sharonk's blog

I had been looking for bakers to bake my bread in bulk for me but never seemed to find the right one.  There were various reasons why each baker wasn't right and why I wasn't the right situation for them. Last Spring, before giving up the whole idea of selling my breads commercially, I gave it one last shot: could I develop a Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread Mix?

It took me 2 months to develop a user-friendly, genuine, sourdough bread mix. The mix takes about 24 hours to complete, less time than making gluten-free sourdough bread from scratch, about 3-4 days.

When I had initially looked at commercial spaces to bake bread, all I saw were dollar signs and enormous investments for space, utilities and equipment. When I ran the numbers, It looked like I needed a quarter of a million dollars for the first year.

Manufacturing a bread mix, however, does not need ovens!!

I found a relatively inexpensive office suite in an old mill building in my town and was able to work closely with the town officials to turn it into a small commercial kitchen. It took 5 months from start to finish not without lots of challenges. That's all behind me now and I have a wonderful work space to make and sell my bread mixes.

While I was managing the building project I was also perfecting the recipes, having people test the bread mixes, developing product labels, researching packaging and researching shipping.

When it was finally finished I scheduled my final inspection from the Board of Health. The next day, the kitchen flooded! I learned another new skill: how to use a shop vac. Thankfully, that stress is all behind me (ouch) and I did get my final inspection.

I have been making and selling my gluten-free sourdough bread mixes and gluten-free sourdough starters locally and online. The feedback is beginning to come in. People are making the mixes without trouble and enjoying the breads. Many of my customers have not been able to eat bread, let alone sourdough bread, since they were diagnosed with gluten allergy. They are so happy to be eating delicious, sourdough bread again.

Pumpernickel Flatbread, toasted and slathered with olive oil

Cinnamon Spice Bread with ice cream

Cinnamon Spice Bread sticks to be dipped in Fig Jam

I am happy and proud of what I accomplished. Now comes the next piece of work: Growing the Business!

My bread mixes and starters can be purchased from my website. www.glutenfreesourdough.com

Oven Baked Pancakes

One of my readers wrote to me about how she wanted a less oily pancake than what came out of the skillet. She tried baking them in the oven and had great results. I finally tried it and am happy to say it's an excellent option! The finished pancakes are much less oily and cook through really well. I can bake a whole tray in a lot less time than it takes to bake the same amount in a skillet or a stove top griddle.
I tried a few thicknesses of batter: thin, medium and thick. To thin out the batter I added a little water to the assembled batter. Try different thicknesses to see which you prefer.

Directions:

• Use the recipe from my previous post with your choice of starter and last feeding flour.
• Line a baking pan with parchment paper.
• Spoon or scoop batter onto the paper.
• Flatten into shape with the scoop or spoon.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 8-15 minutes.

I flipped them at about 8 minutes but I'm not convinced flipping is necessary.  The pancakes in these photos are 100% teff using a teff starter and more teff flour for the last feeding.

                                                                                                                 Teff pancakes, sliced, toasted with fermented mackerel.

www.glutenfreesourdough.com

HI All,
Lately I've been asked many questions about various technical aspects of making my bread. It seems the universe decided to remind me of some of the challenges so I could answer your questions from the best experience possible.

I'm preparing to vendor at a conference in a few short weeks.

Let's set aside that I decided to revise my book so the books I sell will be the most current and needed to have that done in time to self-print many books.

Let's set aside that my editor had to let go of my project about 10 pages into the book.
(My wonderful daughter took over the editing while she was preparing to move out of my house. The first night in her new apartment she stared at her computer for many hours, faithfully editing my book. I owe her big time)

Let's set aside that the ink I bought, at a good price online, has been delayed. When it finally arrived, I wasn't home and the delivery people needed a human to sign for it so it is still in their truck. (got ink from different site, not the best price, no shipping, next day delivered. I'm printing books as we speak, or as I write)

Let's set aside the logistics of packing my car for the conference: books, bread samples, humans, our own food, (we're all on special diets) rice cooker, toaster, hot pot, special pillows.

