The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

dairy free

Marc Brik's picture
Marc Brik

I am not a baker. I am a chef, and therefore I got my own ideas how food can work.

I wanted a cinnamon bagel fine crumb with a nice tough crust. No egg, butter, milk or oil.

Right I did do a little research about lye, baking soda, potato water, blanching, rolling and oven temperature

Make potato water:

  • 180 gr nice golden potato can be any like annabel or agria
  • 1 ltr water

cook the potato, no salt. cool down and blend

make a starter by mixing:

  • 3 C bakers flour
  • 1 C rye flour
  • 1 t active dried yeast
  • 3  1/2 C room temprature potato water (will be creamy)

place everything in a kitchen mixer use a hook, I use a kitchen aid, wait until everything is mixed and put on full until the dough starts to crawl up the hook. This can take 10 minutes.

Covered the bowl with plastic and left it to double in volume on the bench

Back under the machine with the hook and add:

  • 3 C bakers flour
  • 2 t malt flour
  • 1/2 t dried active yeast
wait until everything is mixed and put on Medium low until the dough starts to crawl up the hook. This can take 10 minutes.
add: 
  • 1  1/2 t iodised fine salt
  • 1 C currants (dry)
  • 2 t mixed spice (cinnamon, cardamom, anise, clove)
mix very well. easy to follow just look at the colour of the spice, don't worry about the currants.

I placed the dough in a large plastic container with lid and wrapped it up in a blanket. until again double in volume.

divide into portions of 100gr and round up

 

 Bring a pan of water to the boil (apprx 5ltr) add 2 T malt flour mixed with a little cold water, and 1 T baking Soda

push your index finger through the middle and make an even hole in the middle (even better: roll into a ribbon and connect the ends with a little water, press to hold)

leave on baking paper covered tray for another 20 minutes under a cloth

blanch the bagels in the boiling water for 1 minute (1/2 minute each side, flip them over in the water) 

pre heat the oven top and bottom heat 260°C no fan (500°F) 

place back on the baking tray and let them cool, meanwhile they will rise a little

place the tray in the middle of the oven, lower the oven to 230-225°C (450°F) bake for 22 minutes 

let them cool!  let them cool! let them cool!  time will give the crust it's toughness and the bread can settle.

very nice with some aged cheddar, or dried salami it's worth the wait

 

Have fun making them and bon appetite

 

bread10's picture

Alternative Hot Cross Buns

April 6, 2011 - 8:56pm -- bread10

Hello,

 

I am aware that their is a lot of threads regarding hot cross buns but as the title suggest I am looking for an alternative to the ordinary hot cross bun due to health reasons.

 

Requirments:

* No modern Wheat - I was thinking maybe 100% Khorasan / Kamut flour as this will probably give the lightest result without using wheat??

* Sourdough rather then bakers yeast as it is better for my digestion and will add to the flavour.

mmmyummy's picture
mmmyummy

Merry Christmas and Happy Channukah,

In my first post to this addictively delicious site, may I ask folks out there for recipes for sufganiyot, or yeasted doughnuts, typically served on Channukah?  I would especially appreciate recipes that do not contain dairy products.  If anybody has a sourdough version that you like, I would love to try it.  Come on guys, we have 8 days so let the games begin...

 

sharonk's picture
sharonk

Most people associate pancakes with maple syrup, butter and fruit. Since I have had to stay away from sweets I have begun to use pancakes in a different way. I use them as a savory grain side dish to accompany soup, beans, and stew, sometimes even tearing them up, putting them right in the soup or stew. I use them as part of a snack with unusual toppings and spreads like peanut butter, tahini, chopped liver, salsa or gravlax (home cured salmon).
The high proportion of nutritious ingredients makes these pancakes a substantial part of a snack or meal.

We normally flip a wheat pancake when bubbles form around the edges. With gluten free pancakes we need to wait another few minutes after bubbles form because the extra moisture and density of the batter takes more time to cook properly.

Allow at least 7 hours of fermentation time after feeding the starter before using the starter in cooking. This will ensure your flours are properly soaked before cooking and eating.
So that means if you feed the starter in the morning the batter will be ready for pancakes for dinner. If you want pancakes in the morning feed the starter the night before.

 
Sourdough Pancakes – Basic recipe

For pancakes: prior to cooking, have the last feeding of the starter be ½ cup of buckwheat or gluten free oat flour and slightly less than ½ cup of water. Let ferment 7 hours. A pure rice flour starter tends to be on the thin, soupy side and buckwheat or oat flour will give the pancakes some needed density.

