La Pasta Madre: Italian GF sourdough starter experiment, Day 14

[I’ve been following instructions for the wild-fermented starter in A Tavola Senza Glutine - if you’re new to this series, see the first and second posts for introduction and more info about GF sourdoughs in general!]

When we last left off, I'd just given the starter its first refresh. As the book instructed, I continued to refresh the dough in the same manner every 1 ½ - 2 days, removing 50 g of the dough and replacing it with an equal total of fresh material (20 g rice flour, 10 g corn flour, and 10 g water). After a total of 5 refreshings in this way, the book said, the starter can be used for bread. 

Day 6...

Day 9...

Well, by the fourth refresh - a little more than a week in - the dough seemed pretty lifeless. A lievito madre is often more concentrated than the sourdough starters many of us are used to, and as such it’s generally used in quantities similar to fresh yeast - a spoonful, as opposed to sourdough bread recipes that use a few ounces of starter per loaf. So I knew that, like the similarly slow-growing yeast formulas found in old cookbooks, it wouldn’t be as active as my normal starters. But I expected more than this! There weren’t many bubbles visible and the increase in height in the jar was negligible. On the final refresh I also added in 5 g more honey, hoping the free sugars might spark some visible activity, but even that didn’t do much. I kept going only because the gradual changes in smell had hinted that something was still happening. 

Day 11...Not much going on here.

So finally, I tried it with one of the recipes in the book: the focaccia, as pictured on the cover, which you can see in the Day 1 post. Well...it didn’t work. The “dough” was a runny mess, it didn’t rise or develop much flavor, and the final product - far from the lovely springy-looking bread in the pictures - was a dense, tough cracker/pancake hybrid. 

I have some ideas about what might have gone wrong, and hopefully I’ll be able to fix it. For now, though, I put the starter in the fridge (note: the book did not instruct this, but at the stated 15 days between feeding of the mature pasta madre, I assume refrigeration is wise!) and will come back to it when I’m feeling patient enough to test a few things - I’ll keep you updated!

La Pasta Madre: Italian GF sourdough starter experiment, Day 4

Per the book’s instructions, I left the jar alone for 3 days to do its thing. The mixture showed significant activity (as indicated by bubbles and rising height) within the first 48 hrs - this is typical of new starters. Despite looking like a very active dough, this initial burst of activity is a mix of a whole bunch of funky bacteria that will be largely replaced by other types as the starter matures. By 72 hrs the starter had begun to acquire a vaguely acetone-like smell, typically an indicator that the stuff living in it is getting very “hungry” and stressed (see below for further explanation). Nonetheless, as instructed, I removed just 20% (50 g) of the mixture, and replaced it with an equal amount of fresh material: 20 g rice flour, 10 g corn flour, and 20 g water.

As I stated on Day 1, I had some doubts about whether I was understanding this part of the recipe correctly. Often recipes for a new starter will instruct to discard 50% or more of the fermenting mixture, and replace it with (at least) as much new material. That's about the ratio I'm used to with my previous successful GF starters too.

Why discard so much flour? To answer this question we need to look closely at what’s happening in a new starter. We begin with flour and water; these provide all the nutrients necessary for whatever kinds of bacteria and fungus are present to grow. At first, we have all kinds of things growing - the kinds we want for bread, which will produce good flavors and make the bread rise, but also plenty of things that make funky smells, molds, and perhaps even some things that (if allowed to grow in sufficient quantities) could make us sick. As these various organisms break down the starches, proteins, and other metabolic processes in order to grow and reproduce, the mixture grows more acidic. The increased acidity is crucial to the process of becoming sourdough - the organisms we don’t want can’t grow very well in the acidic environment, allowing the acid-tolerant bread bacteria and yeasts to thrive with less competition. However, this is far from the only chemical change: you also have other metabolic products of the fermentation process and the old cells that have died.

When these products build up in proportion to the fresh resources in the mixture, the bacteria and yeasts may go into “survival mode” - they start producing molecules that aren’t desirable for bread, and also in turn the altered chemical environment of the mixture negatively affects the diversity of the microbial community. So, when you remove some of the starter, you’re not just removing flour, water, and the stuff living in it - you’re removing dead stuff, undesirable chemicals, and other things that would get in the way of a robust sourdough community. Discarding and feeding the starter both controls this buildup and provides fresh resources at a ratio that allows the desirable organisms to take over. 

All that said, I have definitely found plenty of old and traditional examples of fermentation methods that seemingly go against this wisdom yet still produce bread. Some of those are also fairly dry/stiff mixtures like this one is, which may be significant. So, for now, I am continuing to give this recipe (and my translation skills) the benefit of the doubt. Check back in a few days to see the progress!

La Pasta Madre: Italian GF sourdough starter experiment, Day 1

Sourdough or natural leaven is the natural fermentation of starchy material by a mixture of many types of wild yeasts and bacteria that are adapted to coexistence. This complex fermentation results in a diverse assortment of molecules contributing to the flavor, nutrition, and even the texture of bread differently than the single strain of yeast we buy at the store. The difference is even more pronounced in GF bread. Based on a wide body of research, I believe that the traits selected for store-bought yeast are simply not the best match for the properties of our GF flours; wild yeasts and associated bacteria are much better for turning these flours into bread - real bread, with only a few simple ingredients and no additives needed to compensate. In fact, one of the ways certain sourdough bacteria benefit bread texture and reduce staling is by producing a molecule that functions similarly to a gum! 

