GLUTEN-FREE BREADS AND BAKING

[First posted 26th September 2013]

I ran a couple of breadmaking sessions (making pain au chocolat) at a SureStart centre here in Taunton this morning – one for dads and their kids, and one a general drop-in for families.

After a conversation with one of the mothers about gluten-free breads (her husband was trying to avoid wheat and dairy) I said I would post something on the subject on my blog.

So here’s where I’ll try and gather all the info that I have about gluten-free breads and baking.

Firstly, some of the GF breads and cakes on this blog:

Socca - gram flour pancakes, socca made into an 'omelette', traditional pancakes, chocolate cake, scones. (There's more - just put 'gluten free' into the search box)

And I have a recipe for a GF loaf of bread further down this post.

GARLIC BATONS - in the oven and frying pan (Vegan)

Saturday 1st July 2017
Since I began teaching at Taunton Association of the Homeless, a couple of years ago, I've made quite a bit of bread in a frying pan, along with the students. When they find accommodation, they may not always have an oven, but they may well have a hob and a frying pan. 

Last week the students on my current Burnham breadmaking opted to make garlic batons, as below, in the oven. So I wanted to see how these would fare, making them in a frying pan.

I used self raising flour, as I often do, these days:
Put the frying pan on a medium heat
100g s/raising flour
Pinch of salt
65ml water

Mixed into a dough and kneaded for a minute or two
Roll out into a rectangle a bit shorter than the frying pan

Garlic spread:
3 cloves garlic, smashed 
Heaped dessertspoon vegan spread -mixed together

Spread the garlic, et, over the dough and roll it up tightly.

Using a little flour and a rolling pin, flatten the dough and place it in the frying pan with a lid of some sort. Bake for 4 minutes each side - the colour should finish up a golden brown. 

Not like this one...

I baked it too long on both sides.

Still tasted gorgeous, though!

I made one for my neighbour - his verdict was, "Stunning!"

Sometime back in 2011.
Whenever I'm offered garlic bread at a gathering it's almost inevitably a supermarket baguette, cut into chunks, slathered with butter and garlic and baked for a while. It's OK, but it doesn't have the depth of flavour of these batons, where the bread and the filling are cooked together. Vary the filling as you will, with herbs, pesto, etc. As a vegan, I use olive oil instead of butter.

Garlic batons. Dough rolled out flat, covered with mashed garlic and olive oil, then rolled up like a Swiss roll

This method infuses the whole loaf with garlic

Ingredients:

400g strong white flour of your choice

1/2 teaspoon salt

250ml lukewarm water

1 rounded dessertspoon fresh yeast

Good splash of olive oil

Filling:

Garlic spread made with around a dozen or so cloves of garlic, peeled and squashed, and olive oil to taste. Mix in any herbs or spices you fancy. Spread with pesto to give it a bit more oomph.

Method:

1. Measure the water and stir in the fresh yeast. Place the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, pour in the yeast liquid, then add the olive oil.

2. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary, remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Begin to mix by stirring the ingredients together with a knife, cutting through the dough. When it gets too stiff for the knife, use your hand to squeeze the mixture together. As it forms into a solid mass, keep turning it over and pressing it down to pick up the flour at the bottom of the bowl – but make sure it stays soft. Don’t be afraid to add more water to keep it soft! When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead.

3. Knead by stretching the dough out, folding it over, stretching it out and so on and so forth. Do this until it is smooth – or until you get fed up! Either leave it, covered, for an hour or so, or go to step 4.

4. Divide the dough in two and form each piece into a round bap shape. Roll each piece out into a large rectangle – about 20cm by 30cm on a floured worktop. Spread the filling all over the dough and roll each piece up like a Swiss roll, with the seam side underneath. Gently tuck the ends underneath to stop any leakage. (You’ll still get a bit.) Place them on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment.

5. Leave to prove until they have risen appreciably.

6. Bake at 220C, 425F or gas mark 7 for between 15-20 minutes. Look for colour underneath.

MY DAILY BREAD (from the BBC Food Messageboard Archive)

For several years until its demise in 2011, I posted regularly on the BBC Food Forum - which was supported by a lively community of foodies, who freely contributed advice and swapped recipes and was  a hive of activity*.