Now we come to what I wanted to really write about: I'm making samples, Mock Rye Bread. I froze some starter last week, took it out on Friday and planned to bake on Monday. The starter was sluggish, minimal bubbles, not much ferment smell at all.
Gave it an extra dose of water kefir but it didn't really help. (someone just wrote to me about just that).
Then I had to be out for a whole day so fed the starter and refrigerated it. (someone asked about that recently).
Still sluggish, no smell. I kept feeding it worrying it wouldn't be ready or perhaps it was never going to ferment properly. (Now that it's Fall the ambient temp in the house is cooler, probably part of the problem)  (3 cold aspects, frozen starter, refrigerated starter, cool house)

Monday morning comes, I hoped to have Peggy videotape a Mock Rye Bread demo for the online course but the starter is just sitting there. We switch gears and do a Feeding Technique #1 and #2 video.

Early Monday evening I feed it once more rather than dump the whole thing in the compost.
Late Monday night the starter starts rumbling and quaking and is in danger of overflowing its 16 cup bowl. (someone just asked about batters overflowing their pans)

I divide it into quart measuring cups, feed, cover and plan to bake on Tuesday morning. I'm left with 5 batches, a lot to do at once but hey, a baker's work is never done.

As I assemble the ingredients for the first loaf I see the starter is a bit too thick, so I add a little water to the next 4. They seem to be alright but instead of a slow pour into the pan, they plop in to the pan. Nowhere in my book do I mention "plop" as a batter texture.

Of course, my schedule for Tuesday does not allow for a proper rise. I will get home one and a half hours later than a 7 hour rise but I really can't get around it. As I'm driving home I visualize that the breads should stay nice and risen, hold their texture, be tall but when I come home they've fallen quite a bit. (someone just wrote about too short and too long rise times).

I bake them, they seem okay. I cut them open using a hacksaw (like someone just wrote about) Although they rose they're not fully cooked through on the top in the center of the loaf. (some wrote about that, too) I would have cooked them longer but they started to get a scorched smell.

A lot of it was usable, though, I cut off the uncooked pieces, hacksawed the rest into slices and froze them for the conference. I feel 99% sure they will be fine after thawing and toasting.
Luckily I also have some perfect loaves I made a few weeks ago.

I saved the uncooked parts and will see if they respond to double toasting. (more info for future questions)

So, All, if you thought I made perfect loaves all the time, you now know the truth. I'm still working with this fluid animal called Sourdough.
And Loving It.

 When people think of sourdough starter lineages they often think of the famous San Francisco or Alaska starters originally brought over from Europe. I imagine the people who brought starters along with them were courageous people looking for a better life. I imagine they dehydrated their starters in the old country and carried small amounts of it in pouches or tiny clay pots carefully tucked into whatever belongings they could carry with them in the boats. When they got to the land of opportunity it is said their bread starters took on a new flavor, the flavor of their new locale. Hence the famousness of the San Francisco or Alaska sourdough flavors.

I first learned to make sourdough using an old-fashioned 7-day rye bread recipe. It was a goopy, no-knead recipe that produced a rich, malty, dense loaf. The starter was built over seven days, yielding a giant bowl of sponge-like starter. When it was time to assemble the breads rye flour, water and salt were incorporated into the starter. This “goop” was then spooned into the loaf pans as this bread did not stand up by itself, it needed “walls” to hold it up. It was so sticky that the less handling involved, the better the finished product.

When I began to work with gluten-free starter possibilities I used this spongy, goopy technique as a guide and after a year of many failures, had great success while incorporating a few important changes through trial and error:

• extra daily feedings to prevent spoilage
• boosting and preserving it with a bit of an old fashioned fermented drink, water kefir.

I found the starters to be rather delicate and did not regularly store well. I found that I could easily begin a new starter so using it up was never a problem. In fact, I found the fresh starters resulted in breads having a consistently fresh taste while the stored refrigerated starters often carried some “off tastes” I associated with over-fermentation. The over-fermentation also seemed to result in less than satisfactory leavening.

This sponge-goop technique is very different than wheat sourdough techniques that benefit from extensive kneading and shaping. Unlike their rye counterparts traditional wheat breads also stand up, rise and bake without the support of the walls of a loaf pan.

Some seasoned wheat sourdough bakers have had poor success with my technique when they apply their years of experience with wheat sourdough to my rice starter. They expect to take a small amount of starter and knead large amounts of flour into it, shape it, let it rise and bake it. My technique, however, is the opposite. I grow a large amount of high-moisture starter by feeding it at least twice a day. I then stir in a small amount of flour and pour or spoon it into a loaf pan or muffin tin.  From there I let it rise and then bake it.

