But this year, whilst in America, we visited the Culinary Institute of America, and I noticed that one of the prominent bakers in that Institute had written a book on Gluten Free Baking – ‘Gluten Free Baking by Richard J Coppedge Jr. Published by Adams Media, USA’ - Fig 1.
Fig 1 - definitive work on gluten free baking by Richard J Coppedge Jr.
For some reason, this got me all excited, so I bought the book, and when I returned home, made up all the ‘flour mixtures’ and started baking. I found that all the breads rose quite well if you followed the instructions in the book, but to me, a gluten or normal eating person, the recipes didn’t taste 'normal'. I felt that the taste would be completely different from the tastes of normal bread, but there must be some way of baking gluten free bread that has a ‘similar’ taste to the normal breads.
So I got ‘looking on the internet’ – an enormous amount has been written on gluten free diets – and got 'experimenting', and I came up with a bread that is not too dissimilar to one that was published already – and what is more – the taste of that bread is not too dissimilar to the taste of normal bread. The bread dough doesn’t rise excessively but it tastes delightful.
So here is my version of multigrain bread, which is quite easy to make as long as you have the necessary ingredients – keeping in mind that some of the ingredients are a little more expensive than normal.
GLUTEN-FREE MULTIGRAIN BREAD
Ingredients:
Step 1
80 gm brown rice flour
80 gm sorghum flour
40 gm amaranth flour
40 gm tapioca starch
40 gm cornstarch starch
50 gm Chia seeds
3 teaspoons xanthan gum
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
Step 2
2 eggs
2 additional egg whites
1 ¼ cup water at room temperature
40 gm vegetable oil
40 gm honey
10 gm apple cider vinegar
Preparation:
Step 1
Sift the flours, yeast and all other dry ingredients together into a medium bowl. Stir in chia seeds and combine.
Step 2
Combine the wet ingredients in a separate large bowl using a hand-mixer on low speed. When fully combined, slowly add dry ingredient mixture and mix until fully blended, with no lumps.
Step 3
Grease a 23 cm x 12 cm bread tin thoroughly (otherwise the finished bread WILL stick!), and pour the dough into the pan, and cover it with glad wrap. Turn on the oven to 45°C and immediately place the pan in it. Allow the dough to rise for 90 minutes. It should rise to near the top of the pan.
Increase heat to 180°C and bake for approximately 40 minutes. The crust should be golden-brown. Allow to cool slightly before removing it from the pan to finish cooling. Do not slice until the bread is no longer hot. It tastes really nicely! Fig 2 - a cut slice of the multigrain bread.
Fig 2 - grainy nature of the gluten free bread
Just to give you an indication of the ‘price’ of the various items in Australian dollars:
brown rice flour - $4.95 for 500 gm
sorghum flour - $8.50 for 623 gm
amaranth flour - $12.95 for 623 gm
tapioca starch - $2.10 for 410 gm
xanthan gum - $5.65 for 100 gm
so that all the ingredients for 1 loaf of bread come to approximately $6.50; normally, a loaf of bread ranges between $3.00 and $5.00.
I also wanted to make a pastry dough that stayed upright, intact and tasted quite reasonably. On the previous times that 'd attempted to do so - I ended up in a terrible mess, with the 'dough' not standing up at all! This I found in the Gluten Free Baking book that I previously mentioned – it tasted very nice but very different, but there are quite a number flour blends to make up before you start.
FLOUR BLEND NUMBER 1
INGREDIENT/ VOLUME/ WEIGHT
White rice flour/ 1 3/4 cup/ 295 gms
Potato starch 2 cups 225 gms
Tapioca starch/ 1 ½ cups/225 gms
FLOUR BLEND NUMBER 2
INGREDIENT/ VOLUME/ WEIGHT
White rice flour/1 ¾ cup/315 gms
Brown rice flour/1 ¼ cup/220 gms
Potato starch/¾ cup/90 gms
Tapioca starch/1 cup/125 gms
FLOUR BLEND NUMBER 4
INGREDIENT/ VOLUME/ WEIGHT
White rice flour/1 ½ cups/250 gms
Tapioca starch/1 ¾ cups/250 gms
Soy flour/2 ¼ cups/250 gms
FLOUR BLEND NUMBER 5
INGREDIENT/ VOLUME/ WEIGHT
White rice flour/1 ¾ cups/280 gms
Tapioca starch/1 ¼ cups/185 gms
Soy flour/1 ¾ cups/185 gms
Whey powder/½ cup/90 gms
3-2-1 PIE DOUGH
INGREDIENT/ VOLUME/ WEIGHT
BUTTER - COLD/12 Tablespoons/185 gms
FLOUR BLEND 2/2/3 cup/135 gms
FLOUR BLEND 4/¾ cup/125 gms
FLOUR BLEND 5/2/3 cup/125 gms
WATER - COLD/2/3 cup/165 gms
Fig 3 - 3-2-1 pie dough in 23 cm tart pan, already baked
BLUEBERRY STREUSEL TART (GLUTEN FREE) - one 23 cm pie
Ingredients:
Step 1 - Streusel topping
165 gm flour blend 1
¼ teaspoon baking soda
60 gm butter – cold
75 gm walnuts or pecans
115 gm brown sugar
Step 2
185 gm sugar
45 gm flour blend 1
1/4 teaspoon salt
600 gm Blueberries - fresh or frozen
1 x 3-2-1 pie dough – par baked
30 gm butter
Preparation:
Step 1 - Streusel topping
Rub together the flour blend, baking soda, butter and brown sugar until crumbly and then mix in the nuts – you can use the Kitchenaid.
Step 2
Whisk together sugar, flour blend number 1, and salt. Toss together with the blueberries - Fig 4,
Fig 4 - blueberries mixed with the other ingredients except the butter
and immediately place in the par baked pie shell - Fig 5.
Fig 5 - the blueberry mixture placed in the pie shell
Top with the butter - Fig 6
Fig 6 - the butter placed on top of the blueberry mixture
and then the streusel topping - Fig 7.
Fig 7 - the streusel topping
Step 3
Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake at 200°C for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the crust and streusel are golden brown and the filling is bubbling - Fig 8.
Fig 8 - the completed pie with some blueberry mixture coming 'through' the streusel topping
Thank you to Richard J Coppedge of 'Gluten Free Baking' for the above flour blends and the recipe for this tart.
So being a 'non gluten free' person and an ameteur baker - I feel quite proud of myself that I've come this far!!
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