I've recently rediscovered the Messageboard archive, which is still there for anyone to access - and found a long-running thread I ran about my breadmaking activities which I thought would be of interest to the readers of this blog.

I began the thread in February 2007 and my last entry is in Nov 2010. I had a lot more teaching in those days - at times 25 hours a week - and I wrote about practically every bread made in my sessions. There were recipes from other posters, of course, and, all in all, I consider it to be a pretty good resource for anyone interested in breadmaking.

*There were two offshoot forums from the BBC Boards, created and administered by former BBC posters:

Wildfood, and The Food Board Refugee Centre

Both are well worth seeking out.

Easy and cheap - Sausage rolls with wholegrain mustard

(makes 12  parcels)

Ingredients:

400g (or 2 mugs) strong white flour

1/2 tsp salt

250ml (or 2/3rds mug) lukewarm water

1 rounded teaspoon fresh yeast

Splash of olive oil (optional)

Plus:

6 vegan sausages (Linda Mac's or Fry's)
Wholegrain mustard

Method:

1. Place the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Measure the water and stir in the fresh yeast. Pour in the yeast liquid and add the olive oil if using. 

2. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary. Remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Holding the bowl with one hand begin to mix by stirring the ingredients together with your fingers. Check how the dough feels as you mix – it should stay soft and squidgy – and add more flour or water as needed. When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead. 

3. Knead by flattening the dough out, folding it over and flattening it again. Knead until the dough becomes smooth – and then stop before you get fed up!

4. When you are ready to proceed, take the dough out of the mixing bowl and place it on your worktop. This time, don't 'knock the dough back'! Just divide the dough into 12 pieces. 

5. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and each sausage in two. Flatten a piece of dough down with the heel of your hand into an oval shape. Turn it over to loosen it from the worktop and place a smear of mustard along the middle, then place the halved sausage over the mustard. Form a parcel by bringing the ends of the oval over each end of the sausage. Now bring the top and bottom of the oval over to meet each other. Pinch these two sides together and roll the parcel gently between the palms of your hands. Place on a lined oven tray with the join underneath. 

6. Cover and leave to prove until they have grown appreciably in size. Bake at 220C, 425F or gas mark 7, for about 15 minutes.

VEGAN BREADS - Index

[I'm still working on this post, putting in the links to all the breads is time-consuming. If there is no link attached to the bread you're interested in, simply put it in the search box, and you should be directed to the recipe.]

Index of vegan breads:

Apfel kuchen (German apple cake)

Bagels

Bara brith

Belgian buns

Bialys

Bread bowls (from these to trenchers)

Calzone (soda bread calzone) baked in a chiminea

Canapés

Carta da musica

Chelsea buns (undercover)

Chocolate and banana bread 

Chocolate and beetroot bread

Chocolate and cherry bread

Chocolate loaf

Chocolate twist

Christmas loaf

Ciabatta

Cloche method

Cornbread

Crackers – poppy and sesame seeds

Creole soda bread

Croissants

Danish pastries

Devonshire splits

Doughnuts

Dumplings

Farthing buns

Focaccia

Fougasse

Fougassette

Fruit braid

Fruit loaf

Garlic batons

Grissini

Hot cross buns

Hot cross buns

Hungarian chocolate bread

Iced buns

Jam tart

Lardy cake

Loaves

Marzipan and apple tartlets

Mushroom en croute

Naans

Pane casereccio

Pane cioccolato (Italian chocolate bread)

Pane frattau

Pannetonne

Parathas

Pasties

Peshwari naan

Petit pain au chocolat

Pierogis

Pies (Thai, ratatouille, apple)

Pikelets

Pirozkhis

Pittas

Pizza (2 red pizzas)

Pretzels

Quick breads

Reindeer droppings

Rolls

Schiacciatta con l’uva

Soda bread

Sourdough

Spelt loaf

Spicy fruit buns

Spicy fruit naan

Swedish tea ring

Tempura

Trenchers

Yum yums

ALL bread should be vegan - that is, made with flour, salt (which can be omitted), yeast and water. That's it!

