CAphyl's blog

Keep Trying Gluten-Free Sourdough Bakes

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I keep trying to improve my gluten-free bakes.  It is so hard to achieve anything close to my gluten loaves, but I did have some improvement on this one.  I altered the recipe slightly (see below).  The dough is difficult to work with and doesn't hang together too well, so you have to stick with it. It is also a very heavy loaf...very filling.

Challenges and Success from my UK baking

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Hello everyone:  I have been off-the-grid for some time while I was traveling, as we don't have the best internet access when we are in the UK.  I will have to catch up on everyone's bread posts while I was away.

Semolina Tartine

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I have never made this bread before, so I thought I would give it a try. I modified the original recipe a bit, as I have described below. Another TFLer found the recipe, and I used that, with some modifications. The original recipe link shows how to build the 100% rye starter from scratch, but I used my existing starter and saved that step.

Dough All Over Days

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It is one of those days that started with bread and will probably end with bread.  I've got dough in different stages and plenty caked on my hands. I have been experimenting, too, and it's been a bit mad. I have been pushing the limits of cold fermentations and began making one bread and then made another with the same dough!

Multi-Grain Sourdough with Porter

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I have never made beer bread before, so I had to do it, inspired by dabrownman's 16 grain and some other wonderful beer breads I have seen on this site.  My husband is a real beer guy, so the first order of business was not to use a beer he wanted to drink.  Someone got him some porter, and it is not his favorite, so I had my start. I should point out that I do not like beer, which is strange for a girl originally from Milwaukee. 

Seven Grain Levain

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I have had a lot of fun making a five grain levain recipe over time, and I wanted to add more grains and play around with hydration and fermentation on this bake.  The recipe below is an adaptation of Hamelman's five grain levain.  This time around I added pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and poppy seeds to the other grains: bulgur, sunflower seeds, oats, flax seeds and cous cous. Maybe it's really eight grain; not sure if all the seeds count as grain!

Lots of Baking Over the Holidays

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I did a lot of baking recently, but wasn't able to post very much as we had family visiting.  They left today to return to the snowy midwest, so I will get back to a normal baking schedule.  We did have a wonderful time over the holidays, and I will miss them.

My niece loves sourdough, so I made quite a bit of bread during their visit.

Sourdough Bread Makes a Great Gift

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Sorry I haven't posted for some time as I have been busy with the holidays and visiting family (they are still here!)  I did bake a number of loaves of bread as gifts for friends, and that seemed to go over well.

Sourdough Experiments

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I have been experimenting with different flours, different bulk fermentations, cold vs room temperature proofs, shaping, banneton vs. no banneton, etc. to see how the various changes would make a difference in the final bread.  I also tried different scoring patterns.  I really had fun.  I used combinations of AP flour, WW flour, rye, spelt and bread flour for the different breads. Most of the time, I used a variation of Classic Sourdough recipe below, often adding more ww, rye and spelt; one time I made five grain levain loaves with the soaker.

Gluten Free Bread 2

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I used the start of Nicole Hunn’s  “No-Rye Rye Bread” for this recipe, but altered it quite a bit.  Gluten-free bread is frustrating, but I really wanted to make a sourdough loaf that improved on my last effort.

I made a sourdough starter from gluten-free flour and kept it in the refrigerator.  I used Nicole’s recipe, but it is confusing and complicated, so when I refreshed it, I just used gluten-free oat and tapioca flours the first time and buckwheat and brown rice flours the second time.  It perked up very well.