Eking out the food

I think more bicarb would just coarsen the texture with lots of big air holes in the cooked bread.

Elegran Tue 31-Mar-20 09:06:32
Do you think more bicarb would make it lighter, or would it just make it taste soda-ey?

I did actually use more bicarb than the recipe said, upping it to two teasps. On the other hand, I thought it was too sticky after I added the milk, so added more flour, but might added too much - perhaps that had something to do with it.

I don't remember the last loaf of soda bread that I made being so dense, but as I said, I like it anyway, and it turns out OH is happy to eat it after all.

Cheese scones could take the place of bread for some things.

I'm thinking I might have to try soda bread if the shortage of dried yeast goes on much longer.
I have various kinds of flour, but only a small amount of yeast.
And plenty of bicarb and baking powder.
Have you tried using baking powder instead of soda?

Do you think more bicarb would make it lighter, or would it just make it taste soda-ey?

I don't think OH likes it very much. It's a bit dense for him - he prefers to eat cotton wool Danish bread. All the more for me then, so I am slicing and freezing as you suggested.

Half quantities might be better so that it gets eaten up before it solidifies.

It smells so nice that I have a feeling half of it might disappear tonight

If not, I will probably follow your suggestion of slicing then freezing ?

mamacaz Mine was too big for me to eat in one dat, and it became more dense by the next morning, so I have sliced it and frozen it for toasting. Quite a lot of bits fell off as I sliced, they are frozen too, to be whizzed in the food processor and mixed with grated cheese to top a vegetable bake.

I discovered half a bag of bread flour (but no yeast) in the cupboard, so I have soda bread in the oven now. Thanks for sharing the recipe, Elegran.

the one from the recipe I mean.
However, not as good as yours

Thank you Elegran, that looks like a proper loaf in the picture

anyone got any recipes?

I think merlogran bakes successfully with gf flour, where is she?

MERLOTGRAN!

Verdict -
Crust - excellent.
Inside - a bit heavy, maybe I should have given it those 5 minutes more. Perhaps I was too quick cutting into it.
Toasted (in photo) - yum yum. Think I'll go back for another slice.

I have searched for recipes for no-yeast gf bread and found that they do exist.

For instance glutenfreeonashoestring.com/yeast-free-gluten-free-bread/
and glutenfreeonashoestring.com/yeast-free-gluten-free-dinner-rolls/

I haven't tried them, so I have no idea what they are like to eat!

There were others, but these were near the top of the Google page, so are popular, which should mean they are good.

Ok, this is it out of the oven. It looks quite craggy and rustic. I can't tell you what it is like inside until it cools down.

I only gave it 35 minutes, as my oven runs hotter than it should.

Mine is in the oven and smelling good. I used 150g granary flour (from a leftover small bag in the flour bin from when I made some granary bread) and the rest white plain flour. The liquid was yoghurt watered down to make up 400 mls. It was easy to do, just mix together the dry ingredients, mix together the wet ones, then combine then, mix well and knead it into a loaf shape. There were some dry bits that were refusing to combine, so I added a splash more water to make them stickier and kneaded them in.

I don't know, Callistemon I think that is different to bake with than ordinary flour? Are there any good recipes for gf bread on the net? There must be some, but I daresay they all have yeast to get it to rise. anyone got any recipes?

Do you think that would work with gf flour, Elegran?

I mean to try that this afternoon. I'll report back.

If you have or can get ANY flour, a recipe from Good Housekeeping sounds easy. I added the alternatives in brackets

Soda Bread

Ingredients
500g wholemeal flour (white plain? Maybe SR but omit the bicab? Fancy grains?)
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp (optional) finely chopped rosemary (or any herb or spice?)
400ml whole milk (skimmed milk?, reconstituted dried milk, diluted evaporated? yoghurt?)
1 lemon, juiced (bottled lemon juice? vinegar?)
2 tsp honey (sugar?)

Method
1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Mix together the flour, salt and bicarb in a bowl. And if you’d like rosemary bread, add the chopped rosemary too.
2. Mix together the milk and lemon juice in a jug, and wait for a minute as it magically turns into buttermilk. Then stir in the honey, and simply pour it into the flour mixture. Stir it with a knife for a minute until the whole thing comes together into a sticky dough.
3. Tip onto a floured work surface and shape it into a ball.
4. Put the ball on a floured baking tray and, using a sharp knife, make a deep cross on top.
5. Put in the oven and bake for 40 mins.
6. Cool on a wire rack until warm, then slice and serve.

Recipe from Good Food magazine, January 2018

I think most of us watched the way our mothers made food stretch out through the week. I can remember having mince on toast before pay day !
We had a duck ( a live one ) who used to wander up the garden so we had quite a treasure hunt looking to see where she'd laid her eggs. Mum used them in her baking as she used to say they were a bit" strong "to eat if boiled. I never did find that out.
Desdemona duck , she was a Khaki Campbell.

Me too.
It's only because I froze a lot of milk in the lead-up to all of this that we will (just about) make it through the approx. 4 weeks without shopping that will have passed by the time we get some food delivered. (That's assuming that there is actually any milk for them to bring that day!)

I regularly freeze milk

Yes, you can definitely use arborio rice, and I see no reason why cinnamon wouldn't make a good favouring, though I've never tried it. I always add a bit of mace if I have it then double up with grated nutmeg when serving.