Gluten-Free Crusty Boule

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day � Gluten-Free Crusty Boule

I have been perusing this site because I want more information on the 5 minute a day bread (which I will make as soon as I arrange my fridge a little better). I was pleasantly surprised to see there was gluten free bread! I don't know if I can get the ingredients here but maybe someday. Sometimes it is nice just having the option.

As a side note, I don't think I am going to be buying and grinding our wheat. I have my limits. It is too hard, time consuming and I don't get favourable results.

Another side note, from the above site, I finally found out how to make proper hamburger buns. Bake them in english muffin tins! How easy is that? I had one but it got warped so I went and bought all they had at Bulk Barn (note, they are sold as large 4" circle cutters but they are exactly the same as the ones online and much cheaper). I didn't realize you actually baked it with the dough in the round. So that will make making buns easier, especially if I keep dough in the fridge. Now, if I could only figure out hot dog buns....

Giving Up On Wheat

I mean that in a number of ways but mainly in that I am giving up my make everything from home ground wheat. I love the notion of grinding all our wheat but I can see it's not feasible for me. If I want to make everything from scratch, I am not going to drive myself crazy doing it the most natural way possible. I woke up this morning and realized that it doesn't mean I love my family any less. If I weren't making everything myself even with store flour, they would be eating store bought, which isn't as healthy. Sure, I know flour doesn't have as many nutrients as it does when it is freshly ground and it is isn't as flavorful. It is one of those "Choose your battles" and I can't see myself grinding 200lbs of flour and having every loaf a chance. After 3 or 4 bad loaves of bread and one successful one with home ground, I'm going to go with what is almost always successful.

On a related note, we are possibly going for a weekend away next weekend (not the one coming up but April 9-11). I have been scouring places to find out what is in season in the valley. I found a place that has honey for $1.75 a pound! I'm getting a bucket, lol! I am also trying to find places that sell maple syrup. Last fall we got it at Forsythe's and it was about $12 a liter, cheap when you consider that at Sobeys it is $22 a liter. Real Maple Syrup goes a really long way too. I think we were using that liter from September to December and using it regularly. I want to get about a gallon, at least.

I checked and saw that many of the farm markets were either open or will be open. I know there isn't a ton that is in season now but I'll take what we can get :)

I am also going to be doing a meal plan Monday but I need to get my thoughts together on that first. We have used up more storage and there is some we have to toss so my freezer list has changed.

Bread FAIL!

So I wanted to get back into the swing of regular bread making again. I made a few good loaves with home ground flour with the addition of some regular flour in the bread machine. I had a bad one but the next day I realized it was because I did not have warm water to activate the yeast since I had it soaking overnight. I knew for next time.

Today I wanted to make some bread. I put it on the sandwich setting, which is a 3 hour setting. It rose beautifully. I had to leave and when I got home, it looked bad. It is the loaf on the far left. After cutting into it, it totally sunk. I used half regular flour and half sprouted wheat flour. I tried to figure out what was wrong. Apparently it rose too much and didn't have enough flour to create a solid loaf, so it sunk when it started baking. Boo hiss. Tastes good though, although it didn't fully cook in the middle (which I didn't realize until later). Sprouted wheat flour acts as an enhancer for dough which makes the bread rise more so I probably added too much yeast causing the collapse.

So after the bread machine cooled down, I thought I would try another loaf, my regular way with only half a cup of the sprouted wheat flour. I did the quick setting, which is one hour, start to finish. That is the bottom right loaf. I don't think it cooked all the way through. It is pretty short and solid and not done on the top. After taking it out, it sunk a lot in the middle. It hasn't been cut into but I suspect it isn't baked through. Sigh.

My banana bread came out great! I made it in the crockpot in a silicone loaf pan. I should of packed some foil around it to keep the loaf shape as it spread out in the middle. Still, otherwise really good!

So what I may have to start doing is baking it in the oven. If I have to do that, I will bake more than one loaf at a time and also do buns and rolls. If my bread maker isn't cooking all the way through, it's pointless to keep using it. It is still good for mixing and kneading the bread. It is hard for me to do it manually so it will still serve a good purpose. I need to start having a baking day each week.