First Bread Flop

[alex11602]

I just tried to make the Simple Bread recipe from Elana's Pantry...

Open Original Shared Link

and it was a crumbly mess, although a tasty one. It was much smaller then the picture shows and rather thin since my loaf pan was bigger.

I used honey as a sub like I have for her zucchini bread, pancakes, and cinnamon apple muffins and they have turned out perfect, I also had to sub for the eggs using Ener-G egg replacer and I think that might have been the problem. So what else could I use to substitute? I have little samples of flax seed and chia seeds, but my daughters didn't seem to care for other things with those in them so I'm stuck. Like I said it was tasty so I would love to be able to make this bread work because it is perfect for our bread needs, but I'm actually at a loss on how to make it work. Thanks for any help!

[Takala]

Good grief, what a sort of dud of an almond recipe. Note the "please see my updated Gluten free bread recipe" at the top of it....

Which is here: "Bread 2.0" Open Original Shared Link

this time she replaced part of the almond flour with arrowroot starch and flax meal, and added yet another egg and apple cider vinegar. She is still using a small sized baking pan, this time a 7.5" by 3.5", because these types of recipes without gums, using almond meals, do NOT work with the larger, full sized loaf pans.

I will use a small sized cast iron skillet for a lot of these types of recipes, and preheat the oil in it, then add the batter, cook it on the stovetop a bit, then finish it under the broiler. While not giving a "loaf," it does then develop enough crust to hold together well.

To the first recipe, I would be adding pure apple cider vinegar to it, and using a smaller pan. I would also, if trying to get it work in a loaf pan, be adding chia seed soaked in tapwater until it turned into "chia gel" or flax seed soaked in boiling hot water to make flax gel. Chia is not a strong taste, try presoaking it and give it to them again... About a teaspoon of chia per cup of flour, or about a 1/4 cup of flax for the loaf. You can also replace part of the almond meal with amaranth flour, maybe about a half cup of it, but just adding vinegar, chia, and going to a smaller pan should work.

The second recipe, the 2.0 one, you could replace the arrowroot with tapioca or amaranth or a amaranth/teff/sorghum mix if you don't have it. Perhaps cornstarch, also, she is just adding starch to lighten it up. She is using about 2 eggs per cup of almond flour, which is definitely going to hold this one together. The flax meal she is not pre soaking, but you could do that if you wanted to replace one of the eggs, or leave the eggs at #4 and use a bit of other type of gluten-free flours with the almond.

I use mini loaf pans all the time, they are sorta cute when they come out but I'm going for toast or side bread, not sandwiches, usually. If I want sandwiches I will use a different recipe and pan, I can get sandwich "triangles" out of skillet breads.

If you do not have a smaller loaf pan, you can fake it for the first run by using aluminum foil folded up and set into the larger pan to form a smaller shape, but it may be easier to just get the smaller loaf pans... about 8" x 4" is as large as I would want to go on nut meal breads.

I have successfully made mini loaves with NO egg or gum, by using buckwheat flour as part of the flour mixture, (I grind the gluten-free kasha in the coffee grinder) and pre soaking the flours in water and vinegar - this is where you add the baking soda last so it doesn't wear out the rise reaction of vinegar acid and soda while soaking, you can read thru this recipe for some ideas- buckwheat, amaranth, and almond meal are the big 3 for gumless baking with higher protein, lower starch gluten free baking, but they make pretty intense results. Mini buckwheat/almond/amar vegan loaf

Should work with just almond meal and one egg, using 1 and a quarter cups flour. I've added an egg to it and it holds together better that way, but not by much - chia with buckwheat is some powerful stuff !