Gluten-free, dairy-free Challah (individual rolls)

Gluten-free, dairy free Challah Rolls

Many years ago, before I went gluten free, I made a challah recipe from a booklet which I had purchased in a health food store in my home town Freiburg in the 1980s.

It was a collection of bread recipes from all over the world, gathered in the early days of the health food movement in the 1970s by visitors from all countries in Sherborne House, Gloucestershire (England).

Gone are the days of this kind of booklets in organic food stores, and gone are the days of careless gluten baking for me ...

But talking to a very dear Jewish friend, I suddenly was overcome by the desire to make some kind of challah. A festive, dairy free bread for Shabbat and Holidays, something special outside of the everyday bread baking, for Jewish people as well as everybody else.

My first idea was to create a braided loaf, the typical beautiful challah.

But let's face it, gluten free dough which can be braided usually ends up pretty sturdy and dense. Or flat. Or both.

I know that is no requirement, but I aimed for something airy, soft, a bit fluffy, without using weird ingredients which normally are not really meant for eating.

Also I wanted to include at least one of the traditional grains, which would be oat, the only option for gluten free. Of course you have to be sure that you can tolerate gluten free oats!

If you don't, you can replace the oat flour easily with buckwheat or yellow corn flour or sorghum flour.

So, if you use oat flour, a loaf that can be braided most probably will end up flat and dense.

There is the option to use a braided loaf pan, which makes beautiful bread, but since I don't own one, I decided to make individual bread rolls using a muffin tin.

Yes, yes, they're not particularly pretty, but I can assure you that they taste particularly yummy! Plus they are made really quickly.

Besides using oat flour, I also used toasted soy flour. In Germany, you can get this in health food stores. In other countries you might have to look for kinako, which can be found in Japanese food stores or online. It is a very fine flour milled from roasted soy beans, with a pleasant nutty flavour.

If you cannot find that, you could use chickpea flour or some neutral plant protein powder. But I strongly recommend looking for the toasted soy flour, it lends a unique flavour to the bread and has a lot of health properties.

For the flax seeds, I used golden flax seeds. If you don't find those, you can also use brown flax seeds. I only use the golden ones for an evenly golden colour of the bread.

There are loaf pans for individual braided challah rolls available. You can use those instead of an ordinary muffin tin. Since they seem to be larger, I suppose the recipe would make about 8 of those braided challah rolls (educated guess!). In any case, don't fill your individual tins more than 2/3.

Also don't use burger pans, because they are not high enough. You want a tin which keeps the bread in shape until it is firm.

So, let's get started!

Ingredients for 12 regular size muffins:

• 1 cup oat flour

• 1/2 cup toasted soy flour (kinako)

• 1/2 cup fine white rice flour

• 1/2 cup potato starch

• 1/2 cup flax golden flax seeds (it's more than 1/2 cup after grinding, so measure before grinding!)

• 3 tsp. xanthan gum

• 1 tbsp. psyllium husks

• 1/2 tsp. salt

• 2 tbsp. honey

• 1 tsp. honey or sugar

• 4 tbsp. olive oil

• 3 eggs

• 1 1/2 cups luke warm water

• 20 g fresh yeast or 1 pckg. dry yeast

Preparation:

• Grease muffin tins, if not using any kind of silicone mold.

• In a large bowl, stir 1 tsp. sugar or honey into the water, add the yeast and let stand while you assemble the dry ingredients.

• Grind the flax seeds as finely as possible and combine with all the other dry ingredients from oats to salt.

• The dissolved yeast should be slightly bubbly by now. Add olive oil, eggs and honey and beat with an electric beater until foamy (that happens very quickly).

• Pour the dry ingredients into the wet, beat with the dough hooks until the batter is smooth (about 2 minutes).

• Fill each muffin mold 2/3 with batter, then smooth the tops with a wet spoon so that they are slightly rounded.

• Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 25 minutes. They should rise to about 3/4 inch above the rim of the mold. If they rise more, they might collaps.

• Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) fan assisted (convection oven). If you have a static oven, slightly increase the temperature (190-200°C or 370-390° F).

• Bake for about 20 minutes, then remove the rolls from the tin and bake without tin for another 5-10 minutes.

• Let cool and enjoy! These can be eaten slightly warm, too. They are soft, slice well and freeze well. And they don't get dry after 24 hours, but I'd still recommend freezing any rolls which you don't eat within 24 hours of baking.

Gluten free apple bread with chestnut flour

Gluten-free apple bread with chestnut flour

This is my favourite apple bread which I've already made dozens of times before going gluten free.

It's moist, rich, sweet and extremely satisfying, and since I replaced the sugar by xylitol, it's really healthy.

If you don't get chestnut flour, just don't worry. You can use any gluten free flour mix which you have on hand. Just make sure that it contains psyllium husks or ground chia seeds or it will be a crumbly mess.

