Failures

Yesterday was a day of failures. I had this idea that I would crank out a bunch of baked goods in a few hours, while simultaneously going to the gym and doing homework. The lineup included last week's Gluten Free Flax Bread, bagels and Gluten-Free Garbanzo Bean Cake. Easy, right? The only thing I hadn't made before was the chickpea cake, and that recipe was pretty much a no-brainer - or so I thought.

I used to be a baker at a vegetarian restaurant for a couple of years. So I understand that there are Bad Baking Days and Good Baking Days, and that there is little one can do once it has become a Bad Baking Day.

The day started out great - the flax bread did exactly what it was supposed to do. I substituted potato starch for the tapioca and used a greater proportion of rice flour to see if this would improve the texture and rise. To be honest, it looked exactly the same as the last batch - so just refer to the photo in the post previous.

While the flax bread was baking, I worked on the bagels, which were stickier and more difficult to shape than I remembered. I had to use a lot of butter on my hands in order to be able to poke holes in and stretch the dough balls. The idea was to then pop them in the turned off oven to rise after taking out the bread, leaving me with an hour to run to the gym - after which I would quickly bring a pot of water to boil.

No such luck. I raced home and found a pan of oozing, yeasty lumps that were clearly too fragile for handling, much less boiling. Yet I persisted, unwilling to quit until I found myself with a pot of stewed dough fragments. Needless to say, I threw the whole pan in the garbage. I thought about taking some pictures, but I was too pissed off to make a show of it. Not only had I wasted my time, but also a not-insignificant chunk of money. Gluten free baking ain't cheap.

So, to cheer myself up I decided to make Gluten Free Garbanzo Bean Cake, since I didn't think that I was going to mess up something with 4 ingredients. Too bad that I was in denial about it being a Bad Baking Day.

Gluten Free Garbanzo Bean Cake (single layer)

1 can chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
3 eggs
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. chocolate chips
3/4 tsp. baking powder

Melt chocolate chips in double boiler (or use a metal bowl on top of a pot of hot water, like I do). Process beans, eggs, sugar and baking powder in food processor for 2-3 minutes until smooth. Add melted chips, process. Grease a 9 in. pan and pour in batter.

Bake at 350 deg. for 25 minutes.


The cake smelled wonderful and had risen pretty high - until I banged it against the stove as I took it out. Bad Baking Day. Now it looks more like a torte, which is actually fitting given its moist and dense texture.

Texture-wise, I think the batter could benefit from a more extensive processing. While bean fragments were not readily identifiable, I could sense a bit of chunkiness that kept me thinking of the opened can of garbanzos. Not the kind of image I want to have when I bite into a piece of cake.

Taste-wise, the chocolate flavor was low-key and not too sweet. I made a quick custard with the leftover egg yolks from the bread and topped it with some thawed frozen cherries, expecting some kind of chocolate-cherry-cream medley, and was pretty disappointed. The sweetness of the custard totally overpowered the cake flavor, allowing me to once again focus on its um, unique texture. Not awesome.

Over the course of the week I've been eating the cake by itself, and I'm happy to report that it is much better on its own - kind of a hybrid cake/torte/brownie. If I make this again, I'll serve it in small slices - maybe w/ a small sprinkle of powdered sugar.

Inauguration

How fitting that my first blog post incorporates my first loaf of (gluten free) bread!

Now, I was a baker for a couple of years, but only did desserts. So I've never baked bread, period - not even the "real" glutened version. I think this might work to my advantage, seeing as I don't really have any habits or expectations surrounding bread creation to abandon.

I've been reading a lot of recipes in preparation, and had somewhat of a success yesterday with Sarah's Bagels from The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread. I'm not going to post about them because they came out rather flat, and besides, I forgot to take a picture after I sliced them in half and stuck 'em in the freezer. But suffice to say, they were yummy and I'm so psyched to eat sandwiches that will not cause me pain for the first time in years.

For today's attempt, I chose Gluten-Free Flax Bread. I've been slowly accumulating the array of flours, gums and starches that frequent GF bread recipes, and want to try them all out before I settle on my basic bread recipe. Today's leans towards the sorghum/garfava variety as opposed to yesterday's rice-heavy bagels.

It was my intention to follow the recipe to the letter, but I couldn't resist tweaking it a little:

Gluten Free Flax Bread

1 c. sorghum flour
1/4 c. brown rice flour
1/4 c. garfava flour
1/2 c. tapioca starch
1/4 c. cornstarch
1/4 c. flaxseed meal
2 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. salt

2 eggs
1 egg white
1 tbsp. flax meal mixed w/ 2 tbsp. H2O
1 c. warm H20
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 200 deg.
Combine dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients w/ hand mixer on low. Add dry ingredients slowly. Scrape sides, mix on low for 3-4 minutes. Turn off oven. Spoon dough into greased 9 by 5 loaf pan, and place in turned-off oven. Let rise to the top of the pan, about 80 minutes or so. Bake at 350 deg. for 40 minutes. Remove from pan, cool and slice.


It looks and smells so good - I can't wait for it to cool down so I can try it!

Edit - It is really that good! I ate 2 slices - one w/ butter and one w/ PB&J. There were no crumbles, and the flaxseed definitely gave it a more "authentic" texture. This recipe is awesome.
I haven't done the cost breakdown, but I think the whole thing was kind of expensive - mainly due to all of the different flours and the tapioca starch, which I don't have a cheap source of yet. So I will definitely be tweaking this, because the whole point of baking my own bread is to avoid paying $6 for a frozen brick.