Yet another project to fill my time in retirement was to explore the art of gluten-free sourdough baking. Some people think that regular sourdough bread is gluten-free, but it’s not. You need to have a special sourdough starter that contains some kind of gluten-free flour, like brown rice.
A few months before I retired, I happened upon just such a starter at a local mercantile. It was made by the Cultures for Health company (but you can get it via mail, also). Not long after my retirement last spring, I began to experiment with it.
So far, I’ve made two kinds of gluten-free sourdough pancakes (one was buckwheat blueberry, the other whole grain), bread, and a chocolate-coffee cake with chocolate-coffee frosting.
Of those, the pancakes and the cake were delectable winners! I’m still perfecting the bread recipe. I have a hard time getting the dough to rise enough before baking. I suspect the cold climate I live in is one reason for this. Sourdough bacteria like a nice, warm environment. I’ve begun adding some regular yeast to the bread dough, but I think I need to add even more. We’re not huge bread eaters in our household, so this could be a long process.
I’ve also learned how to refrigerate the starter and how to revive it from a frozen state. I freeze it when we’re gone on long trips, otherwise it wouldn’t survive not being fed with new brown rice flour and spring water every 3-4 days.
That’s another thing about sourdough starter, you can’t just use water from the tap. It has chlorine in it, so you need to use spring water, which can be found in most grocery stores. Another secret is to heat the water before adding it to the starter. I’ve had good luck heating it to 80-90 degrees F in the microwave, which makes the starter activate more quickly. You can tell your starter is activated when it gets a lot of bubbles and it almost doubles in size.
I got the pancake and bread recipes from the Cultures for Health website. The cake recipe came from the gluten-free cookbook, Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple by Aran Goyoaga that I bought at The Lost Kitchen store in Maine.
Learning a new cooking technique has been fun! Are you stretching your culinary skills in some way?
Marie's Meanderings 
The pancakes, bread, and cake look amazing, Marie!
Thank you. The frosting on the cake was Swiss buttercream (in addition to being chocolate-coffee). It uses a whole stick of butter. OMG, so good!
🙂
Wow, I give you a lot of credit for this. Everything looks delicious. I would not have the patience for it. I barely cook at all. Never enjoyed it. I will make a basic meal here or there but avoid things that are too complicated. So, I guess no would be my answer to your question about stretching my culinary skills—unless you count trying out new options from a deli.
I think the deli counts! Cooking is all relative. 🙂
Still learning after 4 years. Always happy when I can let the dough rise in sun thru the window. But yeah, if I start the dough from overnight levain by 10 am, it won’ t have risen and be ready to bake by 7:30. Longer if it’s a cloudy day. MN…sheesh!
Yes, it would be so much easier to work with sourdough if we lived somewhere warmer!
Isn’t it amazing what fun things one can find to do in retirement? The chocolate-coffee sourdough cake with sprinkles looks delicious! I bought some new “bowl dinner plates” and “bowl luncheon plates.” Does that count as expanding my culinary skills?
True about retirement. I didn’t have the time or patience before I retired to attempt sourdough. And gluten-free sourdough requires even more care and feeding than regular sourdough. I do think that new plates count as a culinary skill – the presentation is as important as the food!
Your creations look great!
Here’s a novel I liked: Sourdough, by Robin Sloan.
Hey thanks for the novel recommendation! I’ve added it to my to-read list.
Sounds like you’ve learned a lot about the starter. I made my own sourdough starter many years ago. It seemed like a bit too much caregiving for me to remember! I’ll just stick with yeast. I do make my own granola now.
That’s true about the caregiving the starter requires. I’ve begun referring to mine as our “baby.” Gotta feed the baby today! It’s great that you make your own granola. The commercial brands can have so much fat/sugar in them, yours is probably healthier.
I love sourdough bread, it’s one of my favorites. Meanwhile, I must try sourdough pancakes. The idea is tempting.
Sourdough pancakes are awesome and I encourage you to try them. The trick is to make the batter the night before and let it sit and rise until morning, when you cook them.
That cake looks scrumptious, Marie. I didn’t know you were gluten intolerant like me. I haven’t attempted bread yet, and probably won’t. I still make regular bread from time to time for hubby. I do make pancakes with gf flour and oats—and of course blueberries. 😊
And I did not know that you were gluten-intolerant! So true that pancakes aren’t complete without blueberries. I have a non-sourdough gluten-free bread recipe that’s pretty good. It uses a lot of eggs and baking powder. If you’re interested in the recipe, I could message it to you via FB.
Thanks! I’d like that. Have you always been gluten intolerant?
I began experiencing symptoms (sinus issues, headaches, mainly) around 1996. It took me 7 years and the help of a wellness doctor to figure out that it wasn’t allergies to something in the air. I’m also intolerant to corn. I don’t think I have celiac. I’ll look for that bread recipe on my computer and try to send it to you today.
I sent it to your author page. I hope that works!
Interesting. I didn’t have those symptoms when I became intolerant three years ago, just a lot more irritable bowel issues, just like I had before discovering I was lactose intolerant in early adulthood. My daughter is the same.
Thanks for the recipe. Your book is waiting for me at the post office today!
So exciting about my book — I hope you enjoy it!
I just found some non-hybrid flour at my local grocery store. I might buy a bag and see if I react to it or not. One school of thought on wheat digestive issues is that it’s because the grain has been altered so that it has more gluten in it. Another is that it’s due to the herbicides sprayed on it (Roundup) just before it’s harvested. (Residue)
That must be tough to avoid lactose and wheat, ugh!
I’ve heard about wheat fertilizer being an issue. As for lactose, it’s really only milk and ice cream are problematic. And there’s always Lactaid!
What a win-win sourdough starter! Sounds like retirement agrees with you!
I highly recommend retirement! I began keeping a list of things I wanted to do during retirement a few years before it actually happened. The scary thing is, I’ve done many things on the list already. Will have to come up with some more… Thanks for reading, Diane!
I recently made my first attempt at gluten free baking. Thanks to the assistance of a friend who was much more knowledgeable of GF baking than me, it turned out well. Until I read this post I hadn’t realized that there was GF sourdough.
I’m glad to hear of your success with gluten-free baking. Keep up the good work and thanks for reading!
Marie, how exciting to make your own sourdough and your pancakes and bread look delicious!😀I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to try and make my own sourdough – but maybe one day!
Like anything new, if you take it step by step, sourdough isn’t too hard.
It all looks delicious! I like to try new recipes, but I haven’t ever made sourdough. Something about the feeding of the starter scares me. Not sure where that comes from! I am especially fond of cake, and that one looks great. 😊
Keeping the starter alive is a bit of responsibility, but it’s not rocket science. And if you fail, you can always buy more! I love that I can freeze it. That makes things easier.