I recently acquired an Italian gluten-free book, A Tavola Senza Glutine, which was published by Slow Food Editore - between that fact and the amazing-looking pictures, I knew it had to be good! Unsurprisingly, all of the leavened breads use a natural sourdough starter, which I was eager to make. However, I found the method of making the starter quite surprising indeed. Let me explain:

Conventional sourdough starter methods usually advise refreshing (discarding a portion and feeding fresh flour) frequently, up to 2 or even 3 times a day until the microbial community is established, and this approach is often used in GF sourdough tutorials as well. Some recent artisan-bread experts feel the starter grows more robustly when fed/divided just once a day and at the other 12 hour intervals simply stirred to ensure enough oxygen for aerobic fermentation throughout the mixture. I’ve found this latter strategy to work well in the past with my own sweet-potato-based GF starters also. Certain traditional methods, on the other hand, involve a straight batch fermentation - nothing is discarded or divided, the flour-water mixture is just left alone until it balances itself out! It is more often done in situations where the entire batter is used (as opposed to maintaining a continuous starter for future batches) but I have also seen examples of long-lived starters created in this way. This last method is of course the least reliable and the success or failure of it seems highly dependent on temperature, ingredients, and multiple other conditions, because without intervention it is harder for the desirable bacteria and yeasts to gain a stronghold. (I personally have never gotten it to work right.) But the simplicity of it is intriguing - and tradition hints our ingredients’ natural course of fermentation may be suited to this approach, as seen in recipes for various Asian rice- and bean-based batters and Ethiopian teff flatbread as well as some of the traditional American methods of making potato yeast. 

So I was very interested (albeit a little nervous) to try the starter method in A Tavola Senza Glutine, which seems to strike a nice balance between the high-turnover and the hands-off approach: the starter is left alone for 2-3 days at a time, and at each interval, 20% of the mixture is discarded and replaced with fresh flour and water to maintain a constant quantity. Simple and unfussy, right? But...in addition to the low-maintenance schedule, this is a much lower discard ratio than with a typical sourdough starter recipe. So much lower, in fact, that I began to question whether I was reading the recipe correctly, and if it in fact might be the other way around. The word used, sostituitelo, means replace - does this mean replace as in “swap out” or could it mean replace in the sense of “return / put back with”? Am I supposed to add the fresh flour to the original jar (unusual ratio, but seemed to be what was instructed) or the removed portion? Had it been the reverse - removing a small portion to combine with fresh flour and discarding the rest, then also discarding and replacing half of the mixture at each subsequent feeding - this procedure would be far more typical, though less economical. To clarify, I went looking for some other instances of the same wording in other types of recipes where the intended procedure is more obvious, and it seems pretty clear that the usage of “replace” here does indeed mean the fresh flour is to be added to the main mixture, not combined with the small removed portion. (If you’re wondering why this difference matters so much, don’t worry - I will explain further about the role of discarding during the establishing phase in the Day 4 update.)

Regardless, that wasn’t the only odd thing about this starter recipe. It is also a lower hydration percentage - it starts out at just 60% hydration (not including the small amount of honey to get things going). The subsequent feedings/waterings add liquid at 67% of the flour weight, meaning the starter does become a little less dry with each discard, but even 67% remains a much lower hydration than the starters I’m most familiar with. 

But! In spite of all these doubts, I still want to try it the way it's (I think?) written. I know, I should have asked someone about the confusing wording, and I will feel very silly if I misunderstood the procedure. At the very least, it will be interesting, right? Let’s see what happens!

FIRST, some notes on what you’ll need: 

Rice - I might be overthinking this, but I figure I ought to at least bring it up in case it turns out to be relevant: The rice varieties grown in Italy are mostly medium-short-grain japonica varieties (think risotto), some of which are available made into flour. However, I can’t figure out if the regular rice flour available in Italy is made from one of these or from a more common rice type, as most do not specify. Likewise, most rice flour sold in the US does not specify the rice variety, but I’d guess it’s mostly made from medium-long grain types - a different amylose/amylopectin ratio than shorter grains. Anyway, I’m working under the assumption that standard rice flour here is similar enough to the standard rice flour there to suit the purposes of this experiment. Let’s hope I’m right!

Corn - Italian corn meals/flours can be divided into 3 categories: bramata (coarse, like for polenta), fioretto (fine, like US stone-ground corn flour), and finally fumetto (superfine and consisting only of the softer endosperm, or inner part of the corn kernel). This last grade is what the book calls for, but it isn’t really a thing in the US, so I had to do the best I could with my finest sieve and hope the tiny bits of harder outer layer remaining wouldn’t be too disruptive. 

Water - Please do NOT use tap water - the chlorine compounds and other things in municipal tap water will interfere with the growth of the more fragile members of the sourdough microbial community. Use spring water, or filtered water may be OK if your water filter is very very efficient.

Honey - I suspect the recipe specifies acacia honey for only a few particular reasons. For one, it has a higher fructose content than many other honeys, meaning it won’t crystallize and, being fairly thin, will dissolve evenly in the mixture. The other reason is that it has a very bright unintrusive flavor - it is a light, cleanly sweet spring honey, without the waxy, earthy, or tangy notes found in some other varietals or wildflower blends. 

With these criteria in mind I was all set to use another kind of honey I already had. But combined with the already unusual nature of this formula, I decided at the last minute to err on the side of caution, worried that there is something special about acacia that I wasn’t aware of. (Perhaps it may be particularly conducive to yeast fermentation, considering its popularity among mead producers?) If it doesn’t work right, I didn’t want to be stuck wondering if it was because I used the wrong honey. Besides, I was already having to change one thing with the cornmeal - changing two things just wouldn’t be scientific, after all. 

Jar - OK, it’s not exactly an ingredient, but it’s definitely necessary and I want to bring up one point: The book recommends covering the jar with a cloth, which is indeed the traditional way. However, newer science indicates that contrary to popular (and traditional) belief, the vast majority of the characteristic yeasts and bacteria in a sourdough starter come not from the surrounding air, but are already present on the surface of the grains. So, I just use a loose-fitting lid because it’s less cumbersome. You shouldn’t have an airtight seal, and you may still want to use a cloth if you are having issues with condensation in the jar, but really, any cover that keeps out the fruit flies and such should be fine. 

