Easier White Sandwich Bread

Forever unable to leave well enough alone, I kept  tinkering with my white bread recipe after posting it, with an aim to make a quicker, easier version. I settled on an "enriched" white bread that uses milk and eggs. This new recipe is unbelievably easy to put together. The eggs give the loaf a little extra lift in the oven, resulting in a nice, domed top. Happily, it tastes just as good as the original. 

**I highly recommend measuring ingredients with a baking scale. This recipe is really tough to get right measuring by volume.**

Ingredients

• 65 g (1/3 Cup) Sugar
• 165 g (2/3 Cup) Boiling Water
• 280 g (1 1/4 Cups) Milk, preferably whole
• 80 g (1/3 Cup + 1 Tbsp) Oil, any kind, plus extra for greasing pan
• 2 Tsp Guar
• 2 Large Eggs, or 100 g beaten egg
• 9 g (1 packet, 2 1/4 Tsp) Dry Active Yeast
• 40 g (1/3 Cup + 1 Tbsp measured as whole seeds, or 1/3 cup + 2 Tsp measured as ground meal) Golden Flax Meal
• 430 g White Rice Flour (4 2/3 Cups White Rice Flour or 3 1/4 Cups Superfine)
• 180 g (1 2/3 Cups) Tapioca Starch/Flour
• 20 g (1 Tbsp + 1 Tsp) Salt

Special Equipment
  12-Cup or Larger Food Processor 
  9 x 4 x 4 Pullman Pan

Time
 About 2 1/2 hours + cooling time, but very little actual work 

Yield
1 9-inch loaf

Instructions 

Set some water to boil and add the 65 g sugar into the food processor. When the water is boiling, add 165 g boiling water to the processor and mix until no grains of sugar are visible. Add the 280 g milk, 80 g oil, 2 tsp guar, 2 large eggs, and 9 g yeast, and mix again. Let the mixture sit in the food processor, covered or uncovered, for 15 minutes. While it rests, mix the rest of the ingredients together in a separate bowl (40 g golden flax meal, 430 g white rice flour, 180 g tapioca starch, and 20 g salt). Oil your loaf pan. When the 15 minutes have elapsed, add the dry ingredients and mix again (if your food processor isn't big enough, mix the dry ingredients with the wet in a large bowl instead, working quickly.). Scrape the dough into the loaf pan, and smooth it using a flexible spatula or damp fingers. Cover the pan with its lid, and sit it in a warm place to rise. The bread should rise for about 40 minutes, or until it's nearing the top of the pan. At that point, remove the lid and preheat the oven to 350. When the oven is ready, the bread should have risen just past the top of the pan. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes, or until browned. 

The bread can be removed from the loaf pan after 10 minutes to help it cool faster, but should not be cut for at least an hour, unless you'll eat it all right away. When the bread has cooled completely, put it in an airtight container or bag and store at room temperature. Once it's too stale to eat without toasting, slice the rest, and put the slices in the fridge or freezer. 

Amazon Links for Ingredients:

White Rice Flour

Golden Flax

Guar  

Yeast

Tapioca Starch

Loaf Pan

Whole Grain Sandwich Bread

If you've seen my other posts, you may have noticed that I tend toward lighter, white-flour recipes. When it comes to gluten free baking, substantial, brown things are often a dime a dozen. But I do like to venture into healthy cooking sometimes; I know many people prefer whole grain, and this serves as a gum-free sandwich bread that's not lacking in structure and volume. It's perfect for piled-up sandwiches and toast with peanut butter.

**I highly recommend measuring ingredients with a baking scale. This recipe is really tough to get right measuring by volume. It's also very high fiber. If your normal diet isn't mostly whole grains, I'd recommend starting with half a slice, or making white bread instead.**

Ingredients

• 240 g (1 Cup) Boiling Water
• 60 g (3 Tbsp) Honey, or 60 g (1/4 cup) Sugar
• 360 g (1 1/2 Cups) Tap Water
• 85 g (1/3 Cup + 1 Tbsp) Oil
• 8 g (2 1/4 Tsp) Dry Active Yeast
• 160 g (1 1/3 Cups) Ground Oats or Oat Flour
• 40 g (1/3 Cup) Flax Meal
• 25 g (2 Tbsp + 2 Tsp) Ground Psyllium
• 500 g (3 Cups) Brown Rice Flour
• 20 g (1 Tbsp + 1 Tsp) Salt
• Small Handful of Whole Oats and/or Sunflower Seeds (optional)