That's Real Bread as defined by the Real Bread Campaign (RBC).

"Real Bread is that made without the use of processing aids or any other artificial additives."

"Additional ingredients are great as long as they are natural...and themselves contain no artificial additives."

I teach breadmaking - in a variety of settings and to all manner of groups - that's my job. Necessarily, this involves me in making bread that is not vegan. It's always vegetarian, however. Of course, all the breads that I make for my own consumption are vegan. 

Unfortunately, my wife is a confirmed omnivore - when I announced I was going to be a vegetarian, her response was, "Don't be so bloody silly!" :) "And what about our Sunday roast chicken? And Christmas - what about our turkey?" (This was in November, 2001.) 

I'm a man of peace and compromise, so for five weeks I was vegetarian during the week and had roast chicken on the Sunday. I had the turkey at Christmas and I have been a vegetarian ever since - becoming a vegan around 2004.

So, not all of this blog is vegan or vegetarian - but the point of this post is to steer my fellow vegans away from any recipes that aren't vegan.

In this post I want to emphasise and feature - and link to - all the breads I make that are vegan - the great majority.

I want to look at the different 'natural' ingredients that recipes often call for, that aren't vegan, and, either discount them altogether, or suggest alternatives:

Eggs. Eggs are completely unnecessary in bread - and there is no necessity  for any egg replacement. None! Ever!

As an aside, eggs (or egg replacements) are also unnecessary in:
Pancakes
Cakes
Pasta 
Pastry

Butter. Where ever you see this in a recipe, replace with a similar amount of olive oil. (I use Lidl's - or Aldi's - Extra Virgin Olive Oil which is cheap, and comes high in the Which? Magazine tests.) But as a general rule, you can use as much or as little as you choose.  Olive oil adds flavour and helps keep the bread fresh for longer. Other vegetable oils don't seem to add much to bread - with the exception of the sunflower oil in which dried tomatoes have been soaked. When this oil is added to a pizza dough, it makes a wonderful crust - crisp, a little like short-crust pastry!

Cheese. This is used mainly as a pizza topping, in breadmaking - and, as you'll see, there are so many toppings that can be used in its place. Not as a cheese replacement, but as flavoursome toppings in their own right. Otherwise, in cheese rolls for instance, vegan cheese or other tasty alternatives can be used.

Meats of all sorts. Not even in mincemeat! :) (Although in the US some still quaintly believe that this Christmas-associated ingredient should contain meat! Ugh!) Not necessary in any shape or form.

My Daily Bread (3)

This is the third post with this title. The first, begun in February, was fairly long - and the second, begun in May, was even longer.

In future I shall try to start a fresh post once a month.

In these posts I chronicle my daily breadmaking 'adventures'. In truth they mainly detail the various breads I make in a working week - and those I make at home. But occasionally,  as in the wood-fired oven pizza events I run occasionally, or the Occupy Bristol workshop I held this week, it truly is an adventure - in that I'm never sure how these things are going to pan out.

I try - but don't always succeed - to link to the recipe of any bread I mention on this thread. But 99% of the time, if you put the name of the bread in the 'Search this blog' box, you'll be directed to the recipe.

(To keep this post on the top of the page, I shall date it a week or so in advance.)


Tuesday 6th December.
Breadmaking at Williton today I was introduced to a  bread I'd never come across before, called a 'Manchip'. One of the students, Diane, was kind enough to bring in enough for everyone. This bread is apparently indigenous to Bridgwater, because I can find it nowhere else (google all you like!):

As you can see, it's a layered bread a bit like a croissant, but straight, about 15-18 cms long, and with jam running through the middle. It's finished with sugar sprinkled over the top.

Monday 5th December.
Taster session at the hostel for the homeless in preparation for a course I'll be running in January.


I met one of the guys who'd attended my course at the hostel earlier in the year - Brian. He told me he'd been making bread in the hostel ever since. In fact he'd made all the bread for a reception for the mayor the previous week. The guests were under the impression that the bread had been brought in, but Brian had made it all!


