Math is HARD

No, not really. Math is not hard, but sometimes one ASSumes certain things without checking. That can get one into trouble. The “one” is me. The assumption had to do with the size baking pan needed for a new gluten-free, sourdough recipe.

Since my first couple of posts about sourdough, there have been MANY experiments. (Those of you who know me are not surprised!) The short story is that I’ve changed my starter over to 100% brown rice flour. I’ve changed my bread flour to flours (brown rice flour, sorghum flour, millet flour, buckwheat flour). The Bob’s Red Mill 1-for-1 was a good starting place, but it contains xanthan gum (and other things), so my starter was dry, and my breads were gummy. There is still a place for the BRM 1-for-1, just not as the main flour in my kitchen.

Experiments generate starter discard, which I cannot throw out. We have LOTS of discard in the fridge. Lots of discard sent me on a mission to find more, fun recipes to use the starter for something yummy. Seems wrong to throw out (potential) food.

FOCACCIA!!! Bob’s Red Mill had a gluten-free, sourdough discard focaccia recipe on their site. Interestingly, they pointed to the BRM starter process that I originally used, and amended it to say that they use 100% brown rice flour! I followed the recipe as written (doesn’t happen often, usually just new recipes) and the result was a tasty bread, good crust, open crumb, and not gummy! What a win! Always my own worst critic, I was unhappy that it didn’t seem to rise much – so the resultant bread was very thin.

Tried it again today, with a couple of slight modifications. I didn’t use a dough hook on the Kitchen-Aid, I used the mixing paddle. Reason: this “dough” is more like a stiff cake batter, and the dough hook didn’t mix as well as I’d like. Also, I didn’t mix as long – the recipe says 5 minutes. Reason: many GF recipes warn against over-mixing. There is no gluten to develop, so sometimes mixing a lot breaks down the xanthan gum/psyllium husk structure.

The final product was, again, a delicious, open crumb, crusty focaccia! AND it was still VERY flat.

The rise time/temp were good, the dough looked really fluffy going into the oven. WHAT HAPPENED???

The Doctora didn’t do her baking math. The recipe calls for a 7″x9″x2″ baking pan. That is 63 square inches of baking area. I’ve been using our small baking pan. It seems SOOO tiny! After today’s bread also being really flat, I wondered if perhaps the dough was stretched too much and that was why it came out so thin, so I measured our small baking pan.

The measurements for the baking sheet are 14.5″x10″, or 145 square inches of cooking area. That is more than DOUBLE the surface area that the recipe calls for!! So I would probably get a lot more loft in the bread if it wasn’t stretched out so much. SIGH. Math is hard.