April 24, 2008 - 6:40pm
Breads made with exotic flours
I went down to our local mill and purchased some exotic flours the other day. I want to use them as additions to our favorite whole wheat recipe. I was just wondering if anyone else has worked with these flours and has some good recipes for them. I started out today by adding some quinoa to the recipe and it came out dense, but boy was it good.
Thank in advance.
Lydia
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What sort of flours were they?
Yum Quinoa flour??? wow! I LOVE Quinoa!
TGB
Sorry, I totally forgot the list the flours I picked up. I got the following, kamut, quinoa, amaranth and spelt. I want to try using the kamut and spelt as replacements for our regular bread flour along with our white whole wheat flour then add the others as additions to my basic recipe. I am doing another double batch of the bread I made yesterday because all 4 loaves are gone now. LOL Guess the family liked them a great deal. I am interested in any recipes that someone is willing to share or just some information on how to use these flours.
Blessings,
Lydia
Well actually my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and husband are all gluten intolerant. So I have been trying to develope a recipe that would work for them. They all miss being able to eat bread as they knew it. My husband and sister-in-law will still eat wheat products, but then suffer from extreme low energy. It would be nice to be able to make them something that they could eat.
We also have a number of friends who are want to add more protein to their diets and beings the quinoa will create a complete protein in wheat bread then I wanted to use it. For the most part though I want to learn to use the flours to create some recipes for my family.
Blessings,
Lydia
while I have a vegitarian in the family. When I read about the protein, my jaw dropped. I ordered a cook book and it's packed full of ideas. Chiefly one can substitute 1/2 of the wheat flour in any recipe with quinoa (for the other 1/2 I use spelt.) I use spelt all the time. For bread, I have yet to try a 1/2 substitution with quinoa. I do prefer to soak or cook quinoa first, eat half for breakfast (like oatmeal) and put the other half into bread. Important is to rinse under water first. This removes some bitter taste. As this proposes problems with grinding, good if your climate is dry, one solution is to rinse well and spread out thinly to dry. Then grind flour. Sprouted seed can also be eaten.
"Exotic flours" conjures up a stage for me, little velvet curtains & exotic dancers; with little grain seeds dressed in feathers and bright lights doing the Cancan.
My cherry/walnut spelt/ap muffins are done!
Mini O
I added quinoa at a smaller percentage then half of my wheat flour. I didn't want to go overboard beings my recipe already had a few other items in it that were very low in gluten and I didn't want to discover a lump of dough in my rising bowl after I was done. I think my recipe ended up with about an addition of 15% quinoa. The bread actually turned out quite well, but I forgot to set the loaves on their sides to cool and they did a bit of falling back on themselves. No matter though, the family ate them and from the 4 loaves of yesterday we are now down to one loaf, which may not last till noon. I should have thought ahead and through some flour in water to make some more bread again today. One thing is for sure, my mixer is getting a good workout.
I would also be interested in some good suggestions for bread cookbooks that deal with whole grains of all kinds.
Blessings,
Lydia
This sounds like a neat project you've embarked on. I don't know anything about gluten free bread-making, though I've had success converting a number of sweets to gluten free for a friend's son; just used rice flour instead.
I have, however been playing around with both kamut and spelt recently, and the family likes both. The spelt I've used instead of whole wheat, with no changes to the recipe, though I agree with tadmitchell that you really have to pay attention to developing the gluten. I just do lots of extra stretch and folds.
Kamut has been a little trickier in bread; it's pretty hard to avoid having it be quite dense, so it's mostly showed up here in combination with white bread flour. I just realized last night that we had no sandwich bread in the house, but didn't have time to make bread today, so threw together the NYT no-knead bread, subbing in kamut for 1/3 of the white flour. After it had risen about 11 hours, I did a series of stretch and folds every 30 - 45 minutes for the next 3 hours, which really seemed to strength the dough alot. It was actually the lightest kamut bread I've made yet. Very tasty, too.
Kamut also makes the best Toll House cookies ever; just replace all of the white flour with it. Very nutty and crunchy!