Special Equipment
  9x4x4 Pullman Pan
  Another loaf pan big enough to act as a domed lid (you can use the normal lid, it just won't rise as high)

Time
  About 75 minutes + cooling time

Yield
  1 9-inch loaf

Instructions

Start your kettle. While it's heating, measure the 60 g honey into a bowl. Pour 240 g boiling water on top of the honey, and stir to dissolve. Add the 360 g tap water and the 85 g oil, and stir again. Sprinkle the yeast on top, stir the mixture, set a timer for 15 minutes, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients: 160 g oat flour, 40 g flax meal, 25 g ground psyllium, 500 g brown rice flour, and 20 g salt, and toss with your hands to mix. If you're using whole oats, whole psyllium husk, or whole flax seeds, these should be ground in a coffee grinder before being added. Get out a whisk and flexible spatula (or whatever you're going to mix the dough with). Grease your loaf pan and have it nearby.

When the timer goes off, stir the dry ingredients into the wet, and quickly pat into the loaf pan. Sit it in a warm place, and cover with the other pan, turned upside down. Set a timer for 30 minutes.

When 30 minutes have elapsed, check to see how much the dough has risen. When it's risen just past the top of the pan, preheat the oven to 450 (preheating will take about 15-20 min, allowing the dough to rise just a bit more, which will make sure the final product, after a little bit of shrinking during/after baking, is the right height). Bake covered (leave the inverted loaf pan on top) for 30 minutes, and uncovered for another 30, or until browned.

Amazon Links for Ingredients:
Dry Active Yeast
Brown Rice Flour
Oat Flour  

Flax Meal  

Ground Psyllium

Pullman Pan  

Baking Scale

Overly-Honest Corncakes

 

Although I can usually tinker and sub out the wheat, it’s always a wonderful surprise when one of my favorite bloggers posts something that’s already gluten free (I can neither confirm nor deny that, in this case, I audibly squealed). What you will find below is a scaled down version of David Lebovitz’s Fresh Corn Cakes. Scaled down and also... well... profoundly, inexcusably inaccurate.

(This post inspired by #overlyhonestmethods, which, if you’ve ever worked in scientific research, I guaran-dang-tee you will find completely and utterly hilarious)

Ingredients

• Two Medium Onions. Mine were red onions.
• 115 g (3/4 Cup) Cornmeal
• 3/4 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 Tsp Salt
• 20 g (2 Tbsp) Unsalted Butter
• 115 g (1/2 Cup) Milk
• 1 Egg, or 50-60 g egg, not counting shell weight
• Pinch of Maple Sugar (brown sugar is a good substitute)
• 1 Ear of Fresh Corn (150 g or 1 cup kernels)
• 1 Jalapeno with the gills and seeds removed, chopped 

Special Equipment
Food processor, 3 cups or bigger 

Time
No more than 30 minutes

Serves
Two as a side

Instructions

Onions were the one change I made to this recipe that was intentional. Well, semi-intentional. By that, I mean that 1) I opened up my fridge and found some onions 2) I have yet to find any food not improved by sauteed onions and 3) I wanted to sit down and procrastinate some more, and could justify that because the onions were cooking. Anyhoo, I sauted them over low heat in a little butter until I suddenly remembered their existence, frantically ran back into the kitchen, and flipped off the burner. They were just shy of inedibly burnt, so I employed the all-powerful phrase “eh, good enough!” and set them aside.

I made the batter in a food processor. Firstly, it’s less work, and secondly, you’re supposed to use finely-ground corn flour, and I didn’t have any. Instead, I decided to pulse the dry ingredients and cross my fingers really hard. Soooo, anyway, I combined the cornmeal, baking powder, and salt, and processed until whatever random fantasy was flitting through my head reached its natural conclusion. I omitted the cayenne, mostly because I was in a caffeine hole, and the thought of pulling down my spice bin made me feel exhausted.

Because my kitchen is like 80 degrees, and thus my butter is more of a nebulous, greasy blob than a stick, I just threw it right on top of the dry ingredients along with the milk, egg, and maple sugar, and mixed. I added the corn and pulsed again quickly. Then I remembered that I had wandered off and gotten distracted by a sale at the Gap website and neglected to saute the jalapeno with the onions, so I just threw it in raw. (Chiles would probably have been better, but I didn’t have any). Then I remembered the onions, and added those too.