I think the main reason the wheat technique doesn’t work for my recipes is that my technique was originally derived from the 7-day sourdough rye sponge-goop technique which is really quite different than the wheat technique.

One definition of lineage is “the descendants of one individual”. The descendants of the San Francisco and Alaska sourdough starters are available for sale and supposedly retain some of that “genetic” material referring to the local bacteria and yeasts that grow in the starter. When one purchases those starters they know the lineage of their starter.

I don’t sell starters, I sell a technique. I think about my technique as a “technical” lineage, much like a technique or practice handed down from teacher to student, or master to apprentice. My “technical lineage” is a descendent of the 7-Day Sourdough Rye Technique.

I am deeply grateful for the people willing to try my technique because in addition to feeding ourselves we are also keeping alive a technique that could easily be forgotten in these modern times. We keep it alive by learning it, practicing it, feeding our families with it and teaching it to others.

We successfully unite the past with the future when we reclaim an old-fashioned technique like 7-day rye sourdough and successfully and palatably use it to address the modern dietary challenges of gluten intolerance.

Part 1:

I thought I was ordering Teff Whole Grain but I obviously made a mistake somewhere along the line because when my order arrived I opened a 25 lb. bag of Teff Flour! I went back to my original order slip and saw that, indeed, I had ordered 25 lbs. of flour. I just looked at this massive amount of flour and wondered how long will it take to use this up. Ugh.

I usually buy whole grain teff and grind it up as I need it. Teff is a potent high protein seed grain and has been a blessing after learning I had to go off gluten. I also use whole grain teff for a power breakfast. I soak the teff grain the night before, 1 cup teff to 3 cups water, add a little water kefir to boost the enzyme activity, cover and let it sit overnight. The next morning I simmer it for about 15 minutes to cook. Mixed with chia gel, flax seed oil and soaked nuts, I'm off and running. I'll often pour the leftovers into a loaf pan where it becomes like polenta. I'll slice it and toast or saute it. Using spices and herbs it could be made sweet or savory.

Since I was missing my teff breakfasts I ordered some more whole grain, this time only 10 lbs. To my horror, I opened a box of 10 lbs. of teff flour, again! I really must slow down, I'm making way too many mistakes.

Anyway, what to do with my 35 lbs. of teff flour?
My book, The Art of Gluten Free Sourdough Baking, is based on brown rice flour starters. I'd begun to experiment with buckwheat sorghum starters and have had some great results. I figured I better move on to Teff starters so I wouldn't have pounds and pounds of teff flour either stuffed into the freezer or sprouting critters with legs.

I began a new starter using only teff flour and water in a ratio of 1 to 1. I chose this because teff absorbs a lot of water. I usually use teff to thicken and give structure to some bread recipes. I was surprised that this starter was actually very soupy but I continued along with my 1 to 1 experiment, feeding it every 8 hours or so for a couple of days.

I used the bubbly starter to make Teff pancakes and was pleasantly surprised that they were as good as or even better than the rice pancakes! They were naturally slightly sweet with a great cake-like texture. The leftovers were great toasted the next day. Since I can't eat sweet stuff I used them as an accompaniment to a bean stew. I'm sure they would be great with maple syrup or fruit.

Starter Recipe:
Make a starter by mixing equal amounts of teff flour and water. Add a tablespoon of water kefir or other fermented liquid.
Feed every 8 hours or so with equal amounts of teff flour and water.
After 2 days it should be ready to use.

Pancake Recipe:
One cup of starter makes about 4 pancakes.
Add a pinch of salt, 1 tablespoons of any oil or fat and 1 tablespoons ground flax seeds.
Mix let it sit about 10 minutes and cook.
The pancakes will not show bubbles so flip it when it starts to dry out around the outer third.
Sometimes I cover it while it's cooking. It cooks faster and more thoroughly.

My next experiment will be making breads using this teff starter. I'll keep you posted.

Part 2:

After last week’s fabulous teff pancakes I continued building the starter even though I sorely needed a break from bread baking. I was busy and thought it would be a good opportunity to practice growing starter in the fridge as this would cut the feedings from 3 times a day to twice. 

The starter grew beautifully with a mild aroma. I would take it out for about an hour in the morning, feed it, let it sit another hour or so and put it back in the fridge for 12 hours. I’d repeat the sequence at night before bed. I noticed some thickening and some small bubbles but nothing dramatic.

