Gluten-free Gourmand

  Thanksgiving is coming around soon and in the United States, that means a big meal full of starchy goodness is in the works. I've been working on enriched breads quite a bit this year so I thought I'd finally hone in on a good dinner roll to impress the 10+ gluten eaters I've invited over for Thanksgiving dinner this year.  If I'm going to make an entirely GF dinner, I strive to make it so no one is missing their traditional food cravings. These dinner rolls are very soft, fluffy and light but also buttery and rich.  They can be served while still warm from the oven. Gluten-free Dinner Rolls Mix time: 20 min Rest time: 20 minutes Second mix: 5 minutes Second rest: 10 minutes Rise time: 30-50 minutes Bake time: 20-30 minutes Total time: 1 hour 45 minutes - 2 hours 15 minutes Mix in the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment:  225g flour comprised of:     100g tapioca starch     50g glutinous rice flour (I use Erawan brand)   ...

I've been baking since before I met my husband ten years ago.  He eats gluten but appreciates my baking efforts and gives me feedback on texture compared to gluten products, which he consumes regularly on his lunch break at work in the form of sandwiches.  I'm a photographer too but he graces the wall of his office with blown-up cell phone shots of half-eaten sandwiches and burritos from his favorite shops.  He likes my baked goods, sure, but who can blame him for going for gluten? This last few weeks as I was testing this recipe, however, something shifted.  I finally heard these words: "you can make me this every weekend for the rest of my life."   I know my husband likes a bread I made when he immediately plans what sandwich to make from it.  Well, he's done that for every test loaf I've made for this bread.  A few days ago, in fact, he ate a breakfast sandwich with this bread, got catered burgers for lunch at work, then came home and requested a st...

It's one of the first things you learn when you start trying to bake gluten-free: use a blend of different flours.  No single flour can work.  Especially for bread. I based all my baking on this principle for years.  More like 1.5 decades.  Then this year, for the very first time, I asked myself: why?  And to single flours: why not?  Thus were born many, many little baby loaves of single flour gf bread. No surprise that it didn't work for everything.  Glutinous rice flour? No way. The surprise was that it did work for almost  everything. 100% Cassava flour.   100% Oat flour. 100% White rice flour.   100% Brown rice flour. 100% Buckwheat flour. Then, the other surprise that shouldn't have been a surprise.  My favored grains were the best of the bunch. 100% Teff flour (this one is sourdough, the rest are yeasted). 100% Sorghum flour.   100% Millet flour. There is a method to my madness.  This whole experiment was made possi...

This recipe was made to evoke the dark, earthy flavors of rye bread, but without the gluten.    This flour blend was developed specifically for this recipe.  Here’s what each flour brings to the table. Brown teff - dark in color and complex in flavor, teff also gives bread a spongy and springy texture and helps with structure due to its high amount of protein and fiber. Ivory teff is a direct substitute for brown teff. Dark Buckwheat - this buckwheat is ground from the unhulled buckwheat groat.  It’s very high in fiber and protein.  It adds structure but it’s also very dense.  It adds a good whole-grain texture to the blend as well as darkening the color considerably. The flavor is intense and a little bitter. It balances out the sponginess of the teff by being a little dry when baked. If you would like to substitute with light buckwheat, my guess is that you'd have to reduce the total water by about 20g. Sorghum - this is a widely available gra...

The traditional way to create a starter can take a few weeks to a month to have a usable culture. A science-minded professional baker, Ian Lowe of Apiece Bakery, has figured out a way to accelerate the process to have a viable and very beautiful tasting culture in just 3-7 days. Using heat and hydration it’s possible to speed up the fermentation to get through the “bad bacteria” phase in just 48 hours, leaving you a usable culture on the third day with some luck. I created my starter on a Tuesday and I baked with it on that Friday with great results. I first came across this method in a post on The Fresh Loaf by the contributor Ars Pistorica, AKA Ian Lowe. I’ve been using this method ever since I first read about it in 2013. He used whole wheat and/or rye, but says the method can be used with "any cereal, pseudo-cereal, or tuber flours." It’s not the only way to accelerate the first stages of creating a starter, but this is how I’ve adapted this method to various gluten...

