Help for my failed GF bread recipe with bread machine
Hi, I am new and a starter to the world of bread baking (with bread machine) due to a need of following AIP. I have tried some commercial GF bread mix to start the adventure; some successful and some failed with mixed categories: taste, texture, nutrition, etc. Later I found out all the ready-for-bake GF bread mixes contain at least one or more ingredient that is/are restricted (or not favorable to) from aip, e.g., egg, dairy, potato flour, etc. and most of them though containing no gluten, actually contain more ingredients with less or little eminent nutrition to support autoimmune case. Hence I was forced to create a more satisfactory and aip supportive GF bread recipe for my bread machine. After a long time online search/research/shopping, I came up with the following recipe:
Ingredients: (aim for 2 lb loaf)
Wet – 3 cup warm water
¼ cup coconut oil
2 tbsp grounded flax seeds
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Dry – 1&1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 cup coconut flour
½ cup tapioca flour/starch
½ cup sweet potato flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp organic cane sugar
1 tbsp SAF instant yeast (gold)
Bread machine process:
mix wet ingredients and into pan
mix dry ingredients (except yeast) and into pan over liquid
yeast on top of dry
make dough (pasta): mix&knead 5 min – rest 5 min – knead 20 min – rise 90 min
bake: 60 min
Result: Failed (except taste ok/good) – cake-like texture, dense, sticky and too moist; very little crumby (no airy structure); no/little rise (as I observed); size of 1.2 lb loaf (expect at least 1.5 lb).
Immediately after the disaster (may I say), I hit my head hard for what mistake I might have made: pretty sure I used too much water (thought coconut and sweet potato flour are high to draw water) – will start with 2&1/4 cup and add if needed next time. The biggest problem: wrong texture, no rise for that I am still struggling to figure out the remedy. Could I change the portions of the four flours, e.g., reduce brown rice to 1 cup and increase tapioca to 1 cup? Or add another flour – GF oat flour and reduce brown rice and coconut flour? Should I increase yeast or even add some baking soda to push rise?
So it’s more of a disappointment and that’s why I come here for – find help! Hope you more experienced bread bakers here would kindly give helping hand to rescue my failed recipe. Thank you for all and any advice.
According to the very brief google search I did on AIP, you are NOT following the guidelines for that very stringent diet (with no basis in science I can see). Your recipe is more of a GF loaf and for that there is a lot of information out there.
Here are a few links:
https://celiac.org/
https://celiac.org/marketplace/recipe/
www.glutenfreeonashoestring.com
www.glutenfreegirl.com
A lot of information and recipes.
Hi Thanks, Clazar. Although I do not follow aip very strictly, I do require much more restrictions than just GF. A usual GF loaf could contain egg, dairy, potato, gum, nut, etc. which are all on my ban list. Although grains/seeds are restricted in aip, I have found few of them (rice being one) tolerable for my consumption. Hence the recipe I created more suits my aip requirement than regular GF's. Thanks for the link info, though I already searched through most of them.
I need help on modifying/correcting my recipe into a loaf of successful outcome.
Your learning curve will be about how to make a GF bread and that starts with learning what each ingredient contributes to the party. To make a tasty and well structured GF bread, you need to know how to build it. One of the sites I linked talks about how to build an "all purpose" GF flour using whole grains (brown rice),refined grains (white rice), enriched flours (almond,nuts) and starches (tapioca,cornstarch,potato starch,etc) I don't know where coconut flour is in the categories but I know from my GF experience it tends to make a dense loaf if the percentage is too high. OR
You can find a pre-mixed GF flour and start from there with GF flour, liquid(any kind), structural ingredient (gum,pectin,egg protein,psyllium,chia seed,flax seed), fat (any kind), leavener (yeast or chemical), acid for chemical leavener, salt.
You can make a loaf with brown rice flour, tapioca starch, potato flour (never worked with sweet potato flour), ground flax seeds, coconut oil, cane sugar, vinegar and yeast. It will not be like a wheat based loaf and will NOT have a hole-y crumb. It WILL be more spongey and cake-y. Find a recipe on those sites or allergy sites with suitable ingredients OR close to your ingredients. Understand how the ingredients function and then substitute a suitable ingredient. It may be how you handle the ingredients that can be adapted OR the bread machine is not capable of doing an acceptable GF loaf.
Your learning curve is also about how to make a GF bread. It is TOTALLY different from making a wheat based bread and more like making a 100% rye in handling, fermenting, rising, baking and texture. Look to the "how-to" on 100% rye and it will give you some idea on how to handle GF bread batter (it usually is more of a batter than a dough.)
Before the world discovered wheat, this is how people baked-it gets complicated. Wheat made everything very easy. So now your learning curve is re-discovering this information to make an acceptable product.
As for a bread machine-they usually don't lend themselves well to GF type baking-even those with a GF setting needs time and experience to get the best outcome.
Get a notebook. Keep track and take notes.
1. Learn about the ingredients, some add volume, some add gumminess, some are gritty or off flavor or good flavor.
2. Then use a recipe with acceptable ingredients and make your first loaf.
3. Write down your observations (is it too dense? Maybe less starch in the mix next time).
4.Then make a second loaf, tweaking it according to what you know about the ingredients and your observations.
5. Then post that information and pictures here with questions. Pictures are extremely valuable for assessing a loaf.
There is no easy road-there is no one magic recipe-you have to experiment for a unique situation like this.
Thanks, Clazar.