I had been thinking about creating bread that was mildly sweet without any sweetener beyond 1 teaspoon of stevia powder. I used small amounts of carob and maca (a malty flavored root) and used buckwheat flour for one loaf and shredded coconut for the other. I also used coconut oil for the fat. The batters were rich looking, like cake batter. The aroma in the kitchen was heavenly and the resulting breads were fabulous. Sweet without any added sugars, no blood sugar spikes and no yeasty itching.

My daughter, who named Sourdough Bread #1 “Mommybread” said this Teff Carob bread was the best ever and I should make it exclusively. Forever.

Growing starter in the refrigerator is said to minimize the sour taste of sourdough. It also enables us to reduce the feedings from 3 times a day to twice. I find my starters ferment very quickly these days making me wonder if I have enormous invisible colonies of yeast and bacteria in my kitchen. I also ferment water kefir, milk kefir, and kombucha so I assume there is quite a bit of activity going on.

A friend of mine, Peggy, likes to tinker in the kitchen. She experiments with many recipes and techniques and documents them in great detail. She tried growing a starter in the refrigerator, something I haven’t had time to see all the way through.

Here are her notes:

“I decided to go with a simple loaf of bread using quinoa and sorghum flours.

I had a small amount of rice-sorghum-teff starter left over from making multigrain bread and fed it for four days with alternating and equal amounts of quinoa flour and sorghum flour. I chose to use these because they were what I had on hand. I also was going for a lighter colored bread.

I gave it a little boost with 1 tablespoon of water kefir to perk it up on the second day.

After 24 hours of feedings I put it in the fridge because it was very bubbly and soupy! I didn’t want a strong sourdough flavor this time as I just baked two batches that were strongly fermented.

I continued to feed it 3 times a day continuing to keep it in the fridge.

36 hours later, I removed it from the fridge because it looked flat and dead But four hours later, when I next looked at it, it was furiously bubbling away!!! I had been deceived by the chilled mixture. I fed it and returned it to the fridge.

8 hours later when I took it out to feed it, it was actively bubbling even though it was so cold. I think it liked the fact that I had taken it out that first time for a few hours.”

She said that the finished bread had just enough sour taste to let you know you were eating sourdough. Not overpowering at all!

I decided to stop being so pure and create a bread with all the ingredients I avoid all year long: sugar, chocolate, etc. I wanted it to still be highly digestible so I used my basic gluten free boosted sourdough starter. I was concerned that the "sourness" might conflict with the sweet but it worked out really well.

I had an interesting time developing the recipe. I wanted to use cocoa powder, chocolate chips and dried cherries. At this point I have enough experience to have some "instinct" about what basic ingredients to use without following a recipe. By now, I have made enough breads that resulted in excellent texture that I know what I'm looking for in the batter texture: like thick oatmeal. I hand mixed it with a wooden spoon so I could feel the texture change with each addition. At certain times I could feel it needed a bit more arrowroot or flax or water. It was satisfying to choose based on my perceived need and watch and feel it shift to its next stage. I had a rather special experience from it all. I felt connected to centuries of many other bakers who never used written recipes perhaps because they didn't have access to paper and pen or were too busy to write anything down.

The first try was too bitter and not sweet enough. The second was just right! Someone in my family asked why I called it a bread and not a cake. I told him that this bread was not as sweet or light as a cake might be but was more like a sweet bread that wouldn't crash one's blood sugar or turn one into a couch potato. The bread is also made from whole grains and properly fermented so it is highly digestible.

The splurge happens in the chocolate chips and the cherries but the bread itself is not overly sweet. The resulting loaves were very good and were consumed by my family in record time. I made the breads the day before the family came, sliced them, toasted them and served them with a bowl of sweetened whipped cream. They were consumed in record time.

Holiday Chocolate Bread
Yield: 2 loaves

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups boosted brown rice starter
(boosted with water kefir)
(I wanted a lighter starter so I began it with brown rice flour and used sorghum flour for the other feedings)
½ cup chia gel
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup brown rice or sweet rice flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ cup water
3 tablespoons melted coconut oil or other oil or butter

¾ cup sugar (I used organic light)
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup water
½ teaspoon vanilla powder or vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

¼ cup tapioca flour
1-2 tablespoons arrowroot flour
3 tablespoons flax seed, ground
½ dried cherries
½ cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used vegan chocolate chips)
½ cup chopped walnuts

Directions
A few hours before making bread soak ½ cup dried cherries in water, then drain (this hydrates the cherries making them less likely to burn)

Measure out starter into a mixing bowl
Add chia gel, salt, rice flour and mix.
Add cocoa powder, ¼ cup water, oil and mix.
Add sugar, coconut flour, ¼ cup water, vanilla, cinnamon and mix.