The starter, day 1: 100 g rice flour, 50 g fine corn flour, 180 g water, 1 tablespoon (~16 g) acacia honey

Combine in jar and set aside in a cool place for 3 days. The book specifies 18º C (about 65º F) - it’s nowhere near that cold in my house at this time of year, so I put it near the AC vent and hope it averages out! (By the way, the quantities above are half of the recipe as written in the book, because this quantity seemed more manageable. If you want to do it exactly as written, double all the measurements above.)

Check back on Day 4 - that’s Monday - to see what happens next!

Yeast bread techniques, Lesson 3: Density

In the quest for the perfect crusty, open-crumbed loaf for sopping up olive oil and making sandwiches, it can sometimes be easy to overlook the other kinds of bread out there. There are so many kinds of delightfully dark, flavorful breads to be discovered in European baking traditions - they may not have caught on here in the way that lighter French or Italian bread styles have, but they're no less delicious. 

People accustomed to whiter flours tend to equate "dense" with disappointment. Gluten-free bakers, especially, are all too familiar with that association: a slab of bland starch, a crumbly dry sandwich that falls apart when you try to bite it. We've all choked down more than a few slices of that kind of bread.

This is not that bread. 

It's true it may not be as multi-purpose as a lighter bread, but that's not a bad thing. It's somewhat akin to aged cheese, or dry sausage - slice it thinly, pair it with the right things, and you're in for a treat. Yes, dense bread can be a very good thing indeed! 

This particular recipe is a German-style loaf. Vollkornbrot simply means, literally, "whole grain bread." So, while it is most commonly a rye-based sourdough, there's nothing that says it has to be - it just needs to be composed completely of whole ingredients. 

This recipe certainly meets that definition. That's right - it doesn't need any refined starch at all. It also doesn't need any single-function binders or thickeners, not even pectin, or any baking powder. All of its structure, substance, flavor, and binding capacity comes from whole-food ingredients. In this case, that's just grains, seeds, legumes, and sweet potato...and one more, um, unconventional ingredient. You see, I was looking for a way to make good bread while waiting for my sourdough starter to wake up after we'd been out of town. I've had good results using yogurt and kefir for makeshift sourdough in the past, but this time I decided to try something new: sauerkraut! Or rather, sauerkraut juice. Don't worry, it's not enough to taste anything unusual in the bread - just enough to get some fermentation going. And I think it works even better than the yogurt! 

This is a very high-hydration bread; while it does definitely come together as a dough (as opposed to a batter), don't expect to be shaping this one with your hands! On that same note, you really don't need a mixer for this one - in fact, it comes together quite easily with just a spatula.

This bread is also very simple to make. There are no complicated techniques or skills required - the recipe is long because I've included so many notes and pictures to make it as clear and approachable as possible. 

A few notes:

- This recipe is very flexible. Just be sure to keep roughly the same basic proportions of whole grains and seeds (i.e. things you'd normally cook), soft seeds (i.e. those that can be eaten raw), and flours. Using an assortment of small, medium, and large grains/seeds will make the bread more interesting and attractive, but it should still work if you use (for example) all millet for the whole grain or all sunflower for the soft seeds. The chia, flax, and sweet potato are the essential constants - these each contribute unique properties, so changing any of them may change the result significantly. (I'd love to get into the chemistry of this, but this post is long enough already!)

- You need raw sauerkraut for this to work. This means not the canned/shelf-stable kind; it needs to be fresh with live, active cultures. Full disclosure: the kraut I used contains a little bit of ginger, which is known to increase yeast activity, but I really don't think it's enough to make a difference to the amount of yeast required in this situation.

- I touched on the difference between light and dark buckwheat flours in this post, and it may sound like I'm contradicting myself here. In this case, I recommend specifically using dark buckwheat flour from Anson Mills - the color comes from some of the hulls being milled with the grain, as with any dark buckwheat flour; the difference is, the hulls in AM's flour are toasted to bring out the aromatic aspects, and (like all their flours) it's been specially processed and stored in a way that prevents undesirable oxidation. This results in a flour that is complex and flavorful rather than harsh-tasting. However, it's still capable of overwhelming other flavors if used in high quantities, and with this recipe there's a lot of flavor complexity from the other grains and seeds that I don't want to cover up. That's where the other type comes in. Light buckwheat flour is milder, as it does not contain any hull fragments. The easiest way to get it is probably to just grind it yourself from whole buckwheat in a coffee grinder or food processor. If for whatever reason you don't want to use both, I recommend either: using the dark buckwheat in the amounts called for and adding more garbanzo or pea flour in place of the light kind, or using the light kind for all the buckwheat called for. 

- I make sweet potato puree in large batches for feeding my sourdough starter - this batch came out a bit watery, definitely much thinner than regular mashed sweet potatoes, so you may need to water yours down a bit to match the consistency shown. (It should be about the consistency of baby food...I think? It's been twentysomething years since I've encountered baby food, and I wasn't exactly in a position to evaluate it objectively, ha!) Here I used a yellow/white-fleshed variety, but the more common orange types work just as well.

- You will need a Pullman loaf pan or other bread pan with an oven-safe lid/cover (even a makeshift lid will do). Just make sure there is plenty of room for the loaf to rise without hitting the lid! 

Multigrain Vollkornbrot

As written, this recipe makes a smallish loaf. If you would like to use a full-size Pullman pan, you may double the recipe.

Grain soak:

20 grams each: whole millet, whole buckwheat, whole amaranth, GF steel-cut oats, whole teff, short-grain brown rice.

120 g mineral water, hot

1/8 tsp salt

Sponge:

35 g dark buckwheat flour (source)

35 g teff flour

30 g garbanzo flour or pea flour

20 g GF rolled oats

110 g mineral water, hot

15 g sauerkraut juice

1/8 tsp yeast

Combine all grain soak ingredients in a small bowl. In a large bowl, stir the hot water into the flours and oats, and add the kraut juice and yeast once it's cooled a little. Cover both bowls and set aside at room temperature for about 14 hours. 

