Yeast Based Experimentation

I have recently become more and more irritated with the state of gluten free bread here in deutschland.  You see, early this year I visited the home land, the UK, and sampled some of the gluten free breaded delights there.  Compared to the brick like monstrosities you get here, they were heavenly.

So, after a sufficient period of cathartic complaining, I decided to do something about it.  Much googlings later and I arrived at this.

A little tub of goo I've named George.

You see, there are two steps to making good Gluten Free bread.  The first is the same as regular bread, getting a good yeast.  The yeast gives the bread a lot of its flavour, a lot of its texture and determines how light and air pockety it is.  Apparently the best thing to do, is to have your own live yeast culture growing away in your kitchen, all made from 'WILD' yeast.  So this is what I did.  A secret combination of gluten free flours (coconut, rice and braunhirse), water and a couple of red cabbage leaves later and these little things were forming.

Bubbles!!  Which means George is alive and well.  I have to feed him every 12 to 24 hours and give him some attention by stirring him around and mixing him up.  He's just like a little stinky pet.  I've had him for a week or so now and he's quite ravenous, bubbling like a lunatic if i leave him alone for too long.

The second part is getting the right combination of flours, this is the tough one.  Plus, you need to mimic the gluten content of normal bread to get the right texture.  My first experiment came out ok.

The dough was of a more cake/batter variety so its settled into some odd shapes.  But the inside was of a good consistency.

George seems to of worked his magic quite well.  The only problem was the taste as a little on the brown bread side, a little too vollkorn for my liking.

Next time, more corn, less braunhirse.