I've never used xanthan gum in it, but I suppose xanthan gum will work just as well.

For the non-gluten free folks: Just use 500 g of spelt, whole wheat or any all purpose flour. It will work.

You can also use 400 g ap flour and 100 g chestnut flour.

The hazelnuts may be replaced by pecans. Walnuts might be good, too, haven't tried it yet, but apples and walnuts always pair well.

Usually I make two small loafs, but you can also make a large one.

Ingredients:

• 750 g apples
• 100 g sweet chestnut flour
• 250 g buckwheat flour
• 100 g tapioca starch
• 50 g potato (or corn) starch
• 1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 200 g sugar or xylitol
• 2 tbsp. raw cane sugar (muscovado sugar)
• 200 g raisins
• 200 g hazelnuts
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. allspice
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 100 ml brown rum
• 1 pinch salt
• 3 tbsp. psyllium husks or 3 tbsp. ground chia seeds
• 1 package baking powder (ca. 1 heaped tbsp.)

Preparation:

• The evening before baking, peel, core and cube the apples and combine with all other ingredients except for the flour, psyllium husks or chia seeds and salt.
• Let stand overnight.
• The following morning, preheat oven to 338°F (170°C) fan assisted (if you don't have a convection oven, preheat to 350°F).
• Grease two 4x8 or 9 inch loaf pans (or one larger one).
• Combine the apple mixture with the flours, psyllium husks or chia seeds, baking powder and salt.
• Fill into loaf pan(s) and let stand for some minutes to allow the psyllium husks or chia seeds to swell.
• Bake at 338°F in a convection oven or 350°F in a static oven for 60 minutes.
• After about 25 minutes, cover the pans to prevent the top from burning, and remove the foil 10 minutes before the baking time ends.
• Let cool for several minutes, then remove loafs from the pans and cool completely on a wire rack.
• Enjoy with butter, cream cheese, ice cream or just plain!
• Bon Appetit!

Gluten-free Bacon Infused Cornbread

Gluten-free Bacon Infused Cornbread

Currently I'm on a Culinary Quest with friends, which led me to the South of the USA.

Being half Romanian, one of my favourite comfort foods is mamaliga, the Romanian version of polenta.

Accordingly, I was utterly pleased when my first US cookbook 14 years ago introduced me to Southern cornbread.

I love that stuff.

I hunted down blue cornmeal, which is not exactly easy in Germany, and purple cornmeal, which isn't easy either.

What is easy to find here is fine yellow corn flour. Fine as in really fine, like rice flour - NOT cornstarch!! Fine yellow stuff which is a staple in gluten free baking in Germany. Of course it has this distinct con flavour which is not always desirable, but I like it, and I like to use yellow corn flour in cookies and cake.

Not long ago, my dear friend Paula posted a recipe for corn flour corn muffins which I eagerly made and thoroughly enjoyed.

Now I have taken the challenge of our Culinary Quest to develop my own cornbread recipe, and I decided for a cornbread using yellow corn flour.

As I'm not fond of the really sweet versions of cornbread I decided for a version using only a little bit of brown sugar to contrast the bacon, which I intended to put into it, too.

I used turkey bacon, but you can use any kind of bacon including vegan bacon. Vegan coconut bacon is the most awesome alternative, which would be great in this bread.

You can also use any kind of yoghurt - regular, sheep, goat, soy, coconut. If you don't want to use it, replace the 1 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of yoghurt with 1 1/4 cups milk of any kind, which you sour with 1 tablespoon vinegar.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coconut milk (light) or any other milk, if you don't have coconut milk
• 1/4 cup yoghurt
• 1 cup medium coarse yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup yellow corn flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 cup brown rice flour
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 egg or egg replacer for 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons virgin coconut oil
• 2 ounces bacon

Preparation:

• Fry the bacon until crisp; if using turkey or vegan bacon, fry in some coconut oil, regular bacon doesn't need any oil at all. If using coconut bacon, there's no need to fry it. Just grab a handful and throw into the prepared batter.
• Preheat oven to 375 °F or 190°C.
• Place the coconut oil in an 8x8 inch square baking pan and heat on medium heat, until the oil is liquid and fairly hot; remove from heat.
• In a bowl, combine cornmeal, corn flour, cornstarch, brown rice flour, xanthan gum, salt, sugar and baking powder.
• Mix egg, milk and yoghurt, whisk until smooth.
• Pour liquid mixture into dry ingredients, stirring, until the batter is smooth.
• Add in the fried bacon and the bacon grease, or just the coconut bacon, stir well to combine.
• Pour batter into pan with the melted coconut oil, smooth top.
• Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
• This is awesome when served warm, but I also liked it after cooling.

Enjoy with salad or soup or topped with peanut butter!