I have not been writing about baking or making much over the past few days, as I have been putting myself through a grueling cleanse. My insanity comes with some reason though, as my gut has not been so happy with my overload in sugars, milk products and probably some gluten in there. I'm stripping my intake to a bare minimum of green leafy vegetables (which I am thankful is not a trigger for me), skinless chicken or fish, and hard fruit (pears or apples). Any grain I ingest is at lunch time and is brown long grain rice, or 1 cheat day of sticky rice with sushi.
In the mean time, I have been dreaming up different things I'm going to bake next week when I'm finished with this special kind of hell. I'm actually starting a baking class at our local culinary school this Saturday. I'm very excited to impart some knowledge when class is done.
I did learn an important lesson over the weekend about yeast, and bread-baking. I followed the recipe perfectly, but my bread just didn't rise like it should have. It ended up being delicious out of the oven, and more like a beer bread, but not lighter and fluffier like I had expected. My mistake as it turns out was in the instructions. My recipe said to mix all the dry ingredients together (including the yeast), but didn't specify to first soak the yeast (like the Flieschmann's yeast packet says to do). I remember wondering what to do in that situation, but decided to throw everything together like the recipe had said. It wasn't all bad, but I've learned that you must soak the yeast. I will be making another attempt at the delicious sage garlic bread (adding the sage and garlic was my idea, instead of raisins):
Brioche Loaf (GF):
1/2 cup 2% milk
1 extra large egg, room temperature
2 1/2 cups all purpose GF flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt
2 tbsps superfine sugar
1/3 oz package active dry yeast
7 oz unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
1/2 cup raisins (I used garlic and sage instead)
Lightly oil a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a small pan, warm the milk with 1/3 cup of water, add the egg and beat a bit. In a large bowl put the flour, xanthan gum, salt, sugar, and yeast together and mix well. Cut in the butter until it resembles small pieces. Make a well in the center of your dry ingredients, add the raisins (or garlic/sage) and the milk/egg mixture. Fold the ingredients together just a bit; it will still be a lumpy texture. Spoon the mixture into the oiled pan and lay a piece of plastic wrap over top of the mixture and flatten down. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place for an hour. When risen, heat the oven to 400º. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden on the outside.
Emily, I've run into the yeast problem before and I've narrowed it down to the type of yeast being used.
ReplyDeleteTraditional yeast is yeast and also some nutrients for the yeast rolled up into those little balls, but it doesn't disperse well in a dry mixture and, like you said, they really neet to be rehydrated. (You should subtract the water you use for the yeast from the total water for the recipe so you're not adding water.)
Instant yeast, despite the name which suggests you're somehow cheating by using it, is actually just yeast. It is also fine enough that it disperses well through flour. But since it's not primed with nutrients it takes a little while to get pumping. But I've successfully made bread with just a 1/4 tsp of the stuff it just takes 18 hours.
Thanks for the tip Justin. I'll have to make it again using both the instant yeast, and the wet traditional and report on tastiness.
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