The session was a taster session, offering pizzas and other breads, and we had quite a good response. In the end we made:
Pizzas:

Chelsea buns and petit pain au chocolat:

 And croissants:

Here's hoping for a good turnout when I do a couple of sessions in February (would be January, but the kitchen is having a complete refurb).


Sunday 4th December.
I've loads to add - but this is the main event - The Taste of Christmas Show.


Thursday 1st December.
Used the first session today practicing for Sunday's competition - trying to work out whether walnuts or almonds are best; or if cinnamon works better than mixed spice. Didn't come to any firm conclusions one way or another.


So we made 4 celebration loaves - and one batch of Marmite grissini, for Sarah, who much prefers savoury to sweet!

One loaf was half-eaten before I could take a pic! The closest one could have come out of the oven a couple of minutes earlier!

In the afternoon Matt made a celebration loaf - but with curry. Guy and Will made ring doughnuts, but I forgot to take a pic of these. Eric made this:

The now obligatory chocolate cake - with Melissa applying the icing

Tuesday 29th November.
Had a phone call this morning to say that the new student - Samantha - wouldn't be joining us at Williton this afternoon. A house move had suddenly got in the way. We might get to meet if I run a course in Bridgwater next year.


The session went well, with students making pizzas, sizzlers, jam doughnuts and a chocolate and banana loaves.


It's very noticeable how much more relaxed students are about the process of making bread - I just write the ingredients on the board, and the students go ahead and make their dough. They're no longer beginners.


Monday 28th November.
I was told the finalists for the Taste of Christmas event would be informed by noon today - so I was keeping an eye on my inbox up until about 3 - by which time I'd given up.


However, when I checked about half an hour ago - I was given this message:


Dear Baker


Congratulations! You have been selected as one of the shortlisted entrants into the Taste of Christmas Best Cake in Show Competition!


So I need to get myself and my entry to ExCel, London, by 12 noon on Sunday. My daughter will accompany me (I get two free tickets) so I'll stay overnight with her in Basingstoke and travel up in the morning.
I was going to start my preparations tonight by soaking the apricots in Benedictine - but there's not enough left in the bottle. I'll have to get some more tomorrow. I'll also pick up some good quality sultanas, mixed peel and also some angelica. One thing I won't do this time is include any Benedictine in the liquid for the loaf - and I'll make sure I fold the fruit in very carefully!


Sunday 27th November.

I've been asked to contribute a Christmas recipe to this 'Taste of Christmas, Best in Show' event, judged by Eric Lanlard. I only noticed this evening that the competition closed at midnight tonight - so I've just sent my entry off.

It won't surprise anyone that I've gone for my Christmas loaf:

I'm not sure I did the loaf justice - you've only got 50 words to describe it, and I was a bit rushed. Still, we'll see.

It'll certainly disrupt my plans for next weekend if I make the shortlist! :)

But I'm not holding my breath!


Saturday 26th November.
Made pizzas for dinner - a potato pizza for my wife, and a vegan one for myself.


Friday 25th November.
Finally made the yum yums this morning in my Family Learning group (Barry was very pleased!), along with cheese and tomato pizzas.


Thursday 24th November.
Made a variety of breads today: In the first session at the care home we made two rosemary focaccias, a couple of pizzas and a ciabatta:

Before...

...and after. I'm always surprised by how much a ciabatta rises

Whenever I make a ciabatta I wonder why I don't make them more often. It really is an easy bread to make.


In the afternoon we made the now obligatory chocolate cake and a variation on a theme by Matt:

Curried grape and glace cherry bread - plus a vegan chocolate cake. (I  know which I'd rather have!)

 - plus a chocolate schiacciata con l'uva. (No pic I'm afraid.) 


Tuesday 22nd November.To Williton this afternoon for the second session of this 5-week course. Made a variety of focaccias, pain au chocolat and iced buns.


Saturday 19th November.

Lovely weather encouraged me to fire up the chiminea again - first time for a while. I have it down to a fine art, now - 4 pizzas within an hour and 20 minutes, start to finish. (Story and pics here.)


