Talking to bread

After two weeks, I was heartily sick of eating fluffy gluten free bread. Since my first attempts at sour dough I have been an addict at breakfast time especially. As I was unable to find a recipe for gluten free sour dough anywhere so my first attempt was unaided. I was really pleased with the results so I will share them with you.

You will need to make/borrow/beg a sour dough starter. I used my rye starter which I had removed from the fridge and 'fed' the day before starting.

Bread making is an art rather than a science, so don't worry too much about times or weights and measures. The process of sourdough cannot be hurried. It will however, proceed quite happily without much intervention on your part. It is easiest to start 24 hours before you want to bake. I begin the 'sponge' after dinner, knead the bread after breakfast then bake while cooking dinner the next day.

Don't be put off by the length of this recipe, I have tried to explain the processes for bread beginners. If you have made bread before, you can skip a lot of it.

You will need:

2 C room temperature water

1 C of 'refreshed' sour dough starter 

3 C plus 2 C gluten free plain flour 

75g ground linseed

½ C sunflower seed

1 ½ tsp salt

0 hour: Making the sponge (nothing to do with cake)

Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl.

Add 3C of flour and all other ingredients except the salt in a large mixing bowl.

Mix to a thick batter.

Place in a plastic bag and cover with a cloth. Do not seal the bag, you need to let the dough breathe but you don't want a crust forming. Sit in a draught free place.

8-12 hours: Kneading and shaping.

The batter will have risen slightly in the centre and have a sponge like appearance when the surface is disturbed. This means that the natural yeasts and bacteria in the sourdough have been activated and are producing bubbles of carbon dioxide.

Oil a loaf tin.

Stir the salt into the sponge. This is important to stop the work of the bacteria that inhibit the natural yeasts that aerate the dough.

Sprinkle some of the remaining 2 C of flour onto your bench and scrape the sponge onto it.

Flour your hands and begin to work the extra flour into the dough by pulling a little dough from the edge that sits at 12 on the clock with your fingers and pushing it back into the centre firmly with the heel of your hand.

Swivel the dough ¼ turn and repeat, adding extra flour to the bench as you need to until it it possible to form it into a loaf shape. Continue until the flour is used up. You can add a little more if you need to as all flours vary in moisture content.

The dough will remain heavy and sticky but should be dry enough that your hand doesn't stick to it. The texture is not crucial, gluten free dough's are always 'wetter' than those made with high gluten flour

At this stage, bread dough's are tested by pushing a finger into the dough to form an indent. If it springs back, the gluten has been activated and you can stop kneading. I tried this with the gluten free loaf and after a lot of kneading it did spring back slightly.

Shape into a rough loaf, place in the oiled tin and press dough down to an even thickness.

Return the tin to your plastic bag and cover again. Leave to rise (or proof.)

12-24  hours: Baking

Preheat you oven to 200˚.

Your loaf should have now doubled in size. If it hasn't, leave it a little longer.

Bake for 35 - 40 minutes or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it.

Cool on a rack, covered by a cloth.

Sourdough keeps really well without refrigeration. It is better toasted if you keep it in the refrigerator or freezer. If you want to eat it fresh, keep it in a cool place.

If you have made bread before you will find this dough is very different from bread with gluten. The results were very pleasing - even bubbles, a firm texture, not soggy and slicing well with a lovely sour dough aroma and it is still looking good after 6 days! Don't be discouraged if your first result is not perfect. Remember that the dough is a living being. It needs food, water, warmth, moisture and care, to rest undisturbed and responds to being talked to.

Enjoy!

Magic happens slowly

I have been making bread all week. Not lots and lots of bread, just one loaf. You see, I love food that talks to me, that responds, that carries some magic. Think ginger beer plants, elder fizz, kefir yoghurt and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Many years ago I shared a restaurant kitchen with an eccentric psychologist who made bread because he liked to. I would go in at 6am to bake cakes and begin breakfast and he would be there, before work, with his hubble bubble pot of starter, making the most delicious rye sour dough which he would return to bake at lunch time. During the summer, the starter would sometimes erupt out of its jar and glup its way down the shelves in the pantry. Late at night, when everything was quiet, it would quietly grumble away, keeping me company in the empty building.
Bakers keep their starters as guarded secrets between the chosen few. Sour dough is a bit of a mystery, more magic than science. Definitely time for me to try…
Five days ago I began: carefully measuring accurate quantities of unbleached white flour, whole meal and boiled rainwater cooled to 40 degrees centigrade. Each day the process was repeated, I’m not going to tell you the exact amounts because then I would have to kill you…
The optimum temperature to activate the starter was 28 degrees centigrade. Ha! (This recommended by an English cook - bet she had great central heating.) Of course, on day 2, winter returned and the temperature in the house hoveried around 14! After a couple of days, a couple of fires, the starter was beginning to show a few bubbles and beginning to smell a bit fruity…all good.
Today was baking day. Before breakfast I made the production leaven (I don’t remember this bit from before.) This needed to sit for 4 hours before making the bread. Okay, weigh and mix, go for a walk and come back to it. I have made a lot of bread over the years and I’m not convinced this is right, it looks dry and crumbly. I bravely added some more water and went off to have lunch.
Now the directions said add more water and more flour with a little salt. I add all white flour as I have concerns about the rye having not enough gluten. Suddenly I have something that looks like a lump of zebra. Knead, knead and knead again and its back to looking like bread dough. The extra water has softened it up and I am happier now that it pops up when I press it.
It’s off to its (don’t forget to oil it) tin to rise till double now. The recipe warns it could be five hours. Magic does happen, it just happens rather slowly. Now I have to figure out what happens to the rest of the starter and the lump of leaven in the fridge. The recipe doesn’t tell you, I’m sure she thinks you would have given up and thrown it in the chook bucket by now. The author said the recipe came from a friend of hers (!) I must remember that excuse next time someone complains one of my recipes didn’t turn out great.
In all this fun, I quite forgot that today was the day I try and discipline myself to write the blog. I asked Amita over lunch, what do you think I should write about this week? The bush fire? Drive out and take ghastly photos of devastated bush and moan about the lack of support for the local fire brigade volunteers? I looked over the benches, flour, dough, leftover starter and baking tins. No, I’ve got a better idea.
It could be a long night; I’ll let you know tomorrow how it turns out!
nirala