100% Buckwheat Gluten-free Bread With Yeast Water
I started to experiment with yeast water made from raisin or pears and wanted to test if it is possible to make 100% buckwheat flour bread that is actually gluten free. Buckwheat is quite popular here in Slovenia. "Ajdovi Žganci", the Slovene word for buckwheat maize porridge, is a typical Slovene food prepared by farmers.
The recipe is simple: in my case I used 900g of freshly milled buckwheat flour (milled on my own mill at home), added 1000g of water, 20g of salt and 3 tablespoons of psyllium and 30g of olive oil. A day before I have used 30g of raisin yeast water and 30g of buckwheat flour to prepare the levain. After doubling I added another 100g of water and 100g of buckwheat flour and waited about one hour that the levain started to raise rapidly. Then I have mixed everything with handand put in a model covered with parchment paper. The dough was proofing in my oven at 35 dC until it doubled. Then I just turned on my steam oven with max amount of steam and baked at 230 dC (the maximum available temp) for 45 minutes (the oven had to warm up within this time) and then without steam for next 15 minutes at 210 dC.
The bread turned out great and was quite soft although still quite dense, but much better what I was actually expecting. The raisin YW performed a great work.
I am eagerly waiting for any comments and suggestions for improvement.
Happy baking, Joze
Comments
My cousin will certainly be very interested and I will be passing your recipe onto her if you don't mind. Might try it myself first though. Time to revisit raisin yeast water.
Give me a few days to source the raisins (difficult to find raisins with no added oil and sulphites) and make the yeast water. Will let you know what I think.
You are welcome to pass it to your cousin. I started to experiment with gluten-free bread because our neighbor grandchildren have problems with gluten and she is looking for a good recipe for preparing gluten-free bread. I was lucky to get some really local buckwheat grown less than 2 miles away from my home which is also 100% organic.
I am eagerly waiting for your post with the results and happy baking!
so bear with me. Will start the raisin yeast water asap (I used to have one but didn't keep it going) and hopefully have it ready by this weekend. If not then next weekend. What's drawing me to your recipe is its simplicity but looks far batter than any of the more complicated recipes out there. My cousin has been on a quest for a good gluten free bread for ages and has almost given up. If I can present her with a good recipe, namely yours, then she'd be really happy.
Thank you!
My hydration was around 110%, but I am sure it could be even higher. I will try with 120% next time. I will also try this recipe with instant yeast by preparing kind of a buckwheat poolish a day before and add some yeast when mixing the dough. I made this bread only two times until now and have always increased the hydration by 10%. Plenty of room for experimenting.
Happy baking, Joze
The loaf rose and baked very nicely and you have discovered that GF does not have to be complicated. It is merely a form of batter bread, which was popular in the 50's and 60's. I liked that you used psyllium. It is less likely to cause any tummy upset in susceptible individuals. If the bread texture seemed too moist after cooling, try a little less psyllium.
Working with GF dough is a lot like working with high percentage rye. I shape the top of the loaf with wet hands into a dome as it does not rise a lot. The individual slices appear more "normal" when cut.
Slashing is not only not necessary but will contribute to gas bubble loss and a denser loaf. The challenge is to keep the bubbles trapped by the dough as there is no tough gluten strands to hold it in. If you want to appear slashed, imprint it with an edge or finger without actually cutting into the surface.
Raising this dough (proofing) is tricky to time. As bubbles break the surface, they lose their lift power. You want this bread to lift and then be set and captured. The pan sides hold it up so you never want the edges to rise to the lip of the pan or higher. That is why GF bread pans have higher sides.
When I cool my bread, I leave it in the pan to cool on its side as the crumb tends to collapse. The crumb sets nd holds as it is cooled. Kind of like an angel cake.
I would try your recipe using a mix of buckwheat and other GF flours, as just buckwheat can have a strong flavor. I like using a mix of white rice (the trick is to find finely ground), brown rice and tapioca flour. Teff flour adds a nutty taste. Millet can be sweet but also very bitter as it goes rancid very quickly. Same with sorghum.
The best GF white bread recipe I ever had was a buttermilk based from a yeast company website.
http://redstaryeast.com/gluten-free-farmhouse-buttermilk/
Of course it is not yeast water and has xanthan gum but because of the enrichments, it was very tasty.
Have fun!
Very difficult to find unadulterated raisins. I have found unsulphured dried apricots, the very same kind I made my very first YW with, and hopefully will be done by the weekend. It's quite warm at the moment.
If one shouldn't allow bubbles to reach the surface, and it won't rise like a normal dough, then how would I judge when the batter ready to be baked?
You said that buckwheat would be too strong a flavour. I came across sorghum in the shop just now and it has a high protein content as well as a sweet flavour. Sounds interesting. How much would you recommend to add to the mixture? And for future reference do you think a 100% sorghum bread would work?
Thanks for the comment, clazar123!
The bread has really strong buckwheat flavor, maybe too strong for some people. However, I am used to that taste as one of my favorite dishes is buckwheat porridge, a typical Slovene dish seasoned with lard and bacon. So probably I am not the right person to judge it as I just simply adore that taste.
The reason why I have used buckwheat flour is in fact that I simply have it and that those ingredients you have mentioned in your comment are not local and for some I even don't know if I can get.
Thanks for your great advice about the GF bread. A very good description and great suggestions.
I will follow you advice and also try the recipe you suggested. I just need to get the ingredients. I have no problem with gluten so I am preparing the GF bread just as a favor for my neighbors.
Happy baking, Joze