Naan bread

In my previous post I claimed that the pita bread dough could be used to make naan bread. I lied. This one is much better. It has the slight sour taste that real naan has, and is nice and soft, too. The most important step is the cooking process - a dry cast iron pan is essential for getting the nice, charred bubbles.

Naan bread fresh from the pan

Naan bread - gluten free, soy free, eggless, corn free etc

250 g water
30 g coconut milk
1 tsp vinegar
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp psyllium husk

100 g starch (eg. half potato and half tapioca)
100 g white rice flour
100 g brown rice flour

Flattening the dough 

Mix together the coconut milk, water and vinegar. Let sour for a moment. Add the rest of the ingredients, then let rise for about an hour. Separate into 5-6 parts. Flatten into a nice shape and then cook on a hot and dry cast iron pan until it bubbles slightly, then flip. Brush with your equivalent of butter for a more authentic taste. 

First taste by the hubby, he approved

Pillowy Perfect Pita Bread

This is a recipe that works great. It tastes great with salty stuff and sweet, and is great also as a substitute naan bread for dipping in curry sauce!

Pita pocket featuring mince, veggies and wilmersbuger "cheese"

Pita bread - gluten free, eggless, dairy free, corn free, soy free 

500 g water
1 tbsp instant yeast
10 g syrup/honey
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp psyllium husk 

180 g white rice flour
150 g brown rice flour
100 g potato starch
80 g tapioca starch
1 tsp salt

(2-3 tsp xanthan gum) 

Happily baking in the oven

Mix wet together, let stand for a while. Mix dry together. Mix everything together, let rise in a warm place for about an hour. Pre-heat oven to 225 C. Divide dough into ten pieces. Flatten into a disk, not too thin, and place on baking sheet. Bake for 5-7 minutes, until puffed up. Then flip them over and bake for another 3 minutes.

Chipmunk filling her pita bread with daddy's help

Cut them in half and fill them up with whatever you like. The pocket will be there already, so no need to fiddle with knives. We've had these with falafels, taco spiced mince, raspberry jam, you name it!

Turkey & veggie burgers

Just for a change, decided to make turkey burgers out of minced turkey instead of whole meat. Also, this way I can use less meat, because there's a lot of green that can be added to the patties themselves.  I made buns with the mad-scientist-method (throw a bunch of stuff together, hope it holds together in the oven and is edible). Unfortunately, I forgot to write down exactly what I put in the buns, but they were really good!

Mad scientist buns: 

500 g water
300-350 g random flour (coarse rice, brown rice, toasted quinoa, random starch in mystery bag, something or other)
2 tbsp psyllium husk
2 tsp instant yeast 

Mix, let rise for about 40 minutes, scoop onto pan, bake for 30 minutes at 225 C. 

Turkey and zucchini patty recipe:

400 g minced turkey
1 big or 2 small zucchini finely grated
3 tbsp potato starch
100 g mushrooms
1 small shallot onion

Dice onions and slice mushrooms, and cook for a while. Season with salt, and herbs of choice. Grate zucchini. Add everything to the minced turkey and mash together, preferably with hands. Cook on cast iron pan. 

Assemble the burgers! Serve with sweet potato chips! Eat!

Miracle Bread - aka the forgotten bread

Sandwich bread! Hooray! It's gone through a series of unfortunate events, but it was very tasty. Here's the scoop...

Misfortune n.1: I was making this bread according to a recipe, but ran out of most of the ingredients. Luckily, improvisation worked well this time 'round. The only thing in common with the original recipe is the amount of water and yeast.

Misfortune n.2: Falling asleep when dough is rising in the oven is not always the best idea. Ended up scooping about 1/3 of the overly risen dough out from the bottom of the oven and from the side of the pan, and the grid.

Misfortune n.3: Forgot to set a timer and forgot to check what time it was put in the oven, so I have no idea how long it was in there!

All in all, it's a miracle it came out edible.

Sandwich bread - gluten free, eggless, soy free, corn free 

550 g water
90 g buckwheat flour
175 g rice flour
60 g tapioca starch
70 g coarse rice flour
40 g buckwheat flakes
20 g brown rice syrup
2 tsp dry yeast
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp psyllium husk 

Mix all ingredients together, let dough rest for a bit. Add more flour if too liquid - will remain rather porridge-y and gloopy. Let rise in oven for a few hours (or slightly less), preferably without it spreading all over the bottom of said oven due to being forgotten.

