Bread Matters (35 page)

Day 1

30g Brown rice flour

40g Water (30°C)

70g Total

Mix the flour and water to a paste, cover loosely with a polythene bag and leave in a fairly warm place (around 30°C is ideal). After one day, stir well and refresh as follows:

Day 2

30g Brown rice flour

40g Water (30°C)

70g Starter from Day 1

140g Total

Stir well and cover as before. After one day, refresh again:

Day 3

30g Brown rice flour

40g Water (30°C)

140g Starter from Day 2

210g Total

You should notice some bubbles and the sourdough should have risen up and then fallen back a bit. Add the fresh flour and water, stir well and cover as before. After one more day, refresh again:

Day 4

45g Brown rice flour

50g Water

210g Starter from Day 3

305g Total

After 24 hours you should have a sourdough that smells nicely acidic and shows clear evidence of bubbling (i.e. gas production by the natural yeasts). The ‘creation’ phase is now complete. From now on, use your ‘starter’ to make a ‘production sourdough’ (see below) and then bread in a simple system with the quantities shown.

Rice, Brazil Nut and Linseed Bread

This bread avoids baker’s yeast and gets its interesting texture and high nutritional quality from linseeds (rich in omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids) and brazil nuts (the best natural source of selenium). There is evidence that slow sourdough fermentations make micronutrients more available to the human body than fast, high-yeast ones. So if this bread seems to take an age to rise, it may well be worth waiting for.

Carob bean gum (sometimes called locust bean gum or meal) is a flour produced from the seeds of the honey locust tree
(Ceratonia siliqua).
Like guar gum and acacia gum (also known as gum arabic), it is a natural plant-derived product, which has the ability to absorb many times its own weight in water and to produce a slightly rubbery texture. It is useful in small quantities in some gluten-free recipes since it helps hold otherwise crumbly ingredients together. If you cannot get hold of it, replace its weight with extra egg, or just do without it.

Makes 1 small loaf

Soaked linseeds

The day before making the bread, soak some linseeds as follows. If you forget, do them on the day with hot water.

25g Linseeds

50g Water (cold)

75g Total

Rinse the seeds in fresh water, drain, then add them to the specified amount of water. Cover and leave to soak overnight at ambient temperature. By the morning the seeds will resemble frogspawn.

Production sourdough

Make a ‘production’ sourdough 2-3 hours before making the bread, using warm water.

75g Rice Sourdough Starter (page 316)

70g Brown rice flour

85g Water (35°C)

230g Total

Mix everything together, cover and leave in a warm place (as near to 30°C as you can manage). The sourdough is ready when it has risen appreciably. If it has come up and collapsed on itself, it does not matter, but there is no need to leave it until this has happened before proceeding to make the final dough.

Rice, brazil nut and linseed dough

150g Rice Production Sourdough (from above)

20g Corn (maize) flour

10g Buckwheat flour

75g Brown rice flour

20g Manioc (tapioca) flour

10g Carob bean gum (optional)

10g Cider vinegar

50g Brazil nuts, chopped

50g Egg (1 egg)

5g Sea salt

35g Water (30°C)

75g Soaked Linseeds (from above)

510g Total

Sunflower or olive oil for brushing

Mix all the ingredients together into a very soft dough (not quite as wet as the dough for Yeasted Gluten-Free Bread, above). Using wet hands, pick up all the dough in one piece and smooth it as if you were a potter turning a bowl on the wheel. Shape it into a loaf and drop into a greased or non-stick small loaf tin. The mixture should come about two-thirds of the way up the sides of the tin. Cover and prove in a warm place. It may take up to 5 hours, depending on the vigour of the sourdough and the temperature of the kitchen.

When the loaf is fully proved, brush the top very carefully with sunflower or olive oil. This will give an attractive brown finish to the loaf.

Bake in a fairly hot oven (210°C) for about 30 minutes. The loaf is done when it begins to shrink away from the sides of the tin. If you have doubts, insert a skewer into the middle. If it comes out clean, the loaf is ready.

Maintaining your rice starter

Rice sours can be quite volatile – as seen in the ease with which they begin fermenting. If you leave them out at ambient temperature there is some risk that extraneous moulds may form, so the following rules should be observed when keeping a rice sour between uses:

Keeping the starter for 0-1 day

Store at room temperature.

Keeping the starter for 1-15 days

Store in the fridge at 5°C – optional intermediate refreshment before use.

Keeping the starter for over 15 days

Store in the freezer—intermediate refreshment before and after freezing.

Potato and Quinoa Bread

This is another naturally fermented bread made without baker’s yeast. It has a smoother texture than the Rice, Brazil Nut and Linseed Bread and uses quinoa, soya and buckwheat flours to boost nutritional quality.

Make a ‘production’ sourdough 2-3 hours before making the bread, using warm water. The small quantity of chestnut flour adds a nutty flavour but is not essential. If you do not use it, add 15g rice flour.

Makes 1 small loaf

Production sourdough

50g Rice Sourdough Starter (page 316)

30g Brown rice flour

15g Chestnut flour

60g Water (35°C)

155g Total

Mix everything together, cover and leave in a warm place (as near to 30°C as you can manage). The sourdough is ready when it has risen appreciably. If it has come up and collapsed on itself, it does not matter, but there is no need to leave it until this has happened before proceeding to make the final dough.

Potato and quinoa dough

150g Production Sourdough (from above)

50g Potato flour

15g Buckwheat flour

50g Quinoa flour

100g Corn (maize) flour

15g Soya flour

10g Olive oil

5g Sea salt

105g Water (30°C)

500g Total

Mix all the ingredients together into a very soft dough, which can be virtually poured into a greased or non-stick tin, filling it about half full. Cover and prove in a warm place. Proof will take up to 5 hours, depending on the vigour of the sourdough and the temperature of the kitchen. The dough should rise to near the top of the tin (if you filled it half full). Just before baking, dust the surface of the dough with rice or buckwheat flour; this helps prevent the formation of an unsightly whitish crust.

Bake in a fairly hot oven (210°C) for about 30 minutes. The loaf is done when it begins to shrink away from the sides of the tin.

A wet dough like this will produce a very open, chewy crumb. Don’t expect it to keep soft and rubbery for long, though. If you want to keep it for more than a day or two, it would be best to slice it and freeze it.

Pizza Bases

A bit of lateral thinking is required to produce a dough that will be thin enough for a pizza base and yet not fall to bits as it is being handled.

This recipe can be adapted to make pancakes or wraps to be used for filling and eating cold. For a sweet pancake, add some honey or maple syrup. The trick is to get the right sloppy consistency so that the mixture flows out thinly enough in the frying-pan.

Makes 2 medium pizza bases

5g Fresh yeast

250g Water (30°C)

140g Corn (maize) flour

20g Buckwheat flour

50g Brown rice flour

40g Manioc (tapioca) flour

20g Chestnut flour

5g Sea salt

530g Total

Olive oil for brushing

Toppings of your choice, e.g. tomato paste, tomatoes, peppers, anchovies, olives, herbs, mozzarella or similar cheese

Dissolve the yeast in the water and add to the other ingredients. The dough should be very sloppy, like a batter. Leave to stand for 15-30 minutes to allow the yeast to work.

Heat a girdle or frying-pan, brushing with a smear of olive oil if the surface is not non-stick, and ladle in a good dollop of mixture with a swirling action to make a thin, reasonably circular layer of batter. Cook over a high heat for about 3 minutes, then flip over and cook for another minute. The ‘pancake’ should be cooked but still quite soft and floppy. If your mixture was too thick, your pizza base will be also.

Turn the pizza base out on to a baking sheet and cook the remaining mixture in the same way. Cover the pizzas with the usual toppings. Bake in a hot oven (220°C) or under a grill for 5-7 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling.

Gluten-free Pastry

The great thing about gluten-free pastry is that there is no gluten to toughen the dough if you overwork it. This means that you can recycle the scraps to your heart’s content without the fear that the last tarts or pasties will have the texture of boot leather. However, without any gluten, there is an opposite danger – that the pastry will be so ‘short’ that it crumbles into dust when baked. That is why this recipe contains a certain amount of gram (chickpea) flour: its high protein content mimics some of the action of gluten (which is also, of course, a protein mix) in wheat pastry.

The base mixture can be turned into sweet or savoury pastry.

Basic pastry mix

60g Chestnut flour

60g Gram (chickpea) flour

200g Manioc (tapioca) flour

40g Rice flour (brown or white)

130g Butter

490g Total

Savoury pastry

490g Basic Pastry Mix (above)

3g Sea salt

90g Water (cold)

583g Total

Sweet pastry

490g Basic Pastry Mix (above)

90g Light brown sugar

70g Water (cold)

650g Total

Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips. Dissolve the salt or sugar in the water and add to the mixture. Work to a pliable dough.

Roll out and use as for ordinary pastry. It helps to store the pastry in the fridge for an hour or so before using it, but if it gets too cold it will become brittle and crumbly.

Basic Gluten-free Cake

Cake making is probably one of the easier areas of gluten-free baking. As with pastry, the absence of gluten is an advantage when trying to create a melt-in-the-mouth texture. However, there is a grittiness in some gluten-free flours that can produce a rather harsh cake crumb. The following is a basic Madeira-type mixture, which produces a cake that few people can detect as being made with gluten-free ingredients. Ground almonds are expensive but they really transform a sponge and give it a remarkably moist crumb and good keeping qualities.

Makes 2 small cakes

90g Sunflower oil

200g Raw cane sugar

180g Egg (4 medium)

5g Gluten-free baking powder

2g Sea salt (optional)

35g Manioc (tapioca) flour

40g Rice flour

15g Gram (chickpea) flour

15g Buckwheat flour

90g Ground almonds

672g Total

Beat the oil with the sugar and then add the eggs. Mix until frothy. Stir the baking powder and salt (if using) into the flours and ground almonds, then add to the liquid mix. Mix thoroughly. The batter will be very sloppy and pourable.

Prepare two 12.5cm diameter cake tins, or small loaf tins or paper cases, either by lining them with baking parchment or by greasing and flouring them. Deposit half the batter in each tin or case. (The mixture can also be used for fairy cakes or in American muffin tins or cases. Aim to fill whatever case you are using just over half full.)

Bake in a moderate oven (170°C) for about 30 minutes. Insert a skewer to check that the cakes are done; if it comes out clean, all is well.

Ginger Cake

This is an example of a simple adaptation of the Basic Gluten-free Cake mix given above. Other additions could involve lemon or orange zest, dried fruits, honey (to replace some or all of the sugar) and/or nuts. Just take care not to overload the sponge with extra ingredients, otherwise it may collapse into a rather dense and soggy mixture.

672g Gluten-free Cake Mix (from above)

5g Ground ginger

70g Crystallised stem ginger, finely chopped

747g Total

Stir the ground ginger into the flours before they are added to the liquid mixture. Toss the stem ginger in a little rice flour until it is coated, then fold it gently into the batter at the end of mixing.

Bake in the same way as the basic cake.

Luxury Chocolate Cake

For a long time chocolate almond cake was the only gluten-free product we sold at the bakery. It was never promoted as gluten-free and it was only when people began to ask whether we made anything suitable for coeliacs that we realised this was all we could offer them. But even though it was a completely indulgent product (and one that you wouldn’t want to eat every day), it set the standard for all our later gluten-free baking: it was delicious in its own right and no one noticed that it was made without gluten.

Use the best-quality, highest cocoa-solids chocolate you can find or afford. Green & Black’s Maya Gold (which carries the Fairtrade mark) would add a subtle hint of orange.

Makes 1 large or 2 small cakes