Further Experimentation with George

A few months ago, whilst tinkering in my kitchen, I created a life form.  I mixed together some sludgy goo and purple cabbage leaves and created George.  He's required lots of attention, twice daily stirs and, due to his ravenous appetite, needs feeding quite often.  But he has been quite helpful, I have been slowly working my way through various combinations of flours, gums, oils, acids and dairy products to mix with him, all in the hope of producing a gluten free loaf I can be happy with.

Alas, I am a perfectionist, so this may be a long journey.

So far, the bread has mostly been either too rubbery, had a weird taste, or in the case of one loaf, been too fizzy (don't ask me what magic went on to make that happen).  Here are a few selections of my trials in order.

Got the air and yeast mixture right, just about everything else was meh.

Somehow, this one tasted gamey, I can't think of another word to describe it.  Just a general oddness to it.

The best innards so far, but an odd gooey crust that required a great deal of chew.

The best crust, nice and crispy and thick, but the most oddly flavoured innards, didn't quite taste like anything I've eaten before.  Plus, it had a rather sticky texture.

A good combination was had here, the crust was good and thick, the innards tasted good, but all in all it was just a little too crumbly.  It simply couldn't handle being a sandwich, and that's no loaf for me.  The main culprit seemed to of been the rice flour, it is just not great for bread (or at least the type's you can buy here).

Then, after some fudging (and adding some egg, plus greatly increasing oil+acid mix, plus a lot more xantham gum and a little hint of rice flour) I got this.

Which was actually pretty good.  Its about the same consistency on the inside as 'normal' british white bread, basically what I'm aiming for, and it holds together nicely for sandwiches.  It has a pretty good flavour, not too sour and not too strong. The crust is there, not too chewy, but alas it is just too thin and nobly.


So, now I'm at the stage where I've almost got it, I'm just about there.  The downside is that when I started all this, I was really missing bread, I yearned for a good sandwich.  Now, however, I've had enough bread to last a lifetime and am getting rather sick of it.  Oh, sweet irony.