Okay, since my last highly prophetic and revelatory post, I can across this recipe. I thought batter type breads were behind me, it was where I started, it was okay, but it wasn't bread. It was better than styrofoam but it wasn't spongy, airy, light, delicate, tasty bread; it was more like cake or a quick bread, just more stiff. It was too heavy for sandwiches and turned to burnt stone when you toasted it. But I was happily wrong. I even gave up yeast loaf bread (I made lots of French loaves) because I would burn the outside and the middle wouldn't cook through. So we haven't had toast at our house in a LONG time. Then I tried this recipe, the ingredients were accessible and the pictures beautiful, and the result was as good as the pictures looked! Whipped egg whites are the secret. It toasts beautifully, it makes grilled cheese, you can eat two slices with stuff in between without choking, it is even good plain! And when you bite into it, it has the sound, the texture, everything screams real bread. And the taste! Light, delicate, just a hint of sweetness. It minds me of the long lost honey oat bread I used to adore (though it calls for brown sugar).
You need a kitchen aid mixer or a bread machine for this baby, your hand mixer will burn out. The first loaf I did exactly as written, save I used corn starch instead of the potato and millet instead of the rice flour. It turned out beautiful but shrank a bit as it cooled (I did undercook it just a tad and cut it before it was totally cool, I just couldn't wait!) but still was excellent. The next batch I used 1 1/2 cups tapioca, 1 cup corn starch, and 1/2 cup millet. I put everything except the egg whites in the bread machine on the dough cycle while I whipped the eggs, then I scraped them into the mess as well, scraping down the sides as the machine kneaded in the whites, and once it was smooth and well mixed, I stopped the machine and put it in the prepared pan. The second batch didn't rise as high but neither did it shrink as much. The texture was a little 'sturdier' without being heavy and less 'gelatinous' without losing the elasticity, but I did bake it longer by two minutes as well. I also slashed the top with a wet knife after the rise, as my first loaf decided to crack at about 2 o'clock and had a weird lopsided look to it. I think I'll stick with the second recipe as my new standard, but it is wonderful to have real bread again! I can't wait to try this with my dough recipes, though I wonder if the dough will be too heavy for the egg whites to do much for the texture? Stay tuned to find out!
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