Breadcrumbs

If you like me, have found that you just cannot face eating store-bought bread now that you have made the real thing, experimented with recipes and found the one you love… then you spy in the freezer the bread you first made and a stash of store-bought GF bread and you gag at the thought of eating it…

Do not despair, breadcrumb it. Honey makes delicious rissoles, breadcrumbs are a key ingredient. I wanted to feel like I had done something in the kitchen today between shifts so; breadcrumbs it was. As I was tossing the frozen bread slices into Thermie (an Australian nickname for Thermomix) and pulsing the turbo button, I was reminded of other things I miss since removing gluten from my diet.

Sure Cedar Park makes delicious GF fish and chips. But what I very much miss is KFC… mmm hot and spicy. Ok I can feel the pillows you are tossing at me and hear the groans and the “SHUT-UPS”… but I have a point to this. Mum used to make chicken in the oven with breadcrumbs… if I mill up some Tuscan seasoning or Portuguese chicken seasoning with some eggs and GF crumbs, I might have a little healthier slice of heaven.  When chicken is on special… it would be cheaper too.

Don’t have a Thermomix?

You don’t need a Thermomix (type machine) to make the gluten free bread I have been making. In fact the original recipe inventors don't use one. I can say it does sure help, as being able to mill some of your own grain such as popcorn, rice and even tapioca pearls/seeds will save you money, nutrients, shelf-life etc. Breadcrumbs were a breeze, however, visiting the health food store and the health food section of your supermarket will get you rice flour, tapioca flour, (Rice, corn and potato flour can also be found with the wheat flour section- cheaper) and arrowroot flour can be found in the cake decorating section. Coles sells a generic brand GF cornflour too. I have not seen cornmeal, however and found I needed to mill my own you should know, I have not tried to look for besan either.  

Friends with Thermomixes (and other machines that can mill) may even let you use their machine to grind a few grains. You can get an idea if this is the thing for you… Even the cheapest knock-off is a lot of money to spend on something that you decide you don’t want to use.

Here is the website that Jo (the blogger/chef I got my recipe from) adapted her bread recipe from specifically with Thermomix users in mind. This could be helpful if you prefer not to weigh your ingredients as you cook.If you are time poor, or lack energy, the knead function is certainly helpful for making the GF egg free bread I made yesterday. Btw Honey liked it too; the texture reminded him of cake and he thought it might be nice to add some bananas to make banana bread. I think banana on top would also be delicious.

Sandwich loaf bread

I found this other fantastic recipe for bread that I am very keen to try today… but I am out of quinoa (we are looking online for Australian quinoa) and wonder if something else might work instead. I am very excited to make a sandwich loaf from scratch. Recipe here. It has no eggs, and I have just bought plenty of eggs, so I might do some experimenting later.

I’m not sure how many readers I have, and how many have a Thermomix or similar machine. I am very interested to hear how the Vitamix, Thermochef, Bellini, Kogan, Maxi and other similar products work out too.  I don’t sell Thermomixes, but if you want one, I can put you in contact with my other sister friend - who I call the Thermomix Queen. For all the options available I have only seen the Thermomix “In person” the Bellini in a box (at Target), and a friend has a Vitamix, but I have not seen it either.

I have found this page essential for flour conversions here

Quinoa is a bodifier; I see that I can swap with cornmeal, besan or rice flour. I am very keen for another cooking adventure. I have also seen sites that divide the flours by other ways, but this way works… so I use it. 
 

Kitchen malfunctions: I think I am making up for yesterday. I had just one (a burn from the oven, which I covered with a wet Anion wrapped in a tea-towel. Five minutes later, the pain was gone, I removed the stuff and my hand was great. It’s kind of nice to not waste 20 mins of cool water running over my hand, and not being stuck to the sink while things are cooking around me.

My dough was in the TM and the kneading function was “Not working”, I had it on stir, I needed it in the “closed lid position”. I hit reverse a few times to “facilitate the knead process.” 

There was a glob of dough under the blades, which I noticed after I had skimmed the top of the dough with a wet spoon (a process that would have been easier if the tin was the correct size for the amount of dough. I removed the dough using by putting the speed on 10. I added it to the loaf by working it in with wet fingers to the top of the dough.

Thanks to Simone at

Thermomix essentials

I realised I didn’t need to call my TM Queen and ask how to get it fixed… So I will know for next time I try.

The chickpeas- I looked for them but they were “hiding” somewhere in the pantry, so I made the dough with cornmeal instead.

