Gluten = Glutton

Gluten: a tenacious elastic protein substance especially of wheat flour that gives cohesiveness to dough (courtesy of m-w.com)

Glutton: one given habitually to greedy and voracious eating and drinking (courtesy of m-w.com)

Okay, you know how I am about ‘texture’. To be perfectly honest I love Wonder Bread. For all it’s useless nutrition, air-filled slices, it’s texture is heaven. And that’s what does it, the air in the bread gives it that chewy, yummy texture that I crave. No, I don’t eat Wonder Bread any more, my *white* bread choices run to Orowheat potato or buttermilk bread (more substance with good texture). That’s what has kept me from just eating the top of the warm bread and leaving the rest of it for the family. Now, It’s like, “MINE, MINE, MINE, make your own bread”. What more can I say, Gluten has made a glutton out of me.

Gluten can be purchased from Bob’s Red Mill in a small bag. If you take out 1/2 of cup of flour from your recipies and add in 1/3 cup gluten you’ll create more stickiness in your loaf, causing more air to be trapped during the proofing and rise thus a chewier and more store like bread. The up side of this is you will have more protein in your bread, more spring in your slices and more nooks and crannies to hold the melted butter when you toast it. I’ve also noticed with gluten, the bread doesn’t seem to want to crumble when you want to make a sandwich out of it.

Going Nutty

People consider me a bit nutty because when I find something new I completely immerse myself in the process and learning everything I can about it….whatever it is at the time. So, while doing research for Gluten Free flours for bread I had this epiphany: Why can’t I use these flours in gluten-rich bread. I normally try something when I’ve seen it’s been done by someone else, and then make variations around that. I’ve never heard of almond bread…or almnd enhanced bread (if that’s a better way to put it). I’m trying to perfect a hight protein lower carb bread that will keep my carb-hating, fat-avoiding, and politically-vegetarian family members happy.

Nuts. Nuts have a high protein, low carb, okay kinda fatty but in a good way source to plump up the bread in a healthy way. Bob’s Redmill offers Almond meal/flour and though I bought it for my gluten-free experiments I thought I’d add a bit to my bread pale and see what happens. And what happened was pure magic. It gives the bread a more complex taste, the texture is heartier but not necessarily heavier. It toasts like a dream, and don’t even get me started on the heavenly french toast it made for dinner a night or so ago. I’d recommend this process to anyone that wants to perk up their whole wheat bread. It’s worth the %5.00 investment in a small bag of Almond flour for the extra protein (about 16g of protein for a 1/2 of kernels….I don’t know how many are in a half cup of meal…sorry, I’m not that good at puzzles) and a richer flavor is well worth it.

The Beginning of the Apprentiship (Originally posted18 July 2009)

I remember back in the day when my mom would re-enact the archaic process of baking bread instead of buying it from the store. Don’t get me wrong, the end product was worth her toil and work in the kitchen, from my stand point, but I didn’t see how spending hours mixing, kneading, raising (if that’s even the right word) the dough and then baking like 10 pans of bread and then another three pans of rolls off set the effort put in. You’d think this would last the family a while…nope. The family would descend on the house as if they could see the aroma tattooing a ‘done’ time over the house that she had been baking all day.  After the feast we’d be left with a few loaves of her work and the rolls would have been devoured with the home made vegetable soup she would make along with the bread.  Those times of “depression soup” and “grandma’s bread” were some of the best olfactory memories of my childhood.

Childhood is long over and my reality is, I don’t cook. And if I cook, it’s quick and easy and doesn’t use every bowl and measuring cup in the kitchen.   Clean-up needs to be even easier than the cooking. So, I’ve learned the difference between artisan breads in the stores, the art of making soup from starters and a crock pot. My other likes to think she can recreate those memories but in reality she doesn’t have the strength to throw around dough and vessels of soup any more. So, those smelly memories seemed to be gone with her strength. Until last week. My neighbor moved out and took only his TV and clothes and left behind a bevy of useful items….including a bread maker. I’ve been pricing them, and comparing them, and truth be told, it’s not the one I’d pick for myself, but you can’t beat the  pice…especially when it still works.

This is what I’ve learned from bread making thus far….

1) Bread that doesn’t have the normal shape still tastes the same.

2) Pre-mixed bread mixes are expensive, comparatively to just buying the bread outright at the store. (Even more so when you buy it from the bread thrift store)

3) Four hours and you have a perfectly serviceable loaf of bread, that if you don’t tell anyone you’re making, will last in my family anyway 2.25 days.

4) With a simple process in place I could do this on a regular basis instead of as a treat like in the olden days.

5) This will give me more control as to what I put in my body, which is what we all want.

This has sent me on a quest for good, well balanced recipes and ingredients for bread machine recipes. I’ve found a great site…

www.bobsredmill.com

This site has gluten free and full on gluten mixes that will work in my machine, plus all the different ingredients I might want to purchase to make my own. Obviously, I’m not going to be buying wheat or white flour from this site, but some of the other wheat looks intriguing.

So, I am about to embark on my new odyssey of baking bread and I agree to keep you posted. I would love it if you could share with the group your bread  machine or oven recipes and what you’ve been doing in using your food storage on a daily/weekly/monthly basis so we can all grow from our collective experiences. 
From the home of the hopeful baker,
Pamela