For much of my life, I’ve been compelled by ethical or other less noble reasons to eat differently than most other people. I’m fine with that and have mostly enjoyed rising to the challenge of making tasty meals with fewer ingredients. Becoming a vegetarian in my mid-twenties was relatively easy because I’d grown up seeing plenty of meatless options on the dinner table (also, I waited to convert until the outside world began to catch on). Gone were the days when a cheese omelet or grilled cheese were the only restaurant options available to a vegetarian (if you were lucky). Vegans likely wouldn’t have survived eating out in my youth.
Later in life, dietary issues created a temporary need to avoid certain ingredients (including tomatoes). I scouted out and adapted recipes and even developed my own unique one for a roasted red pepper sauce that stood in nicely for tomato sauce on pasta and pizza. It helped that it elicited no complaints from my family (in fact, they showed every sign of actually liking it).
When the pandemic began, inspired by our resident manager’s stories of a marvellous no-knead bread recipe (and even more so by the loaf he left outside our door), I decided to give bread making a try. I salvaged the last dregs of yeast and bread flour available at our local bulk food store and embarked on the journey.
The photo, top left, shows my first effort. It looked like real bread, tasted good, kept me occupied (briefly), didn’t generate a lot of dirty dishes, and provided bragging rights. So I carried on. Played around with various different combinations of flours and always ended up with something edible. Even tried my hand at proper kneaded bread!
However, shortly before that, Mr. Fluffster had given up wheat, so I was baking bread for one. Sure, I occasionally made a loaf for the Fluffster offspring to take home but never got the satisfaction of watching him eat it.
When I decided to graduate from my “poor man’s Dutch oven” (two loaf pans clipped together with binder clips) to a proper ceramic bread loaf pan, the trouble began. The booklet that came with my brand-new shiny red pan contained two recipes, one of which was for a gluten-free loaf that required kneading. Aha! I thought. Here’s my opportunity to impress Mr. Fluffster (and maybe save a bit on those pricy store-bought gluten-free breads that run the gamut from godawful to passable if well toasted and loaded with strong tasting fillings).
It required finding some unique ingredients — guar flour, chestnut flour — the latter of which proved elusive, so I substituted hazelnut flour, because Professor Google assured me it would be suitable. The recipe struck me as a bit odd, as it called for adding dry yeast to the flours without advance proofing, but I assumed that the bread loaf pan makers must have tested this recipe before printing it. Either that, or the pan must have some magical properties of its own.
I followed the directions exactly. Curiously, the dough didn’t want to stick together, nor did it cooperate with being kneaded. Undeterred, I assumed that was just one of the vagaries of going gluten-free, and carried on.
It didn’t rise. At all. Moving it from bowl to loaf pan and waiting longer didn’t seem to make any difference. But as the dough more or less filled the bottom of the pan anyway, I enthusiastically shoved it into the oven, expecting a miracle.
When it came out, Mr. Fluffster valiantly sliced it into super-thin slices and put the loaf into the freezer, to be doled out for toasting, two slices at a time. The first time we tried it (I had to participate in consumption, of course) was, umm, “interesting.” While it didn’t break any teeth, it also didn’t taste much like bread or anything remotely like it. Mr. Fluffster was later heard to remark that it didn’t taste bad with peanut butter (Mr. Fluffster is a very polite and kind man.) The Fluffster offspring, persuaded to try a slice, was less diplomatic.
I decided that the problem was merely that the recipe writers forgot to include the yeast proofing stage, so I tried again, this time proofing the yeast with the oil and water before adding the flours to the liquid instead of the other way around. The end result, even more dismal than the first, is in the photo, top right. Even Mr. Fluffster didn’t object when I sawed it in half and dropped it straight into the organics bin.
It occurs to me now that I could have kept it for self-defence, in case anyone ever tries to break into our home. A bonk on the noggin with that brick would definitely deter a burglar.
In fact, I think I should write to the owners of Clue (Cluedo, if you’re British) to suggest that they continue their update of the game that started in 2016 with changing Mrs. White to Dr. Orchid. They could now replace the candlestick (since nobody has candlesticks anymore, after all) with a loaf of my failed gluten-free bread.
I can hear it now: “I win! Ms. Fluffster did it in the Hall with the Bread!”
Bread by Nick Bluth from the Noun Project; Binder clip created by Bakunetsu Kaito from the Noun Project; chess pawn by Made from the Noun Project
