Double Fail – Back To The Drawing Board

Well, I told you I would post the good, bad, and the ugly, over the next few weeks while I experiment with different bread recipes. I have found that gluten-free baking is much easier than gluten-free bread baking. Two totally different worlds. Most of us with gluten allergies are already aware that gluten-free bread takes a lot of trial and error. And I think pretty much all of us are still searching for that gluten-free bread that reminds us most about the bread we used to eat in taste, texture, and size.

But don’t worry, I’m not going to give up. I have tons and tons of ideas, torn out recipes, cook books, and I’m not afraid to fail numerous times before I come up with something we can all like.

This is a recipe that I was trying to adapt from Cooking Light. It’s one of their dinner roll recipes that has a gazillion steps.

Attempt #1. – The first attempt was pretty bad. Colorless, didn’t rise, and was crumbly and dense in texture. I used a mixture of brown rice flour, white rice flour, potato starch, and Mama’s All Purpose Almond Flour. They went into and came out of the oven looking exactly the same.

Attempt #2. – It all seems like it’s going well until the dough kinda starts to feel like that salt dough our parents made for us to play with when we were little.

But, I press on, rising, kneading, doing exactly as the recipe asks of me. Unlike the first attempt in which I was in a hurry and distracted. This time I’m using a combination of white rice flour, brown rice flour, sorghum flour, and potato starch (basically the same combo I use for the awesome cinnamon roll recipe I have posted in the past).

The well kneaded dough ball looks promising. However, I can’t get past that gnawing feeling in my stomach that it feels like play dough. This was my favorite part because it reminded me of when I used to make homemade bread and rolls from scratch before becoming gluten-free. The kitchen smelled yeasty and wonderful. But still, the play dough thing has me worried.

Fingers crossed that it will get a good rise.

Hmmm…feels spongy and I suppose it raised a little bit…

Maybe if I make them into cute little shapes and bathe them in olive oil, herbs, and vegan parmesan, they’ll like me better and rise like they’re supposed to?

It’s not looking very promising…

Despite trying to win them over with cute shapes and high quality olive oil, they simply didn’t want to cooperate. This is the finished product. Even worse than Attempt #1. I think there were too many steps and too much contact with the dough. A “typical” gluten-free bread recipe is pretty straight forward. Put all of the ingredients together, beat on medium-high in a heavy-duty mixer, shape as best as you can, let them rest and rise maybe 30-40 minutes, and bake. Pretty straight forward and without a lot of the hoopla of regular bread making. The problem though, is that most gluten-free breads start out like a batter that you spread in a pan or french bread tube. It’s not typically the type of dough you can shape. That was another red flag throughout this recipe.

Back to the drawing board.