Bake at 200 C for about 45 minutes, or until it's golden on top and cooked through.

Kitchen helper

Quick and Dirty Pulla and further restrictions

Pulla is a finnish traditional sweet bread. Kind of like brioche, but less fatty.

Pulla made in cake tin

 It's tasty, but commonly made with wheat, eggs, milk, butter and sometimes also raisins and/or almonds. All of which are Not Good for little Chipmunk. Took many trials and failures to get this recipe sort of right. When I finally completed a good one, using soy, it turns out we have to drop soy from Chipmunk's diet yet again. Luckily, the recipe works fine without, so here is the updated formula.

Chipmunk approved.

My pulla is made in a cake tin, partially because I'm lazy, and partially because the dough is so sticky that it's difficult to work with otherwise. If I make it drier, the end products don't retain the soft, pillowy goodness that pulla is supposed to have. Hence, quick and dirty pulla!

This is usually all that's left a few hours later

100 g melted margarine
200 g non-dairy milk of choice (I use home-made coconut milk)
50 g sugar
280 g all-purpose GF flour (my blend is in this post)
2 tsp dry yeast
1-2 tsp ground cardamom
0.5 tsp salt
(1 tsp baking powder if impatient) 

Mix all together, spoon into pan, let rise for about half an hour (or add the baking powder to dough and bake immediately). Bake at 200C for about 20-25 minutes, depending on how thin you spread it. Cool somewhat and enjoy!

Mmm, tasty

The restrictions part of this post come from our recent visit to the doctor.

Fatty Focaccia - aka the great goat cheese test

This week we are experimenting with goat cheese. So far, so good. Let's see if tonight will be full of reflux, pain and misery, or if this ingredient can be declared a success.

The Husband got pizza today. Pizza with buffalo mozzarella and good tomato sauce. It smelled divine. Didn't feel like a pale imitation of a good pizza today, so I went on a slight tangent: focaccia with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes. 

Here's my recipe:

Focaccia - gluten free, eggless, dairy free etc

250 g water
125 g soy milk
50 g extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp rice vinegar 

2,5 tsp dry yeast
130 g white rice flour
75 g brown rice flour
85 g tapioca flour
4 tsp psyllium husk powder

Mix all ingredients together until smooth (gotta love gluten free baking, no kneading or other annoying steps!). Let rest in mixing bowl for about 15 minutes before pouring into a cake/pie tin. Let rise until doubled. 

Splash with some oil, poke holes in it gently to make characteristic dimples. Top with topping of choice. Mine was half a log of goat cheese and a handful of sundried tomatoes, sprinkled with some herbs.  

Bake at 225 C for 20-25 minutes, until golden on top. 

Bread for a Friend

Will be having lunch with some friends tomorrow. Not entirely unsurprising, but some of them have food allergies, so I wanted to make a bread that fits all of our requirements. That meant coming up with a bread that has no eggs, dairy, wheat, rye, oats, barley, rice, buckwheat, nuts and soy. In my cupboard I had a packet of half-used quinoa flour, which just had such a strong taste, it felt like stinging in my mouth when baked. After some googling, I found out how to fix that - toasting!

I toasted my leftover flour in a cast-iron pan on medium heat on the stove until it stopped smelling weird and turned a lovely deep golden colour. Then I searched my pantry for suitable flour and thus, the quinoa-chickpea-chia seed bread was born. I don't quite care for the gummy feel that psyllium husk seeds give breads, so I threw in the rest of our baked sweet potato. It worked.

Heavy Bread  

100 g toasted quinoa flour
100 g chickpea flour
80 g chia seed flour
150 g potato starch
150 g sweet potato purée
1 tbsp yeast
1 tsp salt
50 g oil
375 g water 

Mix all together, put in 1,5 litre baking pan. Allow to rise until doubled (about 40-60 minutes) and then bake at 200 C for approximately 40-50 minutes, or until ready.
Let cool, eat! Also good when warm, not gummy at all (hooray).