All grains contain peptides that mimic morphine or endogenous opioid substances. This is where I deal with my latest loaf craving. Get your bread-based exorphin fix here.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Bean Flour bread


In my quest for a denser sourdough loaf, I tried adding some bean flour to my whole wheat and came up with this bread.  The bean flour was given to me, so I'm not completely sure where it comes from.  I think that it is finely ground chickpea flour, often used in Indian recipes for batter.  See the notes on it here from the bulk barn.  It can be added to gluten-free recipes.  I'm not doing that, just yet.  I'm just combining it with whole wheat.

Now, I don't know whether it was because the flour was extremely fine, talc-like, or whether it was simply because it had no gluten, but this loaf turned out with a nice dense crumb.  I was using the bean flour at 20% -- 200g of it, along with 80% whole wheat, and I backed off on the hydration to 70%.  This time, using my new bannetons worked well.  There was no sag, and the loaves slid off the pizza peel onto the pizza stone with no problem. 

I was proud of myself that I was able to slide both doughs from the peel onto the stone at the same time, without causing a disaster.



These breads are a bit smallish.  Tomato is there to give a sense of scale.

Results
Well, it tastes like beans.  And there are no exorphins in beans, as far as I know.




And it staled quickly.  If you sliced it thin, it was good with cheese, but the crust was a bit hard and crunchy.  You don't want (or need) too much of this loaf.

And so it sits, while I make another rye bread.  I'll get through it eventually.


Notes to Myself
  • Try adding slightly less than 20% bean flour to a bread -- let's say 10 or 15% -- if you still want a denser crumb, but with less bean taste.
  • What if you use a different very finely milled gluten-free flour with your bread?  Something like rice flour, or tapioca flour?  Perhaps that would stop the irregular holes as well. 

    Would a very fine gluten flour work too, I wonder?  I will stop short of adding bread flour.
  • I hate these pictures.  My old camera still works, while my better camera still sits, dough-encrusted.  I'm going to have to get a better camera.  I've been wondering whether the new ipod touch cameras will do the job for me: I need something with fewer moving parts, dough always gets into the zoom and wrecks the camera.

1 comment:

  1. awesome looking crumb. I have chick pea flour in tne pantry from an Indian recipe. i will give it a try sometime.

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