Add tapioca flour and 1 tablespoon arrowroot and mix. If the batter seems very thin, add another tablespoon of arrowroot keeping in mind you will next add the flax seed next which will thicken it considerably.

Add ground flax seed. The batter should now be medium thick. If it needs another tablespoon of arrowroot add it now.

Fold in the cherries, chocolate chips and walnuts.

Carefully spoon into 2 loaf pans only half full. (I used parchment paper with the paper higher than the sides of the loaf pan so I could easily lift the loaf out when it came out of the oven)

Let rise 7 hours and bake at 350 for about 50 minutes.
Remove and let cool 5-10 minutes and lift the bread out of the loaf pan for the rest of the cooling.

This bread rose well during the rise but lost a lot of height during the baking so it became a dense almost brownie-like bread/cake.
It was very good right out of the oven.
It’s best warm so after it’s fully cooled it can be reheated by toasting in a toaster or oven.

I also tried slicing half a loaf when it was only out of the oven about 10 minutes. Then I put the slices back in the oven for about 15 minutes. They got a nice outer crust, on the road to Biscotti but not so hard. These were good later on without toasting or reheating.

After nearly 4 years of gluten free sourdough experimentation and observation I can now intuitively work with the never ending variations that emerge during the sourdough process. Much like people, every gluten free sourdough starter is unique. They respond to temperature, humidity, air flow, and miniscule differences in measurements.

Lately, I’ve become so adept at this kind of baking that I can “correct’ the starter or bread dough as I move through the tasks rather than dutifully following the recipe and ending up with a brick.

I can tell by the smell of the starter if it’s fermenting too quickly and needs to be fed more often. I can tell by the density if more flour blending is necessary. In a heat wave I can correct before over-fermentation sets in. The way the pizza dough comes together tells me if I need more arrowroot flour to attain that stretchy doughy quality. The quality of sponginess of the nearly finished bread batter tells me if it needs more ground flax seed.

My hope is that people who bake my bread will get a feel for working with a gluten free starter and the resulting dough so that they can correct as they go. My other hope is that they will be brave enough to try variations so that they can turn my bread recipes into their favorite breads. I love when people tell me they experimented with dried cherries instead of raisins and sage rather than coriander or used mini loaf pans instead of muffin tins.

My new motto is “Go forth and bravely bake!”

http://glutenfreesourdough.com

http://glutenfreesourdough.blogspot.com

This is an article I wrote for the journal, Wise Traditions, that teaches traditional cooking techniques, including sourdough, for better health.It's a long article detailing my journey from rye sourdough to gluten free sourdough.

After a number of years of building Weston A. Price principles into my daily life I learned I had multiple food sensitivities and had to let go of some beloved foods, namely butter and homemade sourdough rye bread. Unable to find suitable store bought gluten free and allergen free breads I began a journey of culinary discovery that taught me more about gluten free sourdough baking than I ever could have imagined . I coupled Weston A Price principles with modern gluten free baking principles and came up with some lovely breads, muffins and pancakes that have become nutrient dense, highly digestible comfort food for me and my family.

It took me one year to perfect a 7-day Sourdough Rye bread. It required an easy starter: equal amounts of rye flour and water whisked smooth. The starter had to be fed additional amounts of flour and water every day for the next six days. I watched in awe as the starter bubbled and took on the appearance of a sponge. The recipe said the dough should be like goop, and it was! Kneading was not necessary or even possible. I wasn’t sure this heavy goop would rise but it nearly doubled in size in 12 hours. As it baked it filled the house with a beautiful malty aroma. The first warm slices out of the oven were flavorful and dense without being heavy. I began to regularly bake this lovely bread. At first I bought bagged rye flour but soon I purchased the grain mill attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer and bought 25 pounds of organic whole rye berries. I believed that my bread had its nutrients still alive in the freshly ground flour.  

