Bread, and more bread

Bread

This weekend has been bread baking time.  My clients have ordered more loaves plus I had an inquiry from another. 

On Friday I made four loaves of gluten-free bread for “J” which is about her regular monthly order.  The recipe is specific for her needs and tastes and includes cooked quinoa, currants, and sunflower seeds.  Every day she has several slices in the morning.  She’s looking to see if I can add even more protein to the bread.  I expect I’ll be tweaking this recipe a bit for next month.

About a month ago, another friend has asked me start making some low-carb bread.  I wasn’t familiar with this “low carb” stuff so I did some research, primarily internet, plus she wanted me to add grated zucchini (that she already had frozen).  So I put together a recipe which included lots of fiber and Splenda as the sweetner.  All is good because she asked for more loaves – this time without the zucchini.  Along the way my research into bread making for special diets kept coming up with the idea of using sourdough (such as a sourdough starter, or letting the flour and liquid sit overnight).  Chemically the sourdough process reduces some of the negative impacts of modern flours and enhancing others.  Some of the articles also brought up the advantage of using whey as the liquid, rather than water, in the sourdough.  So, for this client, I will be making two loaves with an overnight sourdough of hard red wheat flour and water and another two loaves also with an overnight sourdough but with rye and whey.  In both recipes I’m including Splenda so the bread will not have a sour taste.  Hopefully, they will turn out to her liking.

So it was whey making time (Friday night into Saturday morning).  I dumped a large container of Nancy’s yogurt on a linen towel over a strainer which was placed over a large bowl.  I ended up with four cups of whey and about three cups of soft cheese.  The whey will go into the bread making.  I’m not sure what’ll happen to soft cheese – I trust Janine will have some ideas.

The local restaurant, The Soup Spoon, called Saturday with an order for three loaves of the buttermilk sandwich bread.  This bread is based on the recipe from Bette Hagman’s book Cooks Fast and Healthy:  Wheat-free Recipes with Less Fuss and Less Fat.  Of course, my recipe is slightly different and is made with mostly organic ingredients.