“Someone” used a knife in my loaf tin; it now has rusty stripes on it. I covered them with some alfoil.

My TM looked “Funny” when I was weighing… I had not “seated” the TM bowl correctly, so more chia seeds were added than was needed. I had been able to rescue the “extra” buckwheat though. Not that I am that concerned about the few additional chia seeds as I forgot to add the xanthan gum.

I think this one will be a “re-submit”. But it is happily resting ready to be baked in about an hour.

This dough does not rise very much at all. Next time I think I will use a smaller tin.

The bread was cooked in 50 minutes. Probably as the tin was a little on the large side for the loaf, I will let it cool and tell you what I think of the taste. So far I have noticed it is quite springy straight out of the oven. The cob loaf was like a rock. It also shrunk away from the sides of the pan so was very easy to remove to check the bottom was brown.

As if to mock me, on kitchen malfunctions day… the dishwasher is also refusing to turn on, so I will wash the dishes and allow the bread to cool.

Ok this bread is brilliant. It’s my favourite yet… now I just need an appropriate tin. I would go for probably one half the size lengthways so you make a shorter loaf but the bread slices are right.

It may be possible to make a 1.5 size dough ball or double batch to fill the loaf tin, assuming you had enough people who would eat the bread in the required time. I am not sure if extra dough would fit in the Thermomix.

Cornmeal bread

Sounds so American… I was surprised to read I could mill my own cornmeal with pop-corn. This could be handy for Latin American Australians to know, as real corn flour is needed to make tortilla from the Northern Latin countries (which, is very delicious).  Apparently you can also make polenta from popcorn too. I’m actually not looking forward to the next one… milling chickpeas as a substitute for sorghum. Perhaps it’s because the first brand of GF flour I had (Before I was introduced to the wonderful white wings GF flour range) featured soy and lentils or something… I have tried hard to forget because I cannot forget the flavour. Not so bad in fritters, béchamel sauce and other savoury dishes but definitely not suitable for sweet dishes such as cake. 

But the angel Judie on my shoulder tells the devil angel that chickpeas are very healthful and she might be surprised. And she further argues that I don’t eat that much cake any more (Unless my sister friend makes it for me- her GF brownie cakes rock, as does her GF Sand Cake, Monte Carlos and gingerbread people).

So this morning I had a brainwave, make the cornmeal and chickpea dough at the same time, and only make a ¼ batch of the chickpea, in case its yucky.

Sounds brilliant! I’m no mathematician and prefer someone just to check my numbers even when I am halving a half. Not-so Honey decided he was too tired to check… but it does look like dough and it is rising nicely. I have found that making the dough while I am cooking the bread from the last batch is not only time-wise but placing the new dough near the oven is helping it to rise quite nicely.

First surprise of the morning, the cornmeal aka popcorn milled in the thermomix on speed 9 for 1 minute, looks like polenta at the 30 second mark, and yellow course flour at the minute mark. Chickpea flour is quite yellow too.

Kitchen malfunctions… there were many.

Ok so making a ¼ mix is possible but having a set of kitchen scales handy would be beneficial as the thermomix can only deal in 5g increments. So I had slightly more water and less oil than I needed. The honey was just a guess- a teaspoon and a bit. Tablespoons of yeast and xanthan gum were changed to 1 desert spoon and salt was one heaped teaspoon… no worries.

I decided to see if I could do 2 loaves at a time, Honey asked if we could make one for his Mum. I said no worries. I also decided to make the last ball into more burger buns.

The frying pan could easily fit 2 loaves on at once, but it was tricky. I thought I was so clever resting the bread-board on the oven door as I popped the dough-balls in without a hitch. Then looked down to see the plastic wrap I had peel off stuck to the inside of the oven door at least a minute of hot air was lost with me using the egg flip to scrape the plastic from the door.

I have found a good way to keep the toast upright in the toaster is to pop 3 in at a time on one side, just don’t get distracted when you are getting them out, as I did this morning and had to “go fishing” once again for the toast slices.

2 buns cooking at once took longer than one bun by itself, but not twice as long. I got caught up blogging and forgot to check the time. I waited for the sweet smell of cooking bread to tell me today. I popped out the baking paper from under the loaves and gave them another 15 minutes.

I think I will pop a small roll of chickpea and cornmeal bread win with my jasmine rolls to compare them.

Just FYI we use a local supplier for our macadamia nut oil and honey, which I use in the bread I bake. There has been some talk of Olive oil making the bread lighter and fluffier. I will try it next with the rice breads, as they are our favourites. I have two types of olive oil, EVOO and very mild.