Keep us posted; I'm looking forward to adding quinoa to some bread soon.
edh
I love using alternative flours in my bread. I haven't tried kamut and am not a big fan of spelt, but love quinoa and amaranth. As others have commented, using more than a small percentage of these flours will reduce rise, and also tend to make your bread more crumbly. The usual solution is to substitute smaller amounts - I've gotten away with up to 50% quinoa, but I wouldn't try more than 25% amaranth.
While it doesn't appeal to everyone, I do sometimes bake loaves consisting solely of alternative flours. Keep in mind that these are only "bread" in the sense that they are the result of combining flour and water; other than that, they tend to resemble very thick crackers. That being said, I find the texture a pleasant change of pace (though it is not at all like wheat bread, obviously) and the flavor outstanding. In fact, while typing this, I think I've decided to make a 100% quinoa bread on my next baking day...
Anyway, just an idea - like I said, it's certainly not for everyone, but I enjoy it.
I like the nutty flavour Kamut gives in bread. I substitute about 20% of the bread flour in a hearth bread with it and is enough to add character.
I really like baguettes with a bit of white spelt.
I posted a nice gluten free buckwheat bread made with a buckwheat sourdough starter I grew. There are other flours in it as well (rice, millet, soja and corn). My blog is
www.aulevain.canalblog.com
but it's in french. If you're interested I can translate it.
Jane
Jane,
I would be very interested in the recipe for your gluten free buckwheat bread. When my sister-in-law heard that I was playing with some flours she got very excited. I am trying to learn all the different characteristics of the flours so that I can find out which ones might be interchangeable with others.
Tomorrow I want to try increasing the quinoa in the recipe I created here. My biggest fear is that the bread won't come together very well. I know it isn't a gluten free bread, but right now we are just loving experiencing the new flavors.
Blessings,
Lydia
This is a bread I make regularly for a friend. She loves buckwheat which is a very strong flavored flour. You can also substitute a portion of the buckwheat with more dark rice flour or even millet, quinoa, etc. White rice flour is very bland, so don't put too much. You can play around with the flours but buckwheat absorbs a lot of water so you have to modify the water since other flours will take less. Add it a little at a time so as not to put too much. The seeds are for taste and nutritive elements.
I made a buckwheat sourdough starter in the same manner as a regular one and it works great!
Gluten free buckwheat bread
Gluten-free buckwheat sourdough
200 g rice flour (but the dark kind)
150 g buckwheat flour
100 g fine corn flour (not meal and not starch)
sunflower seeds (I put my hand in the box and pull out a fistful of each type of seed)
sesame seeds
flax seeds
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1,5 tsp salt
150g buckwheat sourdough starter (or 1 1/2 tsp yeast)
warm water (add 300 g and then add little by little until desired consistency obtained)
1 tsp guar gum or agar-agar powder (Optional!)
In a bowl, mix all the ingredients with a wooden spoon. It should be thick but stirrable, like a cake batter. If it is too thick and dry it'll cook up like a block.
Pour the batter in a lined bread pan. Cover with plastic.
If using starter, let it rise about 6-7 hrs depending on the temperature. If you're in a rush, you can add a little bit of yeast in the initial batter to speed it up and you'll still get the nice texture from the starter, with a less tangy taste. Or you can use only yeast. It'll rise a lot faster!
When you see that the dough has risen substantially and the top is splitting, preheat the oven to 210°C (410°F) Bake 30-40 min. Make sure the center is cooked because buckwheat tends to look cooked on the outside, but isn't in the inside! You can take it out of the pan and brown the sides.
Let cool WELL before slicing!
I bought a 50# bag of kamut and grind it as needed. It produces a fine gold flour that colors a loaf nicely. I have never had a problen getting good gluten formation but I never made a 100%kamut loaf-now that I think about it. I always mix my flours. I also have not had a problem with bread being too dense. That is taken care of in the technique-autolyse,stretch and fold,overnight rise in refrig or whatever. Like any whole wheat, it needs time to evenly absorb all the moisture and time to rise.
HAve delicious fun!
Have a look here. They discuss mashing exotic flours to help improve their stabilty -
http://www.farine-mc.com/2012/09/scott-mangold-test-baking-with-local.html