Monday 8 November 2010

Testing , testing, one two three testing ...


As I am still having a problem loading photos from my camera to my blog, I have had to download Picasa again and am trying to load from there to here.
So if piccies end up inside out, upside down and generally it all goes tits up just bear with it please!

So.
First up, some more attempts at gluten free baking. Sheesh!
I can manage edible pastry and edible yorkshire puds and pancakes, so that's a good start. They aren't brilliant but they definitely aren't horrendous.
Bread, that's my mission, to make a good loaf of gluten free bread. I used to bake a lot of bread and really enjoyed it, and a decent stodgy doughy thick sliced loaf of bread is something I miss a lot, laden with butter, ohhhh yes! Gluten free bread in general is pretty dire stuff, some of it just needs spitting straight out again.
The nicer ones available from supermarkets are Genius, M&S and the latest from Glutafin (their others are in the spit it out category). But none resemble a 'real' loaf of bread.

So I tried.



Erm ... you don't need to knead gluten free dough, it's wetter than proper bread dough, and quite frankly this lot looked and smelt like playdough. But I followed the Doves Farm recipe to the letter, left it to rise (erm ....) and baked it.
That lovely smell of freshly baking bread? Nope, none of that either.
A loaf appeared.

It looked awful.
It tasted worse.



Bizarrely it actually tasted of nothing very much. I double checked on the web site and it looks almost exactly how it should - but blimey, there's no pleasure in eating this! Plonked some out for the birdies - they ignored it. Chucked the rest in the bin and I wish the bin men well in lifting it.

Next try - gluten free fruit scones.
Now I tried these last week or the week before and didn't get piccies - and yes, they were shite too!
So I tried a different recipe which was much better, and tried yet again with a bit of recipe tweaking.


Not brilliant, but not too bad ....

 and these actually smelt like scones and pretty much tasted like them, miles better! Very cumbly and they don't rise much but yes, I was pleased with this improvement - so back to the bread making at some point.


Last November

January

And today.
Marvellous eh!

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5 comments:

Sweet Camden Lass said...

Try making Nigella's banana bread and chocolate brownies by substituting Dove's Farm flour and throwing some extra vegetable oil into it. Both work really well!

I like the Genius bread: the person who made it has written a gluten-free cookery book too, there might be a recipe in that. How to Cook for Food Allergies by Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne (haven't read it, but Mum wants it for Christmas).

sulkycat said...

thank you! i have paul vickerys gluten free baking book which is supposed to be excellent too, and plan on working my way through that asap (and freezing things for after my op)

Judith said...

I make the gluten free bread recipe from Doves farm flour and it works well for me but I use the recipe for breadmakers. I changed the liquids and now use 1 egg, 30ml oil and 360g of milk (usually dried milk powder 36g made up to 360g with water)plus I add 1 crushed 500mg vitamin C tablet ( cheap from Boots)I also often mix the flour using 50g of GF brown flour and 400g of GF white flour.I have used the same mix for pizza bases and rolls. It seems to benefit from being a sticky, wetter type of dough and the breadmaker takes a lot of effort out of it. I do find it does not freeze very well and that it is better toasted after the first day.
It makes good breadcrumbs that you can use for crumble toppings or savoury dishes as well!

sulkycat said...

thank you judith, will give that a try - please keep them coming, any glkuten free recipes always very welcome!

Rebecca said...

lol - could interchange last nov and today's pics!
as for the gluten free bread, good luck! OMG i can so empathize with you needing a decent slice of yummy toasted bread with hotsalty butter dripping on it. KEEP TRYING and i bet you'll end up creating the best loaf around and then you can market it and then you'll get rich hehehe :D

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