Gluten-free Cheddar and Sesame Bread (13 of 42)

In this installment we again try gluten-free baking.  For this bread I used egg substitute, Cabot 50% Reduced Fat Cheddar, and toasted sesame seeds.  When I mixed up the dough  the consistency seemed pretty good.  It actually seemed a bit more stiff than the usual dough.  Since my last gluten-free loaf had been too wet, I thought I was making progress.  But then after it rose the dough was beyond wet, it was soupy.  I decided to see what chilling it overnight would do, and it got a bit better, but it was still pourable rather than kneadable.

 The first labor was to make a loaf in a pan.  Instead of working in more flour, as I had with the previous gluten-free bread, I just poured it into the bread pan and let it rise.   It rose well.  When I baked it I did not use water in the broiler pan, I had enough "wet" already.   I baked it longer than called for, since it was so wet and since I had used more of the dough batter than called for since I had quite a bit.  The bread had pretty good oven spring.  Despite the consistency of the dough this bread turned out surprisingly well!  It was really very tasty, but then with all the cheese and sesame seeds it would be hard not to be tasty.  And it had a decent crumb.

I am not sure where I went wrong, although Michelle wrote in our Discussion Group  that she had the same issues,  so at least I was not alone.  I did not weigh the ingredients as I usually do, because I did not want to take the time to track down the conversions for all the different flours.  I did feel that some of the flours were harder to accurately measure since they were so fine and I was not sure whether to pack or sift.  I am looking forward to seeing how everyone else did with this dough.

Next we were to use the same dough for bread sticks.  I was not sure how I was am going to get this soup into bread sticks.  I decided to just work in some extra brown rice flour (not used in the recipe but I had quite a bit of it)  but not to add more of the other ingredients.  I pulled poured out an orange sized piece and worked 1/4 cup of flour into it.  That helped, but I had to work almost another 1/4 cup in before I could roll it well.

I rolled it out (since no one eating it needed it to be gluten-free I used AP flour to dust the board and rolling pin, to conserve the more expensive flours), cut it with a pizza cutter and arranged it on my silicone mat. Note the ones with the decorative twists!

I sprayed the bread sticks  with olive oil,  sprinkled with salt and Parmigiano Reggiano, then let them rest a few minutes (to recover from all that kneading in of extra flour) before baking for 15 minutes.  Despite my concerns, they turned out great.

 Since I had some dough batter left, I made another loaf, just pouring it into the pan.  I thought this bread was very tasty, and I am really hoping some of the other bakers adapted this recipe to a non-gluten-free-whole-wheat version that I can try.

On an unrelated note, as you all know from the previous post, we spent the last episode on location, in Maine, where they have top-loading hot dog (or lobster roll) buns.  Several years ago I had gotten a pan to make these from King Arthur Flour, but had only tried to make them once.  On the drive home it occurred to me to try making them with HB in 5 dough.


I followed the instructions at Hot DOG! This bun pan does double duty but used the Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich dough.  I filled the pan about 1/2 full (a tad less would have been fine).  After letting it rise, I put Reynolds Wrap® Non-Stick Foil over the top (instead of greasing the bottom of the cookie sheet as suggested), covered it with a cookie sheet, and weighted it with my Souse Pan.  (According to Wikipedia Souse is a head cheese pickled with vinegar.  Head cheese is not really cheese but is "a meat jelly made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig (sometimes a sheep or cow) in aspic."  ( I have never made, or eaten, head cheese.  But I like my pan, which I have had for years, and you never know ...)).

 I baked them covered for 18 minutes, then uncovered for a few, as suggested.  At that point they were not browned enough, so I baked them about 10 minutes longer. (Next time I will try 18 and 18.) 

The buns turned out very well.  I turned them out of the pan, sliced them most but not all the way through, cut them apart, buttered and grilled the sides, and used them for Chicken Sausages.

 

That concludes this fortnight's lesson. Next time it's Four-leaf Clover Broccoli and Cheddar Buns and  Mesquite Bread.  Be sure follow the links at Big Black Dog to see how everyone else fared with this assignment.

Banana Bread Revisited

Several of the bakers last time, myself included, thought that the banana flavor in the Whole Wheat Banana Bread as a bit subdued.  Interestingly, the most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated had a recipe aimed at addressing the same issue in banana quick breads.  Their solution was (duh) to use more bananas.  When I made the half recipe for the last post, which called for 1 cup of mashed bananas, I used 2 large bananas, which came out to be a bit more than 1 cup.  Cook's used 6 (six) bananas per loaf! (5 in the dough and one sliced on top.)  Their trick, in addition to being sure to use ripe bananas, was to cook the bananas in the microwave for 5 minutes to get them to extrude their juice, and then drain the bananas in a sieve over a bowl for 15 minutes.  Alternatively, Cook's says you can use defrosted frozen bananas (freezing is a great way to save ripe bananas for baking or smoothies, just peel before freezing, trust me) since they will also extrude their juice, just be sure to save the juice as you defrost them.

Cook's then reduced the juice on the stove so as to not make their batter too wet.  I did this, but I am not sure it was necessary for the way I used the juice.  The half recipe called for 3/4 cup of water, so I put the reduced juice in the measuring cup and added water to get 3/4 cup.  So I boiled off the water and then added it back.  Reminds me of the two boys (girls are smarter than this) walking home from school one spring afternoon when the came across a puddle full of frogs.  The first boy said "bet you $5 you won't eat one of those frogs."  Not able to turn down a dare, the second boy ate a frog and got $5.  The first boy observed that he could not believe his friend had actually eaten the frog.  This prompted the second boy to say "bet you $5 you won't eat one of those frogs."  Again, faced with a dare, the first boy ate a frog, and got his $5 back.  The boys continued on, and as they reached home the first one asked the second "why did we eat the frogs?"

After draining  the 5 cooked bananas I measured them, and had about a cup, which is what the recipe called for, so I left that alone.  Other than that, and adding some extra cinnamon and walnuts, I made the half recipe as before.  I baked the entire batch, using a slightly larger loaf pan.  Being in for a penny, I went in for the pound and added a sliced banana on top.

 

The verdict?

I did  not notice any difference from the batch with two bananas.  My saintly wife and not only perfect but red-haired daughter thought it tasted a bit more of banana, but not much. But with three times the number of bananas there should have been a big difference.   Which makes me wonder if the whole grain is either muting or overpowering the fruit flavor.  That is what Michelle speculated when she was disappointed with her Cherry Bread.

Well, since there there is no such thing as failure, only feedback, I  thought I would share my experiment.