I did not do the “Shape the bread dough with wet fingers/spoon thing” this morning, I would like to say I wanted to see the difference, but it was time to eat and I had forgotten to put the dough out for the 2^nd rising. I was lazy. But I do like the cracked top effect.   

We had the jasmine and basmati bread toasted (Though it was still nice as bread today) with mushrooms, ricotta, salami, aioli and capsicums fresh from the local markets this morning. Delicious. The semi-circle shape of the toast gave the meal a café feel.

Chickpea bread vs Cornbread

Ok somehow I lost track of which small loaf was what on the first day of cooking them. I know that I liked one more than the other and Honey could not tell the difference. He said to me that the bread just keeps getting better. Thanks for the compliments; perhaps I need a 2^nd opinion.

Both small loaves were much softer than the Jasmine rolls. Though similar sizes one cooked faster than the other and went a lovely brown on top. It was the softest, and I think it would make the best dinner rolls.

Taste-wise, one was sweeter than the other, I was so sure it was the corn one, (I may have confused them when I put them into the oven, as they were pretty much alike) but to be certain I have cooked a loaf (it is cooling) and have some dinner rolls proving, along with another focaccia base and pizza base.

In case of a prejudicial error on my part, I have made a Maltese soup called brodu to go with the bread rolls for tonight’s dinner. It should be perfect with the lovely rainy weather we are having today. Not great for trying to prove bread, so I have been trying to warm the kitchen with a bolognaise sauce in the slow cooker and am about to make Pizza and focaccia too.

I finally remembered to cut the top of the loaf before I baked it. I cannot say that it had made that much difference to the end result. I think I will continue to make it the way I was making it. The cornbread loaf did not go very brown… could it be that it was the chickpea one all along that was better? The taste of the cornbread loaf is not as I remember it. To be sure I am putting the chickpea loaf on to cook/ it is proving as we speak. Perhaps it is the difference between being in the fridge for a few days and being made up fresh on the day. Though to be honest the jasmine bread did not taste different the next day.

Ok I have cooked and taste tested both again. The corn flour has a slightly more intense flavour when cooked on day 3 (Which initially tricked me), as does the chickpea flour bread. The chickpea or besan flour bread leaves a slight aftertaste in my mouth, which I find slightly objectionable , however I think that vegemite or a savoury topping/stew etc would mask it nicely. 

I believe that it would be one of the more healthy options as a pizza base, and preferable to quinoa if you are watching your pennies. Jasmine rice is still my favourite, with basmati a close 2nd and cornmeal 3rd. Recipe here

Thin and crispy Pizza, Bread Rolls and Focaccia

I swear I am not addicted to pizza, but now I have tried the pizza base, I wanted to make sure the basmati dough could “cut it” and it totally does. I think it was even better than the quinoa as I could not taste the base at all. I think quinoa base, however is healthier as it is a whole seed whereas the basmati rice, though low GI is a white rice, therefore has been stripped of a lot of its goodness. Honey and I are looking around for brown basmati, so far the only place I have seen it locally was woollies- and it was the pre-cooked stuff. Not much good for bread-making. Recipe here

So bread rolls, you take them for granted when they don’t mess with your digestion/you don’t realise they are messing with your digestion… how does the basmati  dough cope? I have some buns in the oven, and I will keep you posted.

Focaccia, I miss you… nothing like walking into a bakery and having a focaccia you can’t eat, staring at you, mouth drooling… so it really was no contest- I had to see if I could try a focaccia. I thought it would be somewhere between cooking a pizza and a bread loaf.

With the pizza you don’t want the topping cooking before the bread base is done. Therefore the cast-iron frying-pan is my method of choice.

My morning went something like this…

Today I should make bread (Honey loved the bread from yesterday)… oooh and a bread-roll, AND a pizza and a focaccia. I was mentally deciding how to divide the dough as I was paying for my goods at the veggie store.

I had 2 lots of dough left (one I needed to make the bread with) so the last ball was divided in half one half for the focaccia, the 2^nd ball was divided in halves again one made the thin pizza base and the other the bread-roll.

So I popped them aside to prove.

I then milled the ingredients for the Jasmine Rice bread and mixed it together.

Deciding that the Pizza base did not need quite 2 hours to prove, I made it first. This time when I popped it into the oven I used a heated oven tray as I needed the cast iron frying-pan to begin the focaccia with.