I really need to be more organised to utilise the heat after I've finished making pizzas. As it was I just cooked about five large potatoes in there for future use. Next time I'll make sufficient dough to follow up the pizzas with a focaccia or similar.




Friday 18th November.
Family Learning session - second week in. Loaves of bread and Pudsey bear bread:

Went everywhere for the Pudsey Bear cutter, finally found one in Lakeland

100s and 1000s, chocolate chips and - marshmallows. All we had to decorate Pudsey with

Made with a simple sweetened bread dough,

Thursday 17th November.

Spent the first session making different Pudsey Bear shapes practicing for Children in Need. Only three students in my second session - Eric made a vegan chocolate cake, guy made some currant buns and Matt - well, Matt made some interesting shapes

Here's Matt with his sweetened curry bread cutting out shapes and sandwiching grapes in between!

Once again, that's Mel applying the finishing touches to the cake

Spent Thursday evening perfecting the Pudsey Bear recipe - and failing to send the details off in time

! :(

Wednesday 16th November.
One-off Family Learning breadmaking session at Hamp Recreation Centre (instead of Hamp Primary School - they didn't have a classroom big enough for the 36 participants!) this afternoon. 17 families with 19 children - and each child made a batch of fancy dinner rolls. 


It was a thoroughly enjoyable session. At the start I asked everyone who thought breadmaking was easy - or difficult?
A couple of families - whose mothers both made bread - said they thought it was easy. The rest were either unsure or thought it was difficult.


After each family (with the children doing most of the work) had made a batch of rolls - and fancy shapes, I asked the question again, "Who thinks breadmaking is easy?" and received a unanimous "Yes!" from the group.


Here's some pics of the results:

Tuesday 15th November
First session of the Williton Course this afternoon. Seven new students (should have had 9, but only had 7) who all made a soda bread (either plain or spicy fruit) and some fancy dinner rolls.


Monday 14th November.
Busy week ahead:
Coffee morning tomorrow - but have to leave early as I begin a 5-week 'Breadmaking made easy' course at Williton at 1.00pm - and it's about 15 miles away.
Wednesday morning my friend Paul is coming round to help me set up my new (2nd-hand) MacBook - which means I'll finally be able to watch iPlayer, YouTube, etc, which my current computer won't allow me to view!
Wednesday afternoon I have a one-off session of Family Learning at Hamp Primary School - breamaking with an emphasis on numeracy. I've just been told the session has been moved to the nearby Hamp Recreation Centre since the numbers are too great for the classroom. 
17 families have signed up - that's 34 participants! I will have two support workers for the session so it'll be do-able. I'll need to take my ovens to supplement the commercial oven they have at the centre.
Following this I have my annual review with my line manager!
In the evening I'm giving a talk about Atheism/Humanism to a group of Christians! The title of their monthly meetings is 'No holds barred', so it should be extremely interesting!
Then on Thursday and Friday I have my usual care home and primary school sessions.




Friday 11th November.
Began a new Family Learning class today - 2 mothers and 2 fathers, which is great! Each family made 2 soda breads - one plain and one spicy, fruit loaf.


One of the fathers had previously done the course with another of his children - when asked what breads we should make on the subsequent weeks of  the course, his response was emphatic, "Yum yums!"he said, and told the others just how tasty these were. So that's what we're doing next week, along with loaves of bread.

Thursday 10th November.
In the first session in my weekly care home, wishing to practice my new-found skills, we made - parathas! I took along some more curried lentil and potato for the filling and they turned out rather well. We used a stock cube instead of salt in the dough to give more flavour. And, as Emma (one of more support workers) said, a little curry powder in the dough would be good!

As I've said before, I think, Emma and I have worked together in my breadmaking sessions in various care homes over the past 18 years. She's only recently taken up breadmaking seriously - and last week, for her 4-year-olds birthday she made some smiley-faced pizzas and some crackers, which drew serious plaudits from her guests, I'm told!

These were done in the oven rather than a frying pan - and, as the sliced open one indicates, they could have been rolled out flatter and contained more filling. Having said that, I had a couple for lunch and they were very jolly tasty! 

