Adventure (x + 1)

An interesting experiment was the addition of cassava flour. Also called manioc, yuca, or tapioca, this is the flour of the tuber of the manioc plant. (Apparently tapioca starch is the same as tapioca flour, but I couldn't say if this is merely hearsay. It is at the least internetsay.)

Although I never knew this before, it turns out that there are TWO different kinds of cassava flour. One is a lightly toasted version, which is brown and a little flaky; and the other is very fine and powdery, a bright white flour. From what I can gather, the latter is more propitious for this kind of baking. At any rate, I added a half a cup of my toasted cassava flour, and the bread machine made a crumbly mess. The great thing about a bread machine is that you can check up on the dough while the machine is doing all the hard work, and salvage it if things are going awry. This is what I did, by adding a second cup of water. After this, the bread machine seemed happier and turned out a reasonable, though very heavy, ball of dough. I let it rise overnight. Because it was so heavy, the dough barely rose, but it was enough to pop it in the oven. I decided to cook it on a lower heat for a longer time, and this seemed to work. I started out on 400 deg F for about 7 minutes, then dropped to 350 for 32 more minutes. It could have done with 3 more minutes at 350, but the bread was actually cooked... and to my very pleasant surprise, this very chewy bread was incredibly tasty. With some passion fruit (granadilla) jam... Wow!

Adventures 8 through x

Since buying my Breadman TR550, I have not bought a single loaf of bread from the store, but I do eat bread daily. So as you can imagine, I soon lost track of the number of loaves I made.

I did document my efforts in pictures, and these are displayed here!

I've stuck to the same basic recipe as given in Adventure 7 below, with one important exception: I discovered powdered buttermilk. (It's called cultured buttermilk and the company that makes the brand I use is saco foods [sacofoods.com].) This is like a secret wonder ingredient. It makes the bread much fluffier and tastier. After putting the liquids and salt in the bread machine (1 cup of water, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbs olive oil), include 4 Tbs powdered buttermilk. Then add your 2.25 cups of flour, your 1.25 tsp of yeast, and your 1 Tbs of molasses drizzled over the yeast. On the dough setting, my machine beeps after 32 minutes, at which time I throw in the remaining 1 tsp of active dry yeast, along with another fun ingredient: dried cranberries. I aim to try my hand at throwing in dried figs soon.

I've also been experimenting with other kinds of flour. The millet flour from the Indian grocery store where I get cool stuff is a grey color, but I often substitute half a cup of millet flour for white or wheat flour and it turns out great. I've even included both millet and besan (chickpea / garbanzo) flour at the same time - totaling about half a cup of the flour.

Coming soon: sorghum flour, buckwheat flour, and cassava flour!