I heated a handful of lard until it felt hot-ish when I held my hand nearby. I used a 3 tbsp scoop to portion the batter, because it was on the top of the pile. After the first couple fritters broke, I cranked up the heat a little more. I narrowly managed to restrain myself from using the lard left on my hands as moisturizer. I fried the fritters until brown on both sides. They were delicious.

Better White Sandwich Bread

I don't know about you, but my tastebuds didn't fall off when I stopped eating gluten. Most of the bread recipes I find just make me sad. You know what I mean- mix xanthan with the following nine flours and some eggs- make sure the mung bean powder is organic, get your magnifying glass ready when it comes to the rising step. . . and you're left with a sad, squat little brown loaf that tastes like bread, if you close your eyes, hold your nose, and shoot half a bottle of whiskey before you try to eat it.

What these recipes do wrong is put the onus on the flour mixtures. In fact, flour mixtures matter much less than you'd think, and many specialty flours do nothing but drain your wallet and add strange aftertastes. The magic of gluten free baking happens in the binding agents! And xanthan, though it's really good at sticking things together, isn't the best choice when rise is paramount. Though I couldn't find much precedence for using alternatives, I kept trying because a little voice in my head was very insistent: There must be a better way. This can't possibly be as good as it gets.

Happily, that turned out to be true. The result of my months of experimentation is a loaf that uses a combination of three binders. The first is cooked rice flour- you may have heard this called a water roux or tangzhong. The second is golden flax, which is wildly underappreciated, in my opinion. And finally, a small amount of guar. The combination produces a white sandwich loaf that is so clearly real bread that you may find yourself doubting that there's no wheat flour in it even after making it yourself. If you're nervous about making your own bread, check out the YouTube video at the end of the post that shows all the steps. Enjoy :-)

**I highly recommend measuring ingredients with a baking scale. This recipe is really tough to get right measuring by volume.**

Ingredients

• 65 g (1/3 Cup) Sugar
• 165 g (2/3 Cup) Boiling Water
• 25 g White Rice Flour (1/4 Cup White Rice Flour or 3 Tbsp Superfine)
• 370 g (1 1/2 Cups) Tap Water
• 80 g (1/3 Cup + 1 Tbsp) Canola or other Oil, plus extra for greasing pan and painting loaf
• 10 g (1 Tbsp + 2 Tsp) Golden Flax Meal
• 1 Tsp Guar
• 9 g (2 1/4 Tsp) Dry Active Yeast
• 430 g White Rice Flour (4 2/3 Cups White Rice Flour or 3 1/4 Cups Superfine)
• 180 g (1 2/3 Cups) Tapioca Starch/Flour
• 20 g (1 Tbsp + 1 Tsp) Salt

Special Equipment
  12-Cup Food Processor
  9 x 4 x 4 Pullman Pan
  Spray Bottle
  Pastry Brush

Time
 About 2 hours + cooling time

Yield
1 9-inch loaf

Instructions 

Set some water to boil, and add the 65 g (1/3 cup) sugar into the food processor. When the water is boiling, add 165 g (2/3 cup) to the processor and mix until no grains of sugar are visible. Add the 25 g (1/4 Cup) white rice flour and blend again. (This must be done in the processor- the flour will clump otherwise). Pour the water, sugar, and rice flour mixture into a small pan, and cook, stirring, over medium heat, until large bubbles appear in the middle and the mixture has thickened. This should take just a couple of minutes on a gas stove, maybe a little longer on electric. Return the cooked mixture to the food processor. Add 370 g (1 1/2 cups) tap water and 80 g (1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp) oil and blend briefly to equalize temperature. Add 10 g (1 tbsp + 2 tsp) of ground-up golden flax seeds, 1 tsp guar, and 9 g (2 1/4 tsp) yeast, and blend thoroughly. Take the lid off the food processor, and allow the contents to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. This will allow the guar to gel, as well as giving the yeast time to eat the sugar and multiply.

When 15 minutes have passed, Add the 430 g (4 2/3 cups) white rice flour, 180 g (1 2/3 cup) tapioca starch and 20 g (1 Tbsp + 1 Tsp) salt to the food processor and blend again. Oil your loaf pan well, and scrape the dough into the pan, flattening it out as well as you can. Holding the spray bottle about 12 inches from the pan, mist the top of the dough lightly with water. Dry off the lip of the pan, and cover tightly with plastic wrap, adding a rubber band to hold it on if needed. Sit the loaf somewhere gently warm; on top of your fridge or near the pilot light on your stove should work well. Let it rise for about 40 minutes, or until the dough is almost touching the plastic wrap.

