Grain-free Bread

[MJones]

I attempted to make the "Grain-Free White Bread Rolls" from the Grain Free Living website. I can't seem to post links here yet, but I can get you this far:
grainfreeliving.com/recipes/breads/99-grain-free-white-bread-rolls

I can't say it was a complete success. I was wondering if anyone could tell me where I may have gone wrong, so that I can hopefully improve the next batch. They ended up coming out like giant sugar cookies.. flat and cracked on the surface. They don't look "bready" or "knotty" like their example picture there, and also took about 30-35 minutes at 355F rather than the given 20-25 to begin to brown at all. Did I add too much liquid? I was very careful following the directions, so what could I add or remove from their ingredient list to help make these more like the rolls they should be? This is my first attempt at cooking with most of these ingredients.

Thanks a bunch in advance!

 

[vonfunk]

Okay.
So without a picture of the product that you made it''s hard to give a proper diagnosis. Looking at the recipe I'm a little thrown off by the ratio of flour to starch, but I've never worked with quinoa flour, normally I use bean flours while doing gluten free baking.

Personally I would slightly reduce the water, maybe by a tablespoon or so and try using a jumbo egg, while slightly reducing the water,that would provide more protein to help build the structure of the roll

Gluten free baking is tricky, because it involves so much mixing of different flours. Most of my gluten free baking is some sort of crust or cookies. Generally I used 1/4 corn starch and 3/4 bean flour (either red bean or chickpea/garbanzo bean).

If anyone has any other ideas or has more experience with gluten free baking than I do for the sake of reference the recipe is here.

 

[MJones]

A picture!

flickr.com/photos/64092674@N07/5917721174/

It's still saying I need to make five posts to post a link or embed an image, even though I have, but leaving off the http and www seemed to work. Sorry for making you work at this, but thank you for the help!

 

[vonfunk]

And picture is linked here

so now that it is morning and I am sober I can answer this.

It looks like the problem could be either with the leavening or with the dough's ability to form a structure. The problem is that both issues can present in the same way. I stand by my original tips. Play with the flour, try other flours, increase the egg slightly.

I would track down a similar recipe and see what it uses as flour.

 

[MJones]

Alright, I'll try adding a bit less water and a little more egg if I try this particular recipe again. I have to accept my first attempt as a failure first, probably sometime after I break a tooth trying to eat one of the could-probably-attach-a-bowling-ball-to-one-side-and-not-have-it-tear-away rolls.

Thanks, vonfunk!

 

[MJones]

I made this yesterday, and it ended up much nicer:

http://www.grainfreeliving.com/recipes/breads/66-bread

Mine turned out darker than the bread in the picture, but it tastes great.. like real bread! Better than real bread! I followed the directions exactly, except for the water; I ended up needing to add a bit more to get the "slowly falling off the spoon" consistency that she stresses there.

Woo! Success!



Edit: Success x2! It let me post a link!