I made the base of the focaccia like a very  thick pizza base, rolling it with a glass (and having it between glad wrap and baking paper, before leaving it to prove for just under 2 hours.

I then followed the same method I use for cooking pizzas on the stove; I added the sauce, pineapple, bacon and cheese when the steam had reached the frying-pan lid.  Similarly I cooked the focaccia on the oven tray (Transferring it over when the pizza was done) and popped the cast-iron frying pan into the oven to heat for the bread to cook on.

Now I don’t usually bother with the bath of water for the pizza but I popped it in for the focaccia. Which I kept a check on, but ended up being in the oven for about ½ hour.

The focaccia bread has been out of the oven and resting in a tea-towel with the baking paper it was sitting on coving the top to protect the focaccia and the tea-towel from each-other.

I cut myself a tiny wedge (The pizza was quite filling) and decided I needed another wedge. The rest will be for Honey to try when he arrives home from work.  

Jasmine Bread

So today I got the milling quantities right, halve the tapioca and brown rice to mill. What I noticed was that leaving the grains in for a full minute made the flour finer. So one half of the tapioca flour is finer than the other half. As I wanted the rice to substitute for the sorghum, which is apparently a coarse flour, I milled 220g of the brown rice coarsely (milling for 30 seconds not a minute) and the rest (Jasmine and 80g of brown) fine. I am not sure how this will affect the outcome of the bread. What I can say is that the jasmine rice flour smelled divine. I am very much looking forward to trying this bread.

Jasmine rice is one of the highest GI rices, though delicious, and my sister-friend makes the best coconut rice with it. If you are following a low GI diet, basmati would be the better choice, and perhaps milling the long-grain brown rice (300g) would also be more beneficial for you too. Jasmine bread might just have to be my “sometimes” bread. In saying that, Honey and I are looking for brown jasmine as well to experiment with. Using the whole grain of rice will definitely improve the health factor.

I have decided I cannot wait a whole day to try the jasmine bread so I took a lump out and it is proving as we speak.

The jasmine loaf is finished; I am surprised that it is not as golden brown on top as its basmati cousin. Due to me taking more care with the milling, the crust appears finer; the basmati loaf has “flecks of white” and looks generally grainier. Though the dough felt grainy the correct milling did make a difference to the end result.

My cooking would not be complete without some kitchen malfunctions. The first being, I measured too much jasmine rice into the Thermomix. I pulled some out, put them to the side and they slipped into the pile of flours. To fix, I sieved the flour which removed the grains of rice and a few of the larger tapioca flower “beads” from the 30 second milling.

I bumped the jasmine loaf as I was popping it into the oven… and confession time- I have never remembered to do the knife thing across the top before putting my loaves into the oven (Ok the very first one that ended up chucked out raw due to glass contamination, really does not count. The bread still tastes good.

Well I have now tasted the bread, and it is delicious too, and Honey and his housemate agrees. There is not much difference in the flavour of the jasmine bread to the basmati, but the Jasmine definitely tastes slightly sweeter than the basmati without anything added to it (Remember I liked with with honey, and thought it would be nice with vegemite). The finely milled grains made the crust crisper and if everyone was having damper and I “had to” have this I would not be disappointed.   

I dream of brown Jasmati… having the 300g of brown basmati, 220g of Jasmine… I am sure that you are in my future. But next up is Cornmeal bread, which I am looking forward to trying too.

Judie

Steak Burgers

I am pleased to tell you the steak burgers were a success tonight. It’s the first time in over a year I have been able to eat a steak burger with just my hands- no utensils. Yogolicious burgers definitely rock, but there is something about a bun fresh out of the oven that sends a burger from great to fantastic.
To fit more into the burger I used a spoon to scoop out some of the bread from the lid of the bun. That came in handy when Honey’s flattie made Dahl and offered me some… yum! I popped it onto the bread pieces… very nice.
When Honey returned home, I was fixing a snack with some of the toasted bread. Be warned, I had it on level 6 and it still came out pale. But certainly delicious. We had ricotta, tomato, prosciutto and Spanish onion. He liked the flavour of the bread too, so we made another snack with ricotta, aioli, salami, tomato and Spanish onion.


The place that you can find the recipe is here


I have since found that this bread can be cooked in the slow cooker and it has changed my life. This bread can also be cooked in a sandwich loaf (in the slow cooker)... yeah I am a huge fan of the Healthy Bread in 5 minutes a day recipe writers. they ROCK!





Judie