Set an oven rack on the second-to-lowest position and preheat the oven to 350. When the oven is preheated, remove the plastic, mist again, and cover the pan with its lid. Bake 10 minutes, remove lid, paint the top of the loaf with oil, and return to the oven for about 45 more minutes. Rotate partway through baking if it seems to be browning unevenly.

The bread can be removed from the loaf pan after 10 minutes to help it cool faster, but should not be cut for at least an hour, unless you'll eat it all right away. When the bread has cooled completely, put it in an airtight container or bag and store at room temperature. Once it's too stale to eat without toasting, slice the rest, and put the slices in the fridge or freezer.

Amazon Links for Ingredients:
White Rice Flour
Golden Flax
Guar 
Yeast
Tapioca Starch

Food Processor
Loaf Pan
Spray Bottle

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found myself dancing between two pitfalls as I tweaked this recipe. The first was that Universal problem of Gluten Free Flatness (UGFF, if you will), where the cookies come out as sickly, sprawling things. The second was overcompensation, soft, puffy cookies with a cakelike mouthfeel. An improvement over the cookie puddles, but not quite right. The addition of sweet rice flour adds the perfect chewy mouthfeel amidst the all-over softness. My wheat-eating friend has been happily gobbling up the castoffs all week. 

Ingredients

• 150 g (2/3 Cup) Butter, about 1 Stick + 2 1/2 Tbsp
• 95 g (1/2 Cup) Sugar
• 105 g (1/2 Cup) Brown Sugar
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1 1/2 Tsp Xanthan
• 105 g Glutinous Rice Flour or Sweet Rice Flour (1 1/4 Cup Glutinous Rice Flour or 3/4 Cup Sweet Rice Flour)
• 40 g White Rice Flour (1/3 Cup White Rice Flour or 1/4 Cup Superfine Rice Flour)
• 65 g (1/2 Cup) Tapioca Flour
• 4 g (1 Tsp) Baking Soda
• 5 g (1 Tsp) Salt (reduce by half if using salted butter)
• 340 g (2 Cups) Chocolate Chips, one full bag

Special Equipment

Cookie Scoop (optional)

Time

About 30 minutes, if you have enough cookie sheets

Yield 

Around 30 standard-sized cookies

Instructions

Move one of your oven racks to the center of the oven if there’s not one there, and preheat oven to 350 F. 

Nuke the 150 g (2/3 cup) butter in a medium bowl until just soft enough to blend. Add the 95 g (1/2 cup) sugar, 105 g (1/2 cup) brown sugar, and, making sure the bowl and butter are no more than lukewarm, the 2 eggs.  Add the 1 1/2 tsp xanthan, making sure to drop it in the middle of the bowl rather than along an edge. Mix the contents of the bowl thoroughly.

Weighing or using the scoop and level technique to measure with cups, combine the 105 g (1 1/4 cups) glutinous rice flour, 40 g (1/3 cup) white rice flour, 65 g (1/2 cup) tapioca flour, 4 g (1 tsp) baking soda and 5 g (1 tsp) salt, reducing the salt to 1/2 tsp if you used salted butter.  (If you're feeling strong, you can skip mixing the dry ingredients separately and just stir them in really well.)

Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients, and then mix in chocolate chips. The batter is very dense, and I find that a wooden spoon and a silicone spatula work best. If you’re using a hand mixer, stop and let it rest if it starts to feel warm.

Roll the cookie dough into balls (or use a cookie scoop)

These cookies usually take 9-12 minutes in my oven. If you don’t have an oven thermometer, I recommend you start checking them at 7 minutes. They are ready when they are just the tiniest (TINIEST!!) bit browned on the outside edges. 

You should really, really buy a baking scale

In the US, most of us grow up measuring with cups and spoons. We think of baking scales as sort of weird, complicated, and expensive, if we think about them at all. Nothing could be further from the truth; they are small, cheap (a perfectly good one costs about twenty bucks) and save dirty dishes. They also ensure that the cookies you’re making are the same as the cookies I’m making. Even after testing my measuring cups for accuracy and triple checking the flour densities that my conversion spreadsheet uses, the cookies I made when I measured by volume were significantly different than the original. They still tasted good, but they looked slightly odd. For some ingredients, like sugar, measuring with a cup is perfectly fine and there is hardly any error. For things like flour, that’s not the case at all. Even if you’re measuring properly, by scooping in the flour and then leveling it off, the amount of error is significant (and that’s not even considering how wildly different measuring cup sizes can be). Another huge benefit to cooking by weight is that it becomes much easier to scale a recipe up or down, without ending up trying to measure 4/5 tbsp or 3/8 cups. It’s nice to be able to cook just as much as you want, and being able to tinker without wasting a lot of ingredients (and knowing that you’ll be able to reliably reproduce your results) is likely to make you much more willing to experiment in the kitchen.