Dry mix:

50 g light buckwheat flour

30 g pea flour or garbanzo flour

20 g dark buckwheat flour 

25 g pepita (pumpkin seed) meal (grind in food processor/blender)

5 g chia meal

5 g flax meal

4 g sea salt

Seeds:

25 g pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

25 g sunflower seeds

15 g hemp seeds

15 g flax seeds

50 g chia seeds

Additional ingredients:

180 g sweet potato puree

40 g mineral water, or more as needed

Next day, mix the chia seeds, flax seeds, and 40 g water into the grain soak and set aside to thicken for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add in the remaining seeds. Stir the sweet potato into the sponge, then the seed/grain mixture. 

Gradually add the flour. The mixture will seem pretty runny at first, but it will become more cohesive as the chia and flax polysaccharides become more hydrated - set it aside for a few minutes to prepare the baking pan. 

Cut a piece of parchment that is large enough to line the entire inside of the baking pan, plus enough extra to come a couple of inches over the top. Fold it so it will lay smoothly against the sides of the pan, including in the corners - essentially, you're folding a paper box to nest neatly inside the baking pan. It is important that the sides be fully covered, and that the paper is folded so it overlaps to form "handles" at the short ends of the box - you will need to use these handles. (This probably sounds much more complicated than it is - the picture below should clear up any confusion.)

Remove the paper box and set it, slightly unfolded, on a flat surface.

Lightly knead the dough with the spatula for a moment - see how much more cohesive it's become? Now, scoop the dough onto the paper, aiming to put it only on the bottom part of the paper box, like so:

Forming the loaf this way produces much neater results than trying to scoop thick dough directly into a lined pan.

Now, re-fold the paper "handles" at the short ends, grab onto them, and lift the loaf into the baking pan. Adjust the paper as needed to straighten wrinkles, scraping any stray strands of dough off the paper with a spatula. Fold the excess paper over the sides of the box, like a collar.      

Smooth the top with a wet spatula or pastry brush, making sure to moisten all exposed surface. Cover the loaf and set it someplace cozy. After one hour, repeat the moistening process, taking care not to tear or squish the surface - don't worry if it hasn't risen visibly by this point. Cover again and let rise another hour. By this point you should notice a slight increase in height - it won't be dramatic, just enough to prove that the yeast is active. Most of the increase in volume will happen in the oven. Make sure your lid/cover allows enough room for that!

Score the top with a sharp paring knife to allow it to expand in the oven. You may notice the top of the loaf has formed a sort of filmy skin - cut carefully so you don't tear this skin too much. Place the pan, covered, directly on the baking stone with oven pre-heated to 475F/245C and bake covered for 6 minutes. Remove cover, continue baking at that temp about 4-5 minutes, then lower the temperature setting to 440F/225 C (this makes sure the oven has returned to the starting temperature before then gradually lowering). After 40 minutes, lower the temperature once more to 425F/220C. Remove the pan from the oven, and -- carefully! -- grab hold of the folded paper "handles" on both ends of the loaf, lift it from the pan, and quickly return the paper-wrapped loaf to the baking stone. Continue baking another 20-25 minutes, until all sides of the loaf are firm.

Once the loaf is cool enough to handle, place it in a paper bag to finish cooling (this helps distribute moisture evenly).

Wait, there's still one more thing you need to do! This is the hardest step: wait 18-24 hours before cutting the loaf. Yes, I know it smells wonderful! I know warm, fresh-baked bread is tantalizing, and you will have the impulse to immediately slather it with butter. But believe it or not, even after all that baking time, it's actually still not "done" yet - the carbohydrate structure needs to finish setting, which happens gradually as it cools. This is true of any bread that gets most or all of its structure from polysaccharide chains - even 100%-rye breads, while they do of course contain gluten, actually get much of their crumb structure from carbohydrates, and as a result will be sticky and pasty if cut too soon. The amount of time this takes depends on many factors in the bread's composition - some breads are OK to cut as soon as they're cool, but others (including this one) take longer. This waiting period also gives some time for the flavor to mature.

Store the bread wrapped in a paper bag. It can be kept this way for a few days at room temperature - past that, it should probably be refrigerated. 

Butternut Polenta Bread

The first sign of fall comes not with the changing of the leaves, but rather with the appearance of recipes. Or so I realized a couple of weeks ago, as I saw - even in the summery heat - the umpteenth new food-related thing with fall or autumn in the title. Of course, it actually is autumn now, although there are enough warm days ahead to make it feel still a long way off. Late summer has that way of making time seem to stand still. Indeed, the first changes were nearly imperceptible, drowned out by the cicadas' droning in the humid air, and the continuing bounty of summer vegetables distracting from the fact that the sunset comes a bit sooner each day. Yet, rather than remain enthralled with the season, we rush its exit as we begin - as if by some kind of instinct - longing for coziness, apple cake, and casseroles (and pumpkin spice lattes, apparently). It might be strange, given how fall inevitably gives way to months of cold, that we welcome the end of summer so readily. Fall has always been my favorite season, so personally I understand getting excited over the subtle signs of the weather changing. But I think there's something special about this transition which causes us to notice things like crisp mornings and reddening leaves with a particular kind of anticipation. The onset of autumn is just so much more sudden than, say, the gradual budding of branches - in a matter of days, the color of a landscape can change completely. Is it any wonder we get so excited about it?