My family enjoyed the bread toasted with butter, jam, and nut butter. While some people couldn’t appreciate the bread because of its density, others really loved it. Some people commented that the bread reminded them of bread their grandparents used to make. My daughter brought home a Serbian friend on college break. I watched them cut thick slabs of the bread, toast it, slather humus on it and top it off with my home made sauerkraut. These two kids were in heaven, especially after all that dorm food. The friend proclaimed with wonderment that this bread was just like the “Serbian bread” his grandmother made and could they please take some back to college along with some “Serbian sauerkraut?”

I happily packed them off with a few loaves. I hesitated on the sauerkraut, though. I had visions of it blowing up in their backpacks.

I was flattered and deeply satisfied to feed people this wonderfully healthy food. I was also very pleased to have my food fondly remind people of their traditional ethnic foods. 

I started making this bread to improve my health. I had been on a long journey of recovery from various illnesses and a friend gave me “Nourishing Traditions” as a gift. Each new food or technique I tried seemed to boost my health to another level. Some symptoms, however, persisted. I went to a Holistic MD who tested me for food allergies. It turned out I had an extreme gluten sensitivity as well as sensitivities to cow and goat’s milk, eggs, and soy. I was deeply distressed that in order to feel better I had to give up my sourdough rye bread. I was already off of all milk products except butter so that meant just letting go of the butter.  I wasn’t happy about giving up eggs but was willing. I had already stopped eating soy months before after reading about it in “Nourishing Traditions”. Back then, I had muscle tested myself for it and having registered an extreme loss of strength, dropped it out of my diet and lost 1 pound a week for 8 weeks without dieting!

But my beloved bread! I discussed it all with a friend over tea and unexpectedly put my head on the table and started sobbing. When I finished crying I resolved that I would figure out a way to make a Gluten Free Sourdough bread.

I had my last slice of rye bread that night, perfectly toasted, sweetly aromatic, soaked with warm organic butter. I expressed my gratitude for this wonderful nourishing bread and butter, both of which had fed me well. I said my goodbyes and moved forward. Within 48 hours all the persisting symptoms I had up until that point disappeared! I began to understand the significance of the gluten allergy and how gluten was damaging my intestines and consequently my overall health.  

I took a break from bread baking while I adjusted to my new diet.  I looked at different store bought gluten free breads.  Some of them used white rice flour and I wanted whole grain flour in my bread. Most of them contained milk or eggs for leavening. Just what I needed to avoid. The ones that didn’t use milk and eggs used commercial yeast for leavening, which, from previous experience, I did better without. In addition, many of the breads contained added sweetener, something I was trying to stay away from. I became frustrated looking at all these gluten free breads and still not being able to eat them.

There was also the issue of digestibility.  I was not convinced these breads were highly digestible given that they were essentially “quick breads”.  Dry flour mixed with wet ingredients, mixed with commercial yeast and risen for a few hours at most. According to Weston A. Price principles, soaking grains and flours neutralizes the antinutrients, generates lactobacillus and enzymes, gives a full bodied taste that increases with age and has a long shelf life.  These were the qualities of my beloved rye bread and I was ready to have that again. I wanted a bread free from the foods I was sensitive to, free of commercial yeast and sweetener in any form, complete with great taste and high digestibility.

I began to experiment with Gluten Free sourdough, using the same sourdough guidelines substituting brown rice flour for the rye. My first attempt seemed to be spoiled. The starter harbored a greenish tinge towards the end of the 7 days. The finished bread smelled awful and I spit out the little bit that I tasted. Besides seeming spoiled, the bread was dense, compact because it had hardly risen!

I continued to experiment by trying different combinations of flours and different ways of working with the starter. During this time I had been trying water kefir as a morning tonic. It was nicely potent but really too alcoholic for me to drink. I continued making it to boost the soaking water for beans and grains. One morning as I was taking my daily walk, an activity that generates problem solving as well as new ideas, I wondered if the water kefir, being too alcoholic for me to drink, might be strong enough to leaven bread? I emailed an experienced fermenter from Australia, who said that he and his family often used water kefir to leaven their sourdough products. He gave me some tips for the starter as well as the bread and I started to have success. I continued to experiment with different combinations of store bought gluten free flours until I came up with a really tasty and dependable one. This whole process from the first spoiled bread to the successful, dependable bread took one whole year!