TL;DR: BUY A COOKING SCALE. JUST DO IT. 


Amazon Links for Ingredients:

Xanthan
Glutinous Rice Flour
White Rice Flour
Tapioca Flour

Cookie Scoop
Oven Thermometer
$20 Baking Scale

Sweet Rice Flour (Certified GF)
White Rice Flour (Certified GF)
Tapioca Flour (Certified GF)

Pizza Crust

Ingredients

• 135 g (2/3 Cup) Boiling Water
• 35 g (3 Tbsp) Sugar
• 40 g (3 Tbsp) Oil or Fat (canola, vegetable, soybean, olive, schmaltz, whatever ya got)
• 120 g (3/4 Cup) Cornmeal (the regular stuff: not grits, polenta, or masa)
• 1/2 + 1/4 Tsp Xanthan
• 9 g (1 Tbsp) Dry Active Yeast if baking within a couple of hours, 1/2 Tsp if making ahead
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 30 g Sweet Rice Flour or Glutinous Rice Flour (3 Tbsp + 1 Tsp Sweet Rice Flour or 1/3 cup Glutinous)
• 105 g (1 Cup) Tapioca Starch/Flour

Special Equipment
  Food processor (optional)

Time
  About an hour

Makes
  Approximately a 10-inch pizza, serves 1-3 people

Instructions
Bring your 135 g (2/3 cup) water just to a boil, and, in a bowl or your food processor, immediately mix in the 35 g (3 tbsp) sugar thoroughly. It's important that all the sugar gets dissolved in the water, since we want it to be eaten by the yeast. Leftover grains of sugar will leave an undesirable sweet taste in the dough and cause it to brown too fast in the oven. Add the 40 g (3 tbsp) oil and 120 g (3/4 cup) cornmeal, mix well, and test the temperature. If the mixture is more than lukewarm, make large strokes with a spoon or flexible spatula to cool. Add the 3/4 tsp xanthan and 1 Tbsp yeast, mix again, and scrape down the sides of the bowl so that the mixture is all together. Set a timer for 15 minutes. It's important not to skimp on this- it makes for a robust yeast population, as well as hydrating the cornmeal, so that you get a smooth dough rather than a crumbly mess.

When the 15 minutes have elapsed, add the tsp salt, 30 g (3 tbsp + 1 tsp) sweet rice flour, and 105 g (1 cup) tapioca flour and mix. When I'm not using a food processor, I like to use a flexible spatula and my hands for this. If using a plain metal pan, oil the pan and leave the oil on your fingers to help you press out the dough. If you're using a pizza stone, go ahead and put it in the oven and turn the oven to 450. If you don't have a peel, I recommend pressing out the dough on the counter or another flat surface, flipping it over onto the back of a pan that has extra cornmeal sprinkled on it, and then forming the crust. Either way, you're just going to form the dough into a ball and press with your fingertips from the center- treat it like playdough. When you've achieved your desired size, fold over the edges and squish them down to form a crust. Put the pizza in a warm place to rise for at least half an hour. If you're using a regular metal pan, you can preheat the oven to 450 about 20 minutes before you're ready to bake the pizza. Add the sauce, cheese, and toppings just before you're ready to bake the pizza. If you're using pasta sauce, it's a good idea to mix it with an equal amount of tomato paste- spaghetti sauce is really too thin, and can separate and make the crust soggy. Bake 15 minutes, or until it looks done.     ****************

Amazon Links for Ingredients:
Xanthan
Cornmeal
Dry Active Yeast
Glutinous Rice Flour
Tapioca Starch

Sweet Rice Flour (Certified GF)

Modifications and extra notes
Rapid Rise yeast is fine if you have it around, but it doesn't seem to speed up the process much. I don't think polenta or grits will work in place of regular cornmeal, because they're too coarse. Masa may work; substituting by weight you'd want 1 cup of it to sub for the cornmeal.