This is a very traditional sourdough bread recipe, using artisan methods to create a nice, tangy, San Francisco-style sourdough bread.  If you like a really sour-but-smooth sourdough bread, this is the recipe for you. There are just a few differences between this recipe and a standard wheat-based recipe.  The most notable difference, of course, is the psyllium husk, which is a gluten substitute.  Read more about psyllium and other binders here .  Then of course there's the flour.  I use my own Bread Flour Blend for bread baking, but if you live outside the U.S. read my post  Make Your Own Gluten-free Bread Flour .  If you use your own flour blend, you may have to adjust the amount of water and psyllium you use. Why sourdough?  It's incredibly delicious, for one thing.  The natural process of fermenting the bread through the sourdough process makes it really good for you, too.  Then there's the fact that sourdough bread stays ...

Breads are considered the stuff of life in many cultures.  Those of us who are gluten-free in a gluten-loving country can fee left out of the main event of our culinary heritage.  Knowing something about the history of bread has helped me keep gluten in perspective. When did people start making bread?  The most ancient and the simplest method of making bread does not use fermentation.  This is the method that's still used to make tortillas: a simple mixture of flour and water, patted into a flat circle and grilled on both sides until done.  People have been using this process for making flatbreads since time immemorial. People figured out how to ferment the water-and-flour mixture as long as 20,000 years ago in Africa.  The invention of cultured doughs made injera and other types of sourdough pancakes possible.  The grains used for these yeasted flatbreads are mainly teff and sorghum.

Update: See my updated version of this recipe:  https://glutenfreegourmand.blogspot.com/2021/10/sourdough-starter-ready-to-use-in-3-7.html When I was a kid, my dad loved to make the family sourdough bread on the weekends.  I loved watching him feed the starter, knead the dough, and put a raw lump into the oven to see a golden half-globe of bread emerge later.  We could get really good fresh San Francisco sourdough bread in the store, but that had nothing on my dad's bread.  It was one of my favorite foods. I like my sourdough really sour in the San Francisco and pioneer traditions.  My dad's sourdough was from an old country recipe that was handed down from a farmer neighbors, the Lists. Old List Family Sourdough  Bread Recipe I decided to track down the recipe and re-create it, gluten-free.  When I get an idea in my head to re-create a recipe I loved as a gluten eater, I'm like a dog with a bone.  I just work on it tenaciously until the ...

Definition Sourdough is not a description of a type or a flavor of bread - it's a process.  Sourdough is an ancient method for making bread that uses a starter of natural yeasts and bacterias found on the grain itself.  These microorganisms are cultured by the bread maker to have a healthy balance of flavor and the power to let the loaf rise. Bread History in a Glimpse It used to be that sourdough bread was just called bread.   Commercial yeast has only been available for the last 100 years.  Before that, leavened bread was made using either the sourdough method or in a similar process that used the yeast left over from fermenting alcoholic beverages. The sourdough process has been used for 10,000-20,000 years.  When you think of that length of human history, and then compare it to the last 100 years of bread making, that puts the tradition of sourdough bread in perspective. Process Making sourdough bread is more like growing a garden than ex...

I know that I've got a good bread recipe if, after first tasting a loaf, my boyfriend immediately plans on making a sandwich out of it.  If the bread is just okay, I get an unconvincingly encouraging "That's good!"  If it's great, I get, "We could cook some bacon and make a BLT with melted cheese!"  Then, even if it's 11:00 at night after a heavy meal, he will make that sandwich. I got all kinds of compliments on my baguettes for Christmas dinner, from people who ate gluten and from those who were gluten-free.  It was an amazing and filling meal, and yet my boyfriend made little turkey sandwiches afterward with baguette slices and turkey bits.  That says it all. I made a quick version of this recipe which works great for a tight schedule.  This recipe is more traditional, with two rises of the dough.  That slow process improves the flavor and the browning of the crust for a more traditional artisan look and taste to your bread. T...