I began to bake four loaves at a time and freeze some. The bread was excellent even after 4 months in the freezer! I could toast a piece in the morning, pack it in a lunch container and eat it right out of the box six hours later. It still had a freshness about it even after all those hours. I used the bread for toast with nut butters. I used it in soup, stew and bean bowls where it nicely soaked up the juices. At the winter holidays I even used the starter for a chocolate cake. I didn’t let it rise long enough so it became a gluten free brownie! My crew ate the entire tray in five minutes…

I shared the bread with people on gluten free diets and watched their reactions. Their eyes closed, inhaling the aroma right out of the oven or toaster. I think I even saw someone swoon. Some people wanted to buy it! They said “this is what I’ve been looking for. Gluten Free, good taste, beautiful texture, long shelf life, and even freezes well”. I wasn’t ready to begin baking full time but I began to teach bread baking classes.

I was ready to branch out. I researched gluten free muffin recipes and cobbled together a recipe using the same rice starter for leavening. The results were exciting. The muffins were great and were a nice change from the bread. There was a little starter left over so I tried some sourdough pancakes. I was careful to make sure the batter fermented for at least 7 hours before cooking so any fresh flour I added was properly soaked. They were quite good. I still had a little starter leftover so I dropped spoonfuls of it into soup and got rather amorphous looking but great tasting dumplings!

After two years of euphoric bread eating I started to show symptoms of sensitivity again. One of the principles of healthy eating is to eat a variety of foods. This ensures a mix of nutrients, micronutrients and enzymes. One of the challenges of having multiple food sensitivities is that it becomes difficult to eat a wide variety of foods because we must avoid so many foods and food products. Undiagnosed gluten sensitivity impairs the intestinal system thus making us that much more sensitive to foods we consume often.

I muscle tested for all the ingredients in my beloved bread and found I was sensitive to three of the five flour ingredients! The two I was most sensitive to were highly processed flours, chick pea flour and tapioca flour. I was less sensitive to the third ingredient, sorghum, something I had never eaten before using in my bread. I tested fine for the fourth ingredient, potato flour although it is also highly processed. Thankfully, I tested well for the organic brown rice flour which I ground in small batches in my grain mill and refrigerate for short periods of time to preserve the nutrients.

 I started to think again about the Weston A. Price principles around using organic ingredients with as little processing as possible. I felt sure I had to begin experimenting again using only organic grains I could grind in my grain mill. I was happy to grind as much of the bread ingredients as I could ensuring a “nutrient alive” bread. As much as I loved my bread I had never been completely comfortable using flours that were not organically grown.

I was also concerned about the length of time the flour may have sat on the market shelf. My ingredient options were not exactly what I preferred but I worked with what was available and the knowledge I had at the time.

Again I took a break from bread baking to ponder. During that time I attended a Gluten Free Culinary conference taught by professional chefs, pastry chefs and cookbook writers. Through the information they shared I got a clearer understanding of general baking principles as well as gluten free baking principles. I started to understand that each gluten free flour had a specific property to give to the finished product. The chick pea flour gave the bread a nice buoyancy. The tapioca flour gave it lightness. The sorghum flour gave it a spongy texture. The potato flour binds it.

Now the challenge would be to substitute new flours for the flours that the Gluten Free Baking movement has grown to depend on. My question became “Which fresh ground flours would give me the properties needed to make an excellent product?” I decided to experiment with small batches of pancakes rather than bread in the hopes that in the event of failure the losses would be minimized.

I made a new starter with brown rice flour and made a few batches of pancakes using teff, amaranth and buckwheat flour. The teff and amaranth grains were too small to be ground in my mill so I used a coffee grinder which worked very well. With each new batch I saved some rice starter for the next batch. Each batch had very different qualities. The teff pancakes had a very dense texture. The amaranth pancakes were light and delicate. The buckwheat pancakes were thick and cakelike. I even tried some ground up gluten free steel cut oats which nicely fluffed them. I went one week feeding the starter twice daily, making pancakes every 2-3 days with no sign of diminished freshness in the starter. Previously, I would begin each batch of bread baking with a new starter as the old starters seemed to die in the refrigerator between batches. I assumed this was a characteristic of gluten free starters.

Looking to experiment a bit more, I decided to try adding different flours directly to the starter. With the addition of each new flour I watched the starter change texture and density. I learned not to use the same flour more than twice in a row because the pancakes would be too cakey or too dense or even too light! After a few more batches the pancakes themselves seemed to take on a melding of characteristics from this mix of grainy genetic material. They became more full bodied and, perhaps, more satisfying. By this time my starter had been alive for 3 weeks.