For 4 pancakes:
1 cup mature brown rice flour sourdough starter (including the last feeding of buckwheat and water)
1 tablespoon oil, melted butter or fat
A large pinch of salt
1-2 tablespoons freshly ground flax seed (grind in a dedicated coffee grinder)

Mix oil, salt and ground flax seed into starter
Let sit for at least 15 minutes to allow the flax to thicken the batter. The batter should be like a thick cake batter.
If the batter is too thick whisk in a little water, a tablespoon at a time, until you get the desired consistency
 (The batter can also sit for up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. The finished pancakes will be thinner and lighter)
Oil pan or griddle and heat to fairly hot
Spoon or ladle out the batter onto the pan
These take longer to cook than wheat pancakes so flip a few minutes after bubbles show up or the edges start to dry out.
Cook another 1-2 minutes and serve.

You can also cool them on a rack and refrigerate in a container for a 3-5 days. Just reheat them in the toaster.

sharonk's picture
sharonk

I see a lot of sourdough starter recipes that call for commercial or dried yeast. For those of us who chose not to use yeast it is possible to create a starter without it. Before the invention of commercial yeast all sourdough starters and breads relied on the natural yeast in the air for leavening. I’ve made many successful wheat and rye starters with just flour and water. They fermented easily and made wonderful breads. After I learned I was gluten (and dairy) intolerant I tried to make gluten free starters using the same technique I had grown accustomed to for the wheat and rye breads: a 7 day sourdough starter. With gluten free flours 7 days did not work well. The starter turned a moldy shade of bluish green. I experimented, searched the webs and learned that gluten free sourdough needs to be fed 2-3 times a day unlike wheat/rye starter which can be fed as little as once a day.

I was able to create a brown rice starter in about 4-5 days using only brown rice flour and water but it smelled almost spoiled and the bread was unpleasantly sour. (one wonders why I would go forward and bake something that smelled almost spoiled, but I was determined to follow through so I could learn all the ins and outs of this) Someone suggested that I try a small amount of Water Kefir, a non-dairy fermented drink, to give the starter a boost. This made all the difference for me because it cut the fermenting time down to 3-4 days and never moldered. I have come to greatly depend on this success-every-time starter.

Fermented drinks are an important part of my diet. They have helped me repopulate my digestive system with probiotics and enzymes enabling me to fully recover from health challenges. Water Kefir culture is a colony of bacteria and yeast that, when fed sugar, creates lactobacillus into the liquid which then becomes available to us in the form of a drink. It can also be used to soak grains and beans before cooking. It then boosts the predigestion process that happens when grains and beans are soaked. It does the same for the flour in the starter making the finished bread more digestible. It also speeds the fermentation process.

Kombucha Tea is another fermented drink I make at home, that can be used to boost a starter, although I find the fermentation time to be slower than with the water kefir. For people able to eat dairy products, Milk Kefir or active Yoghurt could be used to boost a gluten free starter. Just add 2 tablespoons of any of these fermented products to your starter when first mixing it up. I save a bit of this starter to start the next batch and store it in the refrigerator. If I haven’t used it after 2 weeks I take it out, let it come to room temperature, feed it with rice flour and water, let it sit (and ferment) for 4 hours and store it back in the fridge. Creating a new starter with this bit of previously fermented starter cuts the fermentation time from 4 days to about 2 days!

I make a quart of water kefir at a time and use it to soak grains and beans before cooking. I also drink it in small amounts as a digestive aid before meals. It becomes effervescent and is very refreshing. I bought my first batch of water kefir culture for under $30 including shipping. With care these can last indefinitely and as they add probiotics into my diet I save money as I no longer need to buy bottles of probiotics.

Here are very succinct directions for making Water Kefir:

Nearly fill a wide mouth quart jar with water.

Add 2 tablespoons sugar, stirring to dissolve, 20 raisins and a slice of lemon or lime.

Add the contents of your bottle of water kefir grains into the quart jar.

Cover with a paper towel or cloth and secure with a rubber band. 

When raisins float to the top, scoop them and the lemon slice out and discard.

Ferment the water kefir for 6 more hours on the counter with the paper towel.

Then store in fridge and use as needed.

When you have used the liquid down to about an inch in the jar start a new batch in a new jar and pour the water kefir grains plus the liquid their in right into the new jar, cover and ferment.

You can order water kefir culture (as well as kombucha and kefir culture)  at www.culturesforhealth.com. They send dehydratedwater kefir grains with instructions for rehydrations.

 

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