In the afternoon session, once again I was prevailed upon to make chocolate cake - this time making 2 doz chocolate fairy cakes (vegan, of course!):

Wednesday 9th November.

Visited Occupy Bristol today. This was the day I'd been planning for for the past few days - and I had a ball, I have to say. The occupiers made me very welcome - and I left feeling as though I was leaving old friends. I shall have to go back, I think!

Yum yums

Ingredients:
1 mug or 200g strong white flour
1 dsp sugar
1 teaspoon fresh yeast
1/3 mug or 125ml lukewarm water
Good splash olive oil

Plus:
50g of any spread, including butter (traditional), cut in slices and placed in the freezer
Icing sugar

Method:
1. Place flour and sugar into a mixing bowl, followed by the yeast. Pour the water over the yeast to start it dissolving and add the olive oil.

2. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary, remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Begin to mix by stirring the ingredients together with a knife (starting with the yeast first, to dissolve it properly), cutting through the dough. When it gets too stiff for the knife, use your hand to squeeze the mixture together. As it forms into a solid mass, keep turning it over and pressing it down to pick up the flour at the bottom of the bowl – but make sure it stays soft. Don’t be afraid to add more water to keep it soft! When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead.

3. Knead by stretching the dough out, folding it over, stretching it out and so on and so forth. Do this until it is smooth – or until you get fed up!

4. Cover and leave to prove for an hour, then put it in the fridge until you're ready to proceed. Or go to step 5.

5. On a floured worktop, roll out the dough into a rectangle about 30cm by 15cm and place the butter in slices evenly over two thirds of the dough. Fold the unbuttered side over to the middle, covering up half of the buttered area, then fold that over the rest of the buttered dough. Roll it out gently, fold it as above, place in an oiled plastic bag and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Or, go to step 7.

6. Take the dough out of the fridge, roll and fold it as before, then place it back in the fridge for another 30 minutes.

7. Roll the dough out to a rough 25c by 25cm square. Cut it across the middle, then cut each strip into 4 or 5, so you finish up with 8 or 10 strips of dough.

8. Give each strip a half twist and place them on a prepared baking sheet. Leave to prove until doubled in size, then bake for 15-20 minutes (220C, gas 7) until golden brown.

9. When cooled, ice the yum yums – on each side if you like!

Sardinian carta da musica

Ingredients:
140g strong white flour
60g yellow semolina
1/2 tsp salt
125ml lukewarm water
1 teaspoon fresh yeast or teaspoon of dried active yeast or half a sachet of fast action yeast

Method:
1. Measure the water and stir in the yeast until it’s dissolved. Place the flour and salt into a mixing bowl and add the yeast liquid.

2. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary, remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Begin to mix by stirring the ingredients together with a knife, starting with the yeast, cutting through the dough. When it gets too stiff for the knife, use your hand to squeeze the mixture together. As it forms into a solid mass, keep turning it over and pressing it down to pick up the flour at the bottom of the bowl – but make sure it stays soft. Don’t be afraid to add more water to keep it soft! When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead.

3. Knead by stretching the dough out, folding it over, stretching it out and so on and so forth. Do this until it is smooth – or until you get fed up!

4. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, using the side of your hand to cut through the dough. This has the effect of forming the dough into rolls as you cut.

5. Roll these out as thinly as possible and leave to prove on some baking parchment until the dough is risen and puffy.

6. Switch the oven on to 240C and bake for about 10 minutes, checking after 5, and turning them if necessary to make sure they are cooked evenly. They should puff up like balloons.

Note:
I've found the best way to bake these is to have a heavy metal tray heated in the oven to act as a bakestone. Have the baking parchment with the dough on top of an upturned baking sheet, then slide the baking parchment onto the hot tray. You'll probably have to bake these in batches.

Ariannina, on the BBC Food board (whose mother is Sardinian), made some suggestions about possible uses for these breads, one of which was Pane Frattau – it was complete surprise, and absolutely gorgeous. One I have done often, since.

Thanks, Ariannina!