I was scheduled to teach an upcoming bread making class and began new rice starters. Since I hadn’t baked for 3 months I decided to make extra starter to experiment with after class. I would teach my tried and true original recipe even though I would no longer eat it.

Bread class was a success and everyone took home a loaf to rise overnight and bake the next day. I gave everyone ¼ cup of rice starter with instructions to sit it on the counter and feed it twice a day with equal amounts of flour and water, changing the bowl every 2-3 days. I hoped that with this starter they could begin baking soon while class was fresh in their minds.

The day after class I was ready to experiment. I ground more buckwheat, amaranth and sweet brown rice flour. I had some leftover potato flour but only enough for 3 loaves. I put those loaves together and was happy to see the dough had a spongy texture similar to the original recipe. I decided to try a fourth loaf without potato flour. The dough was as thin as cake batter so I added more sweet brown rice flour. It thickened but it was still thinner than I had ever worked with. I didn’t think it would rise properly but to my surprise it rose beautifully, baked well and was the best loaf of the four!!!

Later that week my students let me know that their breads rose beautifully, and baked well. They said the good taste seemed to get better with age. In addition, they were dutifully feeding their starters twice a day.

I continue along with my experiments. I tried mini muffin tins because they are a better size for a snack than standard size tins. Using the rice starter I will try another chocolate cake for the holidays. It will be gluten free, dairy free, egg free, sweetener free, yeast, baking soda and baking powder free using stevia rather than sugar. Next, I’d like to try rolls and scones, maybe a holiday fruit and nut bread and after that, maybe an onion bread.

Two and a half years after giving up gluten I have achieved what I had hoped. I have successfully created my own nutrient-dense, allergy-free bread products using a combination of ancient sourdough technique and an ancient fermented drink. It is encouraging and comforting to me that as we move into the future and have to deal with some of the very difficult challenges of our day, we can fall back on the wisdom of the ancients to strengthen and nourish us.

Sharon A. Kane

I tried one of my newest gluten free recipes and came up with a very tasty bread. It had a nice crumb, a nice rise and a nice crust. When I travel I always bring my own bread. I was getting ready to travel to a family event. I sliced up one loaf and packed it in my suitcase. To be sure I would have enough bread I also took the loaf I had previously sliced and frozen the week before. When I got to my hotel room I unpacked the still slightly frozen bread, leaving it to thaw in the open air. Meanwhile, I happily ate the fresh slices as I moved through the weekend’s events. I had forgotten about the thawing slices in the open air until I began packing and saw them. Being unsure they were still good but unwilling to dump them, I repacked them and brought them home. When I got home I toasted up a piece and Wow! it was still fantastic! There were a few pieces left so I wrapped them in a cloth and set them on the counter to see how many more days they would still taste good. They were still excellent even 2-3 days later. So this was a previously frozen bread that had thawed in the stuffy air of a hotel room, inadvertently left in that same stuffy air for 3 days, repacked and traveled a total of 700 miles. The bread just would not get stale, old, or gross!

For a gluten free bread to be treated this way and still taste so good is very, very unusual. Most people who must eat gluten free bread, whether they bake their own or buy it fresh, eat it fresh for one day and put the rest in the freezer because it dries out so quickly. My gluten free sourdough bread stays fresh on the counter for 5 days wrapped in a cloth, sitting in an open plastic container. It keeps 10 days in the fridge if it hasn’t been eaten up by then. It also freezes, thaws and toasts up beautifully. I have always been proud of the long shelf life of this palatable bread.

The packed, frozen, thawed, repacked, retoasted loaf that was inadvertently ignored in the hotel room was an experimental loaf. I used one of my standard recipes and added 2 tablespoons of chia seed gel to it. Recently I baked another loaf using this same recipe, with chia added, and tested the limits of its shelf life. It lasted 10 days! stored on the counter, in a cloth, in an open plastic container. By day 8 it lost a little of its bounce but gained a great crispiness in the toaster.

Chia seed is a wonderful addition to baked products. Adding 2 tablespoons of chia seed gel to baking products will extend the freshness and shelf life. The chia seeds attract moisture which is retained in the baking product.

To make chia seed gel, take 2 tablespoons of chia seed and mix it into 8 ounces of water.

Stir with a whisk or fork every 5-10 minutes for a half hour.

It is suggested to let the chia seed gel sit for 12 hours before using.

It keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge.