Gluten free bread and Expandex, a whole new ball of wax,

I continue to sing the praises of Expandex, it's the best stuff ever. I know I have complained about GF bread a number of times. Frankly, it's horrible for the most part. A lot of it tastes like cardboard and for the caloric load you'd probably get a better sandwich if you cut up a cereal box and put mayo on it.

I have tried every brand out there. The real issue is that GF bread dries out really fast and is only good for a day or two, three if you're going to make French toast or grilled cheese, or perhaps a Reuben. The best brand I have found, might not be the best brand for you, because it's local and it usually can be bought fresh, or at least not frozen. Freezing bread doesn't help it stay moist, it only puts off the mold a bit.

My biggest gripe honestly is the price I have to pay for a loaf of bread. They are small, they are stale and they are EXPENSIVE. $7+ a loaf $10+ from a bakery, and really what are you going to do? Have you seen the online pictures of homemade GF bread. Barf-o-rama. Small shrunken dense loafs of grit. Blah.

I haven't been making a lot of bread lately, even though I have discovered Expandex, because the sandwich rounds were working out fine. Today I made a loaf of bread. I turned it out, let it cool and then made a sandwich. Grilled cheese is back. I think it's the best GF bread I've had so far, and it's not like I've been sitting around not looking. I don't know how it will stand the test of time, I assume it will be fine tomorrow and a little stale on day three or four.

Previously, I claimed that you don't need a whole lot of Expandex, and that's true, but the more you use, the better your results. I guess it really has to do with what you're trying to do. I think that the more volume and puffyness you want the more expandex you need. I made cupcakes and took them to an event where people were munching away, commenting on how good they were. It came out that I use an all natural maple extract to make the cupcakes and they were like where do you get that? I told them where, and the website is a specialty flour company that I like a lot. Then one girl was like "so you use King Arthur flour" and I had to tell her that no, my cupcakes are gluten free. I don't normally say anything because if I do say something everyone gets their panties in a bunch and starts to think they're not any good, EVEN THOUGH they were just munching and commenting on the AMAZING cupcakes I made, thirty seconds ago. It's in your head. Gluten is the enemy of cake. Cake flour is so low in gluten that it's virtually gluten free. Good cake flour is 5-7% protein (gluten is protein), and in comparison bread flour is about 13%, just to put that in perspective for you. To help a little more a cup of wheat flour has about 13 grams of protein in it, and cup of rice flour has about 9 grams. It's not that there's a big protein difference, it's kind of about the type, and when you make cake, less is more. You also know, I'm sure of the care you have to take when making a cake not to over mix it, as you create gluten when you stir your batter and glutenous batter = rubbery cake.

I've gotten off onto a tangent, the point is that cakes and cookies and things like that are so easy to make GF it's silly so tell people as they will eat your baked goods and not know that they are wheatless. Wait, unless you go putting horrible things in them. I mean, sorghum, soy flour, brown rice (wtf, when did cookies need to be healthy?), some people put garbanzo bean flour in THEIR COOKIES! No,no, no, bad cook! You will use only white, ultra fine rice powder. No potato starch, just a little Expandex, tapioca starch, only use butter flavored Crisco, you can figure it out if you do that.

Bread is another ball of wax, it's not the same at all. Bread needs gluten and quite a lot of it. Expandex has leveled the playing field a bit. As you know I use a gluten substitute that you can purchase in stores and online, and if you haven't yet, you should because it's better than using gums because it has other things that commercial bakers are using and that make their breads a little better.

Before we begin, lets talk about bread pans. A lot of people like pan de mie pans. They are usually really long though, and that means they won't work as well. You need a smallish, tall sided pan. I have one specific for gluten free bread. Now, I'm not all into having a special pan for this, and a specific tool for that, but as I continue to bake more and more gluten free things I find that specialty pans work much better. So I have the special bread pan for baking gluten free loaves (thanks Mom!), I have a special pan for French bread, I have special cake pans and I'm thinking of getting a muffin top pan or a special pan for hamburger buns, because you just need the special pans. The point is, stop whining, suck it up and purchase a good pan.

Expandex Gluten Free Bread

Ingredients:

1 C. Expandex
1 C. GF flour blend (make your own, or whatever)
1 C. Sorghum flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbs instant yeast
3 Tbs powdered buttermilk
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp. Kosher salt
2.5 oz Organ Gluten Free Gluten
1/3 C. Shortening
1 egg
1-2 C. warm water

Method:

In a stand mixer place all dry ingredients and turn on mixer to stir and add shortening. Let mix until it resembles cornmeal. Whip the egg and 1/2 C water together and add to the mixer. Slowly increase speed and add water to make a thick batter. The batter needs to be beat til very smooth and homogenous.

Grease up a bread pan. Put a quart of water (I use a quart jar) into the oven and turn it on for a couple minutes. Then turn off the oven and put your hand in it to make sure it's not too warm. Place the bread in the oven and let rise for about 30-40 minutes. When your bread is about doubled take the water out of the oven, LEAVE THE BREAD IN THE OVEN, and turn the oven on to 350 degrees and cook till it reaches an internal temperature of 200 degrees. It will take about an hour.

Cool on a rack or towel for about an hour, slice, butter, jam? maybe honey, serve.

Yes, I admit, I use a thermometer because the bread is so stupid expensive (yet still cheaper than purchasing it) to make and dries out if you over cook it at all.
If you need to turn the oven on a little while rising

Even better than before!

I just made a new batch of my GF pumpkin muffins, and they are so good I realized I had done a disservice to you all by posting my previous recipe. I'm so amazed at the goodness created by the new flours I'm incorporating it's really hard to believe that I waited so long to expand my horizons.

When I started out GF it was very intimidating. There are so many flours out there that the lists go on, and on. I decided I would only start with a few alternative flours and learn those first, and the nature of non-wheat flours. I used rice, tapioca, potato starch, and a little oat, I also tried a bean flour mix. I worked on the rice mixtures and tried all sorts ways to recreate the protein structure of gluten. I tried eggs, gelatin (btw, that does NOT work), xanthan gum, guar gum, no gums, lots of gums, medium amounts of gums, all the gums, and I have settled on two options. I have some guar gum in my pantry, I will use it if I need to. Now I use Gluten Free Gluten, and that works really well. I also have xanthan gum and use that quite a bit. The thing about the GFG is that it has some of the gums you would normally use in it, it also has a few that are only available to commercial bakers. Perfectly measured out, you use 1 part of the GFG to 5 parts whatever flour mixture you use. I don't use it in quick breads, it's only intended for yeast breads, where you would have a higher gluten content.

Having been baking a lot this last two months, attempting to recreate bread for a sandwich (not easy to do), I am starting to branch out. I pulled out my mill today and milled up some quinoa. I have some milled oat flour and some teff on the way. I did this mostly because rice flour has a lot of calories in it. 550 calories a cup? Wheat flour only has around 400 a cup. WW says rice flour has 15-17 points in a cup of rice flour, wheat flour has 12 points in it. It's a big difference when you're really counting calories.

Let's talk about GF bread for a minute. I'm sure it would make great stuffing, because it's all so dry! Many of them taste fine, but they tend to be small, already stale, and expensive. I bought a local commercial loaf, thinking it would be great, however the slices are so tiny and thin it makes me wonder how they're packing 80 calories into a slice! Also when I toast them they turn into hard chunks of mouth ripping cardboard.

Tomorrow I'm making french toast.

I did find a local gluten free bakery, and I've had some items from them that are really quite good. I liked them so much I bought a cookbook written by the owner. I then went and bought a loaf of bread from the bakery. The woman loves bean flour. Garbanzo bean flour in this, garbanzo bean flour in that, making cookies? Add garbanzo beans why not? Can you make your baked goods more dense? You want to know why the cakes are so heavy and a loaf of bread from this place weighs two pounds, yet is the size of a bloated softball? Garbanzo bean flour is super heavy, and doesn't rise very well. I'm not saying her bread is bad. It's quite good, but not really what I'm looking for. It is tasty, but I'm not sure it's the best for sandwiches unless you slice your slices 1/4 pound thick. I am not a fan of her cake. It has garbanzo bean flour in it. Cake SHOULD NOT BE DENSE! The densest cupcakes known to man.

It also makes me think: she says she focuses on whole grains, but mostly she just uses garbanzo bean flour. Where's the variety? I have noticed that once chefs find a method that works for them, they stick to it. In cookbooks, they tend to have one basic blend, and that's what they use for everything. It's usually a rice blend, augmented with teff, sorgum or garbanzo bean flours.

I'm not sure where I'm going, but I don't want to have a 'generic' mix, and would rather use the freshly ground grains I have from my recent millings, so they stay fresh and use what is available rather than a standard mix.

Where is all this going? I removed a cup of rice flour from my pumpkin muffins and added to it 1/2 C quinoa flour and 1/2 C oat flour. I also ground my own rice flour, it took some time and I had to put it through the mill a few times. I thought they might turn out too grainy or gritty, but no! The mill worked really well for the rice, it ground up very fine and very little remained after sifting. Quinoa also mills into a nice fine flour on the finest setting. I have a heavy duty professional grade KitchenAid stand mixer, so I'm able to use the mill attatchment with that. I don't think you should use a mill if you have a smaller stand mixer, just buy a quality free standing mill.

Every time I make baked goods, I must try them. Especially muffins, or little items, I'm so curious to find out if it turned out good. I made up the new muffins and ate one (I had the WWPP for it, so no problem), so good. So much, much better than before! The nuttyness of the oat and quinoa together was very mild, but went so well with the pumpkin. I'm so happy with the new results that I plan on taking them to a ladies afternoon event with me.

Spurred on by my success I started working on my sandwich bread. I'm so close. The last loaf I made was almost as good as the wheat infested stuff. It just had a little too much egg in it. Also the book I'm adapting the recipe from, the lady likes to 'spread' her dough, and the loafs never look nice if you do this, so I have my own method. It came to me on my way to work. It's worked very well. You can spread if you want, but your bread will not look nice and round and it probably won't rise up as good.

Now I know I just got done saying not to have a 'generic mix' but I do have a basic mix that I keep around to help make baking easier and faster. This is for when I want to make up some rolls or pizza dough at night and I am tired. I just don't use it all the time.

Basic Gluten Free Gluten Rice Mix

6 oz. Thai rice flour
3 oz. potato starch
3 oz. tapioca flour
2.4 oz. OrGran Gluten Substitute

I would not recommend mixing home milled whole grains, as they need to be frozen and used quickly to prevent them from going bad. Just make up your basic mix and supplement as needed. Also, this is done by weight so the amount of gums in your mix will be the correct amount. I would recommend to any GF baker: just get a scale and quit whining.

Buttermilk GF Sandwich Bread

Ingredients:

1 C. GFG rice mix
1/2 C. oat flour
1/2 C. quinoa flour
1/8 C. tapioca flour
1/8 C. potato starch
.8 oz OrGran Gluten Substitute
2/3 tsp. kosher salt
2 Tbs. unbleached sugar
1 Tbs. dry active yeast
2 tsp. baking powder
1 large egg
3 Tbs. canola oil
3/4 cup + a little extra(about 2 tbs) warmed buttermilk
extra flour for dusting work surface


Method:

Grease a smaller bread pan.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a stand mixer. Even the yeast. Whisk the wet together and pour into your off stand mixer. Turn the mixer on low till the wet and dry are just mixed. Turn the speed up a bit and mix until you have a smooth mixture. It's not really a dough, and not really a batter. Prep your work surface with flour and put the mixture on the flour. Pat it into a loaf and coat in flour. Put into the pan and let this rise for about an hour. After 45 minutes or whenever the appropriate time is turn the oven onto 350 degrees and then bake your bread for about an hour. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack.

Slice and enjoy!