Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins

It is a soggy mess outside.  A good day to stay inside watching the olympics and baking.  I decided to make a childhood favorite--blueberry muffins.  When I was in college my mom made me a cookbook with all my favorite recipes.  To this day I still use it.  I just substitute the flour with whatever all purpose GF flour mix I have on hand.  Today I used Marjorie June's Legacy Kitchen All-Purpose GF Flour Blend.  For any of you in Boise this is a local company :)

The muffins took 40 minutes to bake.  I learned a neat trick to tell when GF baked goods are done.  According to King Arthur Flour you should test for the doneness of GF baked goods (at least sweat breads) by temperature rather than the standard tooth pick test.  The internal temp should be above 200 degrees.  

Ratios

So far I have had best luck using equal parts of my sourdough starter and flour.  This does not align with what I have read about baking bread, but it is working, so I am going with it.

I also have found that adding ground flax to my warm water helps create a dough with more spring to it.  

Here is my best attempt yet:

160 grams sourdough starter

Flax Mixture:

1/2 Cup warm filtered water (99 degrees)

3 Tbs ground flax

1 tsp honey

Dry Ingredients Whisked Together:

40 grams unbolted buckwheat flour

60 g tapioca flour

30 g brown rice flour

30 g ivory teff

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/4 tsp sea salt

I poured the flax mixture into the starter and mixed thoroughly.  Then I added the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stirred until well combined, adding additional warm water as needed.

I let the dough rise for 1.5 hours.  It probably could have gone longer but I am impatient.

Baked in parchment paper bag for 85 minutes at 400 degrees.  

My mission

I am in the process of developing a reliable gluten-free sourdough bread recipe.  My standards are high.  I do not want a dense, gummy or heavy loaf.  I want my product to be on par with it's gluten containing counterparts.  My expectation is that to achieve this loaf will take time, many failed attempts and a willingness to learn along the way.  This process of discovery is, to me, a large part of the fun.  With this in mind, at least for a while, I am going to post what I try without outlining step by step instructions.  This is because I am by no means recommending anyone else follow me as a guide.  These are not recipes -- they are experiments  -- and good scientists write down everything they do and observe.  I will learn from both my successes and failures.  I promise, when I find something that REALLY WORKS and exceeds my expectations I will share the recipe, step by step with you.  In the meantime feel free to experiment along side me.  Let me know what has worked for you.  Or, if you really just want a good loaf of bread and you don't want to wait for it check out Luce's Gluten-Free Artisan Bread Mix.  I am not sponsored by them (yet :) I just love how reliable, delicious and beautiful these loaves turn out every single time.

Let's compare.

Example A: Luce's Gluten Free Sourdough

Example B: My first attempt at sourdough from scratch

Example C: These from scratch rolls were a serious improvement but still too dense and gummy to recommend

The start of a new blog and gluten-free sourdough culture

This fall I discovered Luce's Gluten-Free Artisan Bread Mix.  It was love at first taste.  In the months since I have been baking loaves of bread from these mixes on a regular basis.  I will continue to do so.  But as my confidence in baking gluten-free bread grows my interest in baking a traditional sourdough loaf from a starter has risen too (OK, pun intended).  So I set out to research the process of creating a gluten-free sourdough starter.  It turns out there are relatively few resources for this.  I have read as many blogs and recipes as I can find and have decided I may have something to offer to the evolution of gluten-free baking.  So I am launching this blog as a way to track my process and hopefully develop a really delicious loaf of sourdough bread from scratch.