I realize I've written about seasons frequently here - many food blogs do, by nature of the ingredients, but unlike heirloom tomatoes or chanterelle mushrooms or delicate strawberries, the ingredients that go into bread are (generally) not a seasonal food. Yet, the essence of a particular time of year goes much deeper than what can be found at the farmers' market. Many flavors which are so imbued by a season became that way through association and memory more than any inherent quality of the ingredients. Lemons ripen in winter, yet their fresh tartness and bright color bring to mind spring and even summer. The spices which make up "pumpkin spice" or "cider spice" - cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom - also make their way into recipes throughout the year. Nonetheless, when combined, they seem to intrinsically evoke the essence of autumn, and we begin to crave them even while the leaves on the trees are still quite green. The traditions of recipes and flavors pervade the season, even after most "seasonal" foods are now available perenially.

Perhaps that's part of it - we used to have so many inherently seasonal, often ephemeral tastes and textures from fresh vegetables and fruits; in colder months, seasonal association of spices and condiments would be influenced by what stored well and even which spices helped preserve other, more perishable foods. 

Now, we're of course fortunate to have access to fresh, nutritive foods throughout the year. But even with our nutritional needs taken care of, still we remain hungry for the ritual of changing flavors. Perhaps the desire for this seasonality actually is some kind of instinct - deeper even than tradition, a biological longing to take part in a cycle of time and place. Interesting to think about, isn't it? But I'll stop there, lest I stray too far into philosophical culinary anthropologist territory. The point I was getting to is: the second sign of fall is the arrival of butternut squashes - which are a very good topping for bread, as it turns out!

I know I explained recently why I might not be posting any new yeast bread recipes for a while. However, after some further thought, I decided to also work on some breads which don't require the sourdough starters or involved techniques or unusual ingredients I've been so enamored with lately. Breads in the style of the ones so many readers here have made and enjoyed. This one is based loosely on my ciabatta recipe, but using different, more flavorful flours. It's been so long since I made a dough of this kind, I wasn't sure what to expect - I started out envisioning something similar to a focaccia, but the recipe ended up taking a different direction with the coarsely-ground cornmeal. (I was so excited a few days ago to find a local source of truly gluten-free white and yellow cornmeal, I just couldn't wait to put them in something!) It's actually somewhere in between focaccia and cornbread in its texture and flavor. But I think it's pretty good. Also like both those breads, this is good for when you want a bread that's almost more like a side dish - pleasantly savory and filling. The natural sweetness of the cornmeal and the squash complement one another nicely, and still allow the flavor of the oil and herbs to come through.

I used rosemary, but I think fresh sage would be even better. (In fact, I'd planned on using sage, but when I went out to my little garden, there were hornets on my sage. So...yeah. Rosemary it is.)

This is a simple two-stage dough: first an overnight sponge, and then the remaining ingredients are added the next day to make the final dough. It's also very easy to make, as there isn't any shaping procedure - the dough goes straight into the dutch oven as soon as it's mixed, and easily spreads to the edges as you press the toppings into the surface.

For the sponge:

60 g finely-ground yellow cornmeal

40 g coarse cornmeal/polenta (I used half yellow and half white)

25 g buckwheat flour

25 g garbanzo flour

10 g potato flour (not the same as potato starch)

180 g boiling water

1/8 tsp dry yeast

Combine the dry ingredients, except the yeast, and stir in the boiling water. Cover the bowl and let stand for about 10 minutes before mixing in the yeast. Cover bowl and set aside for about 14 hours.

For the final dough:

85 g tapioca starch

85 g potato starch (not the same as potato flour)

15 g sweet rice flour

35 g garbanzo flour

2 tsp psyllium husks

1/2 tsp Pomona's citrus pectin

6 g sea salt

1 tsp double-acting baking powder

120 g water, warm

2 tsp white chia meal

up to 1/4 tsp yeast (depending on how active the sponge seems; I used 1/8 tsp)

30 g olive oil (use a flavorful one)

2-3 fresh sage leaves or fresh rosemary sprigs

about 100 g butternut squash, peeled and sliced very thinly (I used a mandoline)

(optional: a small handful of shredded lacinato kale or additional fresh herbs)

Pour the olive oil into the bottom of a dutch oven and add the whole sage leaves or rosemary sprigs. Warm the oil over low heat until the herbs have softened slightly - stir them around occasionally to help release their flavor. Remove from heat, remove the herbs and set aside. Combine all dry ingredients except the chia meal and yeast, and set aside. Stir the warm water into the sponge, followed by the chia meal and yeast. This mixture will thicken over the next couple of minutes. Next add the dry mix, about 1/3rd at a time, to form a soft dough. Then, pour out 15 g of the oil into the dough bowl (make sure it's not too hot!). Mix until the oil is just combined.

Pour most of the remaining oil over the squash slices, leaving a bit in the dutch oven to coat the bottom generously. Sprinkle ~ 1 tsp cornmeal over the bottom of the pot, and scoop the dough into the oiled dutch oven. Cut the sage leaves into small pieces (or strip the rosemary leaves from the stem) and scatter herbs over the surface of the dough. Then arrange the squash slices, overlapping them slightly, gently pressing each slice to help it stick. Cover the dutch oven and set aside to rise for 60-75 minutes. 

Don't worry if the dough doesn't quite reach the sides of the pot - it will expand as it bakes. 

Meanwhile, put an oven rack in the lower half of the oven, and heat the oven to 450º F. When bread is finished rising, place the covered dutch oven into the oven. Bake for 9 minutes covered, then remove the lid and lower the oven temperature to 420º F. Bake for another 40-45 minutes. (Add the kale or additional herbs, if using, about 5 minutes before the bread is done.) Let rest in the pot 10-15 minutes, then remove and let cool at least 45 minutes more before slicing.

P.S. - Speaking of seasonal things... for those of you in NC, the Triangle Gluten Intolerance Festival is this Saturday, September 27, at a pumpkin farm! Plenty of food tastings and family activities, all gluten-free - sounds like fun!

{Ratio Rally} More bread for the table

When I saw that Karen of Cooking Gluten Free had chosen bread for this month's Ratio Rally, I immediately thought of three things:
- I had to make some kind of bread I'd never done before (which I did!)
- I had do a science post (well, that part didn't happen. But more on that later.)
- I was really, really excited. Not just excited about baking bread - excited to see everyone baking bread, proving to the world that even without gluten, flour and water can be transformed into something amazing, something you can proudly have on your table.

After all, bread has essentially been this blog's raison d'être since the very beginning - even the name says it all. A bakery of bread - real bread - which happens to all be gluten-free. I knew from the start, of course, that I would create recipes for many other things as well, but bread in particular holds a special importance to me (a fact which has come up in quite a few of these posts).

But where to start? Since my first post a couple of years ago, I've made dozens and dozens of breads. Nowhere near all of them made it into a post of course, but the best ones did. And each of those "best breads" was posted because when I saw that loaf of real bread browning in my oven, or smelled that fresh-baked crust, or - most of all - tasted something that was truly good, I wanted to share it. There was the first time I discovered that yeast bread not only could be made without eggs or gums, but also that it was so much better that way! Then there was the delicious, authentic-tasting French multigrain bread that had no gums, eggs, or dairy (and the even simpler base recipe, from when I came up with a loaf-shaping strategy that consistently produced an attractive loaf). There was when I finally developed a truly satisfying pizza dough. And though it seems like so long ago now, it's been just two years since I made my very first best bread - at the time I knew next to nothing about food chemistry (meaning baking felt closer to superstition than science), and I still hadn't branched out beyond the eggs-and-xanthan gum formula, but at the time it was by far the best gluten-free bread I'd had. (Some of my newer recipes have what I consider much better taste and texture, but that old bread remains the most popular recipe on this blog - I will admit, the eggs do help things rise quite impressively.)

I thought about all these things as I was deciding just what kind of bread to make for this month's Rally, and suddenly I found myself feeling, well, pretty overwhelmed. And perfectionistic. Little things I brush off when baking just for myself suddenly seemed like huge issues: the crumb was too dark, or too dense; the crust didn't brown enough; there was too much whole-grain flavor, or not enough flavor at all. After several loaves of this criticism, I was growing weary of fighting the properties of gluten-less flours (and the laws of gravity) - it was time to try a different approach. Don't worry, I'm certainly not giving up on a wonderful baguette or boule or any of those other delicious things. In fact, I'll be devoting an upcoming post to exactly why those big loaves are so difficult, and what to do about it...with science!

Just...not this week. And that's where ciabatta comes in.

You see, ciabatta could be considered the odd bread out in the gluten-bread baking world (and I don't just mean its history - I'm talking about the dough itself). We tend to think of gluten dough as something that is, compared to GF dough, so easy to handle; so much more resilient and cooperative. Yet when I was looking at recipes for this particular type of bread, I noticed something odd. Nearly every one stated the dough must be worked using a stand mixer or bread machine knead cycle; they said it simply can't be kneaded by hand. A couple of recipes even went so far as to instruct "throw everything you know about bread dough out the window"! (Any of this sound familiar, gluten-free bakers?!)

Now, don't get me wrong -- ciabatta, just like other regular breads, is definitely very much dependent on gluten for its structure and texture. But while we lack the advantages of gluten to work with, this is one case where we can also avoid its disadvantages - in the case of ciabatta, the fact that its flour:water ratio means the gluten is really sticky. My ciabatta dough may not be strong and stretchy like regular dough, but it's actually quite easy to handle if you follow the instructions. And oh, the texture! With the loaf being so flat, it's not weighing itself down as much - so you'll get an airier crumb than you usually see in (eggless) GF breads. I even included a video clip to show you just how nice the texture is. (Sorry for the poor video quality - it was filmed on a phone - but I think it gets the point across!)

See how soft and stretchy it is?! I hope that after that, you really want to make some of your own now. Just a couple more quick notes to add before I get to the recipe:

- If you want to try to get your bread to rise up more (rather than spread out), try placing something on either side of it (separated by parchment) during the final part of the rising, somewhat akin to how a couche works.
- You can use potato starch in place of some of the tapioca starch if you want the insides of the bread to be whiter (have a look at this pizza dough, which is mostly a very similar flour composition, and you'll see what I mean). You may need to add a bit more water if using some potato starch, though.


Ciabatta (Gluten-free, gum-free, egg-free/vegan)
The ratio for this recipe is 4 parts flour:3 parts water. This is fairly typical for this style of bread, even when made with wheat (whereas wheat sandwich bread, for instance, is usually a 5:3 ratio). Though there is some oil in this bread, the amount is too small to make a clean ratio - there is however a similar concept that can accommodate small amounts of oil, etc using percentages (called baker's percentage) which I will introduce in an upcoming post, or you can look it up if you want.


For the sponge:
40 g oat flour
100 g brown rice flour
12 g buckwheat flour
16 g potato flour (not starch)
12 g tapioca starch
1/2 tsp yeast (preferably "bread machine/rapid" yeast)
20 mL organic apple cider vinegar
160 mL warm water

For the final dough:
220 g tapioca starch
1 2/3 T (5 tsp) psyllium
1/2 tsp Pomona's citrus pectin
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp yeast (preferably "bread machine/rapid" yeast)
120 mL warm water
30 mL (2 T) olive oil

For shaping the loaves:
1 tsp double-acting baking powder
2-4 tsp olive oil
rice flour
tapioca starch

Method
1. The night before you want to make bread, you'll need to make the sponge: Combine the dry ingredients for the sponge (including yeast) in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the vinegar and warm water and stir until it forms a stiff dough - it will become more fluid as it ferments. Cover tightly, and set aside to ferment for 12-14 hours.
2. In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients for the final loaf (including yeast).
3. Stir about half of this dry mixture into the fermented sponge, followed by about half the water; then add the rest of the dry mixture, the rest of the water, and the olive oil. (If using a mixer, use the paddle attachment.) The dough will be more loose and slack than usual, but it should not be sticky.

4. Prepare 2 or 4 pieces of parchment (depending on whether you are making small or large loaves). Put a generous splash of olive oil on each parchment for ease of handling the dough.
5. Divide the dough into 2 or 4 pieces, and flatten each into a rectangle as if making very thin pizza:

Be careful not to tear or poke holes in it.

6. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp baking powder evenly on each rectangle (or 1/4 tsp if making 4 smaller loaves). Then fold two of the parallel edges inward, like this:

7. Now fold those edges in once more, overlapping slightly to form a seam:

8. Prepare a baking sheet or pizza peel with a very generous dusting of rice flour.
9. Once the shaped loaves have been resting seam-side up for 15-20 minutes, you will "flip" them onto the baking sheet so they are seam-side down for the rest of the rising time. Do this by grasping the edges of the parchment paper and lifting one side to quickly (but gently!) transfer them onto the floured area:

Handle gently to avoid deflating the loaf.

10. When all your loaves are resting seam-side down on the floured baking sheet/pizza peel, allow them to continue rising for another ~40 minutes (they will approximately double in size). Meanwhile preheat the oven to 230ºC/450ºF with a baking stone on the bottom rack. (If you don't have one, you can bake on a cookie sheet.) 

11. Shortly before putting them in the oven, dust the top of each loaf with a good amount of rice flour and/or tapioca starch. Optional: place a pan of water on the top rack of the oven to create steam - this helps produce a crisp crust. 

12. Gently slide each loaf onto the baking stone - the rice flour will mostly keep them from sticking, but a dough scraper may be useful to ease the transfer with minimal disturbance to the risen loaf. (If you will be baking on the baking sheet, simply place the sheet on the bottom rack of the oven.) Bake for 40-60 minutes (the shorter time will produce a crisp crust; the longer time will give a crunchy crust but will allow more steam to escape from the bread for a lighter loaf overall). Remove from the oven and cover with a dish towel until cool - do not cut until completely cool.

Crusty bread, olive oil, pepper: Enjoy!

~ Check out the rest of this month's bread creations over at Cooking Gluten Free! ~

{Ratio Rally} Bagels

How long has it been since you've had a bagel? And I mean a real bagel, not just round-shaped bread with a hole in the middle...which is how every commercially-available GF "bagel" I've tried is best described - some aren't bad at all, but they're also not bagels. A bagel, as you probably know, is more chewy on the outside (rather than crusty) because of the way it's poached before baking. It's also more dense inside - which means bagels adapt to gluten-free surprisingly well compared to some other gluten-heavy foods. Really! They taste like bagels! (And that's coming from my boyfriend, who spent part of his childhood in New York City, so I'll trust him on how bagels should taste.) And now you can have a bagel, too. Or several - there are quite a few different kinds of bagels in this month's roundup, hosted by Morri at Meals with Morri!

The ratio I used was approximately 5 parts flour:3 parts water. This is different than the ratio for wheat bagels; while some GF recipes need more liquid than wheat flour, this needed a higher amount of liquid than I was expecting to make a smooth dough. I think part of the reason may be because I used larger-than-usual proportions of some flours which can hold a lot of water, including oat flour. I haven't had a chance to try the recipe with other flour blends to see how much of a difference it makes. (Many GF flour blends are 40% whole grain and 60% starch, but for this recipe I used a blend containing 60% whole grain because I like bagels which are more hearty than an "all-purpose" type flour would make.)

Don't be intimidated by the long set of instructions - bagels are boiled before baking, so there are a few extra steps in here, but I felt like they were actually fairly easy to make.

Like most of my recipes, this recipe calls for some ingredients and techniques that may be different from the gluten-free recipes you are used to. If you're new to this blog, please take a look at this post and this one for a quick introduction.

Classic Poppyseed Bagels
Makes 12 bagels

For the Sponge:

240 g Brown rice flour

160 g Oat flour (make sure it's certified gluten-free; many oats are cross-contaminated)

80 g Buckwheat flour

2 tsp yeast

480 mL warm water

Other ingredients:

300 g Tapioca flour

20 g Potato flour (not the same as potato starch; see note on my Ingredients page)

4 T Psyllium husks

1 tsp Pomona's Pure Citrus Pectin (see note on my Ingredients page)

1 T Molasses

1 T Honey 

15 g Sea salt

1 tsp yeast

2 T grapeseed oil or other high-heat oil

2 L water, for poaching

1/2 T baking soda, for poaching

1 T sugar, for poaching (optional)

Rice flour, for dusting baking stone

Method:

The night before you want to make the bagels, combine the dry ingredients for the sponge, including yeast, in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your mixer. Stir in the water. Cover bowl and let the sponge ferment for 8-12 hours. 

The next morning, mix together tapioca flour, potato flour, psyllium, pectin, salt in a separate bowl. Stir the molasses, honey, and extra 1tsp yeast into the sponge, then add about half the flour mixture. Mix well by hand or using a mixer on the lowest setting (I find the paddle attachment works better than a dough hook). Mix in the rest of the flour blend, then add the oil. 

The dough may look very crumbly at first, but after 1-2 minutes of mixing it should begin to come together to form a stiff dough. (If the dough crumbles or falls apart when you squeeze a handful, mix in more water 1T at a time until the dough is stiff but smooth.)

Now, on a baking sheet, flatten the dough out into a large, thin rectangle, brush the surface with water, sprinkle the baking powder evenly over it, and roll it up (all this is demonstrated here). Use a dough scraper or knife to slice the dough log into 12 pieces, as if making cinnamon rolls. Use wet hands to smooth out the "seams" of each piece as you form it into a flattened round, and use your thumb to poke a hole in the middle. Cover all the shaped bagels with a damp cloth or damp paper towels and set the tray in a warm place to rise for about an hour.

After the bagels have been rising for about 45 minutes, pre-heat the oven with a floured baking stone to 230ºC/450ºF, and heat 2L of water in a wide pot over medium-high heat. (It is important to measure the water, to ensure you are using the right concentration of baking soda - this is necessary for bagels' characteristic taste and texture!) When the water begins to simmer, add the baking soda (and sugar, if using). With the water still simmering, use a spatula to transfer 3-4 bagels to the pot. Let them simmer for 1-2 minutes, flip them over and poach for an additional minute. (The bagels will appear to keep rising the longer they are in the pot, but don't let them poach more than 1-2 minutes per side or they will soak up too much water!) Use a spatula to remove them from the water and allow them to rest on a rack for several minutes before putting them in the oven - use this time to sprinkle with poppyseeds or other toppings. (If they are too wet when you put them in the oven they will stick to the baking stone.) Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until they appear nicely browned and easily come off the baking stone.

~Check out the rest of this month's Rally recipes at Meals with Morri!~

P.S. - Want to see fresh, gluten-free, real food more widely available? You can help make it happen! Simone of Zenbelly Catering is trying to open a 100% gluten-free shared kitchen, which would serve as a community work space for people who want to use certified gluten-free ingredients, as well as a space for an organic, celiac-safe catering company and a coffeeshop serving locally-made gluten-free baked goods. And I think it's a really, really wonderful idea. Visit Simone's Kickstarter page to contribute, or to learn more about how you can help. Below is a short video from the Kickstarter page which explains Simone's vision for the project more fully:

This project will only happen if the funding goal is reached by May 20th! Remember that even if you're not in the San Francisco area, opening this kitchen could help pave the way for more recognition of gluten-free needs everywhere, and help demonstrate that there is a market for local, sustainably-produced food.

How MythBusters made me a better baker (Or, Why I put baking powder in yeast bread)

If you've spent more than 5 minutes on the internet, I'm sure you're familiar with Diet Coke + Mentos. More specifically, what happens when you drop the latter into a bottle containing the former. 

(This. This is what happens.)
[source]

What you may not be so familiar with, though, is why this happens (and how you can apply it to baking).

Well, it turns out that the surface of a Mentos candy is actually covered in tiny pits - pits which trap carbon dioxide when the candy is submerged in the carbonated liquid. Now, to be fair, with the specific combination of Mentos mints and Diet Coke, there are also some chemical factors contributing to the extreme nature of the reaction - but you can see a somewhat milder effect using even plain carbonated water. Plus, the same underlying physical principle of the trapped gas applies to many other things, too - like a fingertip:

Thanks, Wikipedia!

See how the bubbles gather around the rough surface of the finger? That's because the carbon dioxide dissolved in the water is forming bubbles in the small irregularities on the fingertip. As more tiny bubbles combine, the areas of trapped carbon dioxide grow bigger. This same principle is why when you open a new bottle of a carbonated drink, the carbon dioxide (which was dissolved in the high-pressure environment of the bottle) suddenly forms large bubbles; providing a rough surface (like a fingertip, or a small scratch inside a glass) just allows this to happen more quickly. These pits are known as nucleation sites, and the very rapid bubble formation when you add Mentos to Diet Coke helps cause that dramatic eruption above when the gas pushes towards the surface. This animated clip from MythBusters illustrates the process up-close:

You're probably wondering by now what on earth this has to do with bread. Well...a lot, actually. Now of course I'm not going to tell you to put Diet Coke or Mentos in your bread - that would just be silly. And gross, and messy. But you do already put something into bread which creates carbon dioxide: yeast produces this gas as part of its metabolism, and the bubbles that form help create that wonderful airy, open-crumbed texture of rustic bread. That texture - or rather, the lack of it - was probably the first thing you noticed when you tried gluten-free bread for the first time, too. Gluten, as you know, is stretchy - when gas bubbles form as gluten dough rises, the elastic network stretches, like a balloon, and does not collapse when steam further expands these bubbles in the oven. 

The binders we use in gluten-free bread, though, are not as strong or as stretchy as a gluten network. Combine that with the fact that gluten-free breads tend to retain more liquid, and you can probably see why the bubbles seem to sort of collapse, resulting in a small, dense loaf. 

But there are ways to help compensate for this! For one thing, we can make it easier for these bubbles to form and grow larger. (This is where the "nucleation" concept comes in.) 

Try to imagine blowing air into a balloon. It's hardest when you first start, right? That's when you have the highest resistance to push against. It's a similar situation in the dough: the bubbles start out very tiny, with very little surface area, and a lot of pressure from the surrounding dough pushing in from all sides. If adjacent bubbles combine to form one larger one, though, it can withstand the pressure a little bit better - and in the oven, it is easier for water to turn into steam in an area that's already filled with air than when it's surrounded by water. This also means that if steam expands where there's already a bubble, that bubble becomes bigger (if the dough hasn't "set" yet). Steam formation from water in the dough actually has a much bigger impact on expansion than the air bubbles alone.

Yeast is not the only way we can get these bubbles, though. Baking powder produces gas too - in the case of double-acting baking powder (which is what I use), there's actually an initial chemical reaction and then a second, heat-triggered reaction which occurs in the oven. By rolling in the baking powder right before the final rising, I'm providing extra "starting points" for bubble formation - ultimately making it easier for bubbles to expand and hold their shape both during the final rise and after the bread is in the oven. This results in a loaf which is larger, less dense, and also lighter, because more water was able to "escape" in the form of steam. 

In the picture at the very top of the page, you can see the split along the top of the loaf from where it expanded during baking. And in the one below, you can see the holes in the crumb of that same loaf (you may also notice the seam from where I rolled up the dough, a possible sign that slightly more water is necessary). This bread is, of course, 100% gluten-free - but it's also free of the major food allergens (making it vegan by default as well). But it looks like real bread, right? Well, that's because it is. Real bread, gluten-free. 

You don't need eggs to get this kind of rise in a gluten-free loaf...just a bit of science!