Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients (3 page)

Cornstarch:
Cornstarch is often found in gluten-free recipes. It has very little nutritional value, but helps to create a nice smooth texture and acts as a binder in the dough.

Mesquite flour:
Mesquite is a woody plant native to northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Many people have had southwestern specialties grilled over the plant’s fragrant branches, but less well known are the edible pod and seed, which can be ground into a high-protein and nutritious flour. It makes a fabulous and unusual bread or
focaccia
. It has a naturally sweet flavor that is well complemented by agave syrup.

Millet:
This is a tiny ancient grain that is very high in protein and vitamin B. The unground grain has a very mild flavor that becomes nutty when toasted.

Quinoa
(
keen-wah
): Quinoa is a relative of Swiss chard and beets. It has a lovely flavor, cooks quickly, and has lots of high-quality protein, which means it contains all the essential amino acids. It is also high in calcium, iron, and B vitamins.

Rice and rice flours:
Brown rice is rice with its external bran left in place. It’s high in nutrients but gluten-free. Flour made from brown rice is much higher in fiber than white rice flour but has half the fiber content per cup compared with whole wheat. White rice flour has very little nutritional value or fiber, but is used in many gluten-free recipes for its nice texture and its neutral flavor, which goes with just about anything.

Sorghum:
Sorghum is a very popular cooking grain related to sugarcane. It is used around the world but has just recently found its way into American kitchens.

Soy flour:
This flour is milled from soy beans, which are very high in protein. They are also one of the few foods that contain all of the essential amino acids. Soy flour is an excellent way to get protein in breads that are gluten-free.

Tapioca:
Tapioca is made from a root that’s known by many names: cassava, manioc, or yucca. It is extracted and ground into a flour that is high in starch, calcium, and vitamin C, but low in protein. It is most often associated with its thickening properties, but it is now frequently used in gluten-free baking. It is sold as both tapioca starch and flour, but they are exactly the same.

Teff:
A very popular grain in Ethiopia, teff has been virtually unheard of in the rest of the world until recently. It is a type of millet that is very small but packed with iron and calcium. It is a wonderful sweet grain that is gluten-free and therefore gaining in popularity.

Wild rice:
Although technically an aquatic grass like plain rice, wild rice from North America distinguishes itself from its Asian counterpart by its distinct flavor and texture. It’s long been prized by traditional Native American cultures, and more recently its nutritional profile and flavor has attracted interests from health-conscious gourmets.

Xanthan gum:
This powdered additive is used in gluten-free breads to replace the stretchiness and chew that breads would otherwise get from gluten in wheat. It is a naturally derived gum that creates gas-trapping structure in dough that mimics the action of gluten in regular wheat breads.

Water

Throughout the book, we specify lukewarm water. This means water that feels just a little warm to the touch; if you measured it with a thermometer it would be no higher than 100°F (38°C). We never use a thermometer and we’ve never had a yeast failure due to excessive temperature. If you use cold water from the tap, it will work but the initial rise will take much longer (the bread will be just as good).

About water sources:
We find that the flavors of wheat and yeast overwhelm the contribution of water to bread’s flavor, so we use ordinary tap water run through a home water filter, but that’s only because it’s what we drink at home. Assuming your own tap water tastes good enough to drink, use it filtered or unfiltered; we can’t tell the difference in finished bread.

Yeast

Some readers of our first book preferred a lower yeast level in their breads, and it’s really a matter of taste. Less yeast will work for nearly all of our recipes, but be aware that the initial rise will be slower, and the resting/rising time will also be increased. We’ve had good results using as little as one-quarter of the specified level of yeast (rising time will be much longer).

Use whatever yeast is readily available; with our approach you won’t be able to tell the difference between the various national brands of yeast, nor between instant, regular, granulated, or cake yeast (though you will have to double the quantity if you use cake yeast). The long storage time of our doughs acts as an equalizer between all of these.
One strong recommendation: Buy in bulk or in commercially available jars, rather than in envelopes. The envelopes are much more expensive, ounce for ounce.
Between the two of us, we’ve had only one yeast failure in many years of baking, and it was with an outdated envelope. Excellent results can be had with bulk-purchased yeast. Just be sure it’s fresh.
The real key to avoiding yeast failures is to use water that is no warmer than lukewarm (about 100°F). Even cold water will work, though rising will take much longer. Hot water kills yeast.
After several days of high-moisture storage, yeasted dough begins to take on a flavor and aroma that approximates the flavor of the natural sourdough starters used in many artisan breads. Sours and starters like
biga
(Italian),
levain
(French), and
poolish
(referred to in Eastern European, French, and Italian recipes) all require significant time and attention, so our books don’t ask you to make them.

