/10 (could be improved – were better the next day)
GF Sourdough #2; Focus on Crumb
I’d like to be less impatient, and not change multiple factors – do a solid design of experiment. But I am impatient, so I made more than one change. I added in a flax and chia slurry in place of the xanthan gum etc; I used more water; and I used a stand mixer to beat the wetter dough. Oh, and more butter.
Flour Mix:
- 3x Buckwheat
- 1x Soy
- 2x White Rice
- 1x Fine Cornmeal
- 2x Coarse Cornmeal
Starter:
I used the same starter I had previously, now matured well and to the point where it will double after feeding in about 2 hours (at about 75 F)
Bread Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour mix
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 5.5 oz starter
- 2 oz butter
- 1.5 cup water (85 F)
- 15 g chia seeds, 15 g flax seeds, ground and mixed w/ 60 g boiling water and left to cool
Method:
Mix dry ingredients. Rub in butter. Add starter to 1 cup of water and stir to disperse. Add along with flax slurry to dry ingredients and mix for 2.5 minutes in a KitchenAid at second speed. Add enough additional water to make a stiff batter. Set aside to rise in a covered bowl – I used a plastic gastronorm this time in order to have more visibility to the dough during the rise, and placed an elastic band around in order to see the volume shift.
This rose spectacularly – close to doubled in 2-3 hours. However, I left it. After about 6 hours I divided it, managing it with a little flour, and let it rest, whereupon it continued to rise. I heated the dutch oven and carefully transferred the dough for 20 minutes w/ lid on and 20 w/ it off …
Results:
I made big bread-tasting biscuits / cookies! Pictures to follow, but in essence no outer crust formed, and no oven spring occurred. The texture was a loose sponge.
Plus side – flavour was solid, and the ‘crust’ had good colour and flavour. Flax slurry didn’t affect the good taste at all. Starter is mature.
Thoughts: too much water / fat in butter not helping / too long a bulk rise?
Actions: back to 1 cup & a splash, form loaves when at 160% (don’t wait for 200%), remove butter. Yes, multivariate adjustment.
- Crumb: 1/10 (on cooling, more like a crumbly cake, quite moist, pleasant. Not bready.
- Flavour: 9/10
- Crust: 0/10 (no crust!!)
GF Sourdough, Ginger Bug, Butter ‘n All
It occurred to me to try and follow ‘normal’ recipes as much as possible to start with, in order to have a base. The following was loosely based on one in Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes
Flour Mix:
- 3x Buckwheat
- 1x Soy
- 2x White Rice
- 1x Fine Cornmeal
- 2x Coarse Cornmeal
Starter:
- Ginger bug – 1/4 cup water + 2 chunks ginger + 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/4 cup flour mix
- 1/4 cup coarse cornmeal
- 1/4 cup water
Mix to a very stiff consistency. Let sit for 2 days at room temperature. Feed after 2 days with 1/4 cup flour mix + water from ginger bug. Let sit for 18 hours. Should double in size after about 12 hours and be starting to ‘collapse’ at that point.
Bread Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour mix
- 1 tsp xantham gum
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 5.5 oz starter
- c. 1oz butter
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup water + a splash (room temp)
Method:
Mix dry ingredients. Rub in butter. Add starter to water and stir to disperse. Add to dry ingredients and knead briefly. Set aside to rise in a covered bowl.
After 18 hours, shape with care (this could be done ahead of time) and bake as follows:
Heat dutch oven at full (450 For close to it) for 40 minutes (at least). Place dough in lid and body over the top. 20 mins at full and then 20 without the lid.
Results:
- Flavour: excellent (8/10)
- Crust: superb (9/10)
- Crumb: awful (0/10)
Basically, no rise or spring at all. Plan is to try and use flax / chia to get a good risen loaf, then adjust for flavour.
Fermented Gluten-Free Bread 