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In the last few months we have had several threads on rice flour gluten free loaves.  Some seemed more successful than others, and some seemed to be a little quirky as to how well they would bake up without collapsing.  There was also a GF thread the other day, which produced a loaf that looked like bread but used psyllium and xantham gum.  I don't need to eat gluten-free but I got curious. I didn't want to include either psyllium nor typical gums that are often used for GF products so I needed some other approach.

For the last few weeks, Winter seemed to be finally giving up it’s hold on the Northern California foothills of the Sierra Nevada, so we planned a picnic to kick off the next 4 months of picnics. Of course it rained all day and kept to mid-forties temperatures, so we migrated indoors, but the conversation, salads, wine and blackberry pie were still enjoyed by all.

26Apr

I wanted to add the nutty flavor of pecans without using chopped or whole nuts in the bread, so I decided to pulse some pecans with my mini-food processor into a meal. It really added some wonderful nutty flavor to this bake.

As a person with food sensitivity I am very considerate to those like me. But I am aware that everyone can differ in which foods he/she can tolerate. In that respect there is not one GF bread working for all. 

Some people cannot tolerate oats, there is a group of people sensitive to rice. Millet, for most being a very beneficial food, can be not very useful for those with thyroid problems. Some cannot tolerate certain starches. The main binding agents: psyllium and xantan gum both can cause reactions. 

I am pretty happy with this formulation. Time to lock in the par-bake timing. Then I will move on to scaling to a larger sized pie. 

Lumpy ( I named the dough) is almost ready for the oven. 

Today's bake:  Cumin Rye -  Chleb Sandomierski (Poland)

Source:  The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg

Notes: Increase hydration from 79.84% to 83.4%
Substitutions: Fresh milled rye @65% extraction for white rye flour.

Discussion: They say you learn more from your failures than from your successes... 

I’ve been working as a bread baker in the USA and our training (at my bakery at least) is a little lax. Im self taught for the most part but this is my attempt at a sourdough boule. How did I do? I wasn’t able to cut it and take a pic unfortunately. I’m hoping to go to Europe eventually to work with more traditional breads