Salt: Adjust It to Your Taste

In traditional bread recipes, salt is used not only for flavor, but also to help tighten and strengthen the gluten. Because our dough is slack in the first place, and is stored for so long, we don’t detect differences in dough strength between high- and low-salt versions of our breads. In our recipes, salt makes its appearance mostly for flavor, so adjust it to suit your palate. So, how much? We love the taste of salt, but for this health-oriented book, we decided to turn down the salt, compared with our first book. If you’re missing the salt, feel free to increase it to taste. If health reasons require it, you can decrease it and the recipes will still work well. Cutting the salt in half can be a good option for people who want to restrict sodium in their diet. In fact, you can bring the salt all the way down to zero, if you like.

Salt-free breads for people with health problems:
In Italy, the Tuscans have had a long tradition of salt-free bread, apparently arising during a time of high taxation on salt from papal authorities. Many older baking books include recipes for salt-free Tuscan bread. It’s particularly nice for dipping into soups and in other situations where it’s not eaten alone. Obviously, the flavor will be very different. You’ll get a sense of how salt brings out the subtle flavors of wheat, but at the same time, you’ll develop an appreciation for the grain’s pure essence. Be aware that salt-free yeast dough might behave badly at high altitude.

All of our recipes were tested with a non iodized coarse Morton brand kosher salt, measuring the salt by volume rather than weight. If you’re using something finer or coarser, you need to change the amount, because finer salt packs denser on the spoon. You’ll get the same saltiness from these tablespoon amounts:

SALT SUBSTITUTE

Salt substitutes are made from potassium chloride, which, like table salt (sodium chloride), is a naturally occurring mineral that’s required by all living things. Unlike sodium chloride, potassium salt does not tend to raise blood pressure and promote fluid retention, so it’s sometimes recommended for people with high blood pressure and others on a sodium-restricted diet. In fact, potassium may help control blood pressure in some people. When added to bread dough, it does replace some of the salt flavor that you lose when you omit sodium salt from our recipes. It can be substituted volume for volume with kosher salt in our recipes.
Consult your doctor before using salt substitute because some medications and medical conditions, including kidney disease, can cause retention of potassium and dangerous buildup of potassium in the bloodstream.

Oils and Solid Fats

Butter:
Butter is delicious, but because it’s high in saturated fat, it increases “bad” cholesterol (LDL). In this book, we use it sparingly, and give you zero saturated and zero trans fat options. But if truth be told, life’s too short to use anything other than a little butter as a spread on fresh bread. If you need some justification, butter is high in vitamins A and E, both essential nutrients. If you’re going to eat butter once in a while, spread some European-style artisan salted butter on the freshest and most delicious bread you make. Just use it in moderation, as a treat.

Ghee
is butter that has been clarified and slightly toasted. It is a staple in Indian kitchens because of its wonderful flavor. Since the heat-sensitive milk solids are toasted and then strained off,
ghee
can be heated to a much higher temperature than regular butter.
Ghee
can be found in many Asian markets, but we prefer to make our own. The following recipe will yield ¾ pound (about 12/3 cups). Melt 1 pound of unsalted butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. When it is completely melted, bring it up to a boil and cook until it is frothy. Reduce the heat low and cook gently until the milk solids have settled on the bottom of the pot and are golden brown. Strain the ghee through a fine-mesh sieve. Allow it to cool completely, cover, and refrigerate. The
ghee
will last in the refrigerator for a month.

Butter substitutes:
Butter substitute spreads are made by blending unsaturated oils with by-products of butter in patented manufacturing processes. They’re designed to deliver buttery flavor with little or no saturated and trans fat. Based on today’s understanding of nutrition and health, many of the products are successful in doing that. Despite being unsaturated, they’re solid at room temperature and perform well in brioche. But we recommend them with some reservations. They are manufactured products, like margarine or vegetable shortening, and they do not exist in nature. Health authorities have been burned before by endorsing, for example, hard stick margarine as being more heart-healthy than butter, only to find out, years later, that trans fats in hard margarine were countering much of the benefit from margarine’s decreased saturated fat content. Plus, some of these products were designed for people with cholesterol problems, and it’s possible that there are side effects for those whose cholesterol is normal in the first place. Research is accumulating all the time, so be aware that today’s “safe” butter substitute may not be seen that way forever. If these appeal to you, you can substitute them for butter, margarine, or oil in our recipes. See
the table of fats and oils
in the Appendix.

Canola oil:
Canola oil is virtually flavorless, so we use it when we don’t want olive oil’s distinctive flavor to come through. It’s high in monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat, and has a high smoking point so it’s suited for deep-frying (see
Indian Spiced Whole Grain Doughnuts
). Canola has more super-healthy omega-3 fat than olive oil, but less monounsaturated fat.

Margarine:
Old-style hard stick margarine is made with unhealthy hydrogenated oils, and it has trans fat, the worst kind of all. Don’t use it! Margarine manufacturers are touting their newer soft “tub” margarines: look for a zero trans fat, zero hydrogenated oil brand, and this should be as healthy as using vegetable oil. It’s a little hard to find salt-free versions, so decrease the salt a bit if you end up using a salted brand.