Can I add gluten to cornmeal, corn flour, buckwheat flour, rice flour etc. in order to make a regular elastic dough? Or does wheat contain other compounds beyond gluten that make it more suitable?
I've never tried it, but I think it should work. White flour is pretty much just starch and gluten.
Actual baker here.
No, it won't quite work. What you /can/ do, however, is mix corn flour/masa harina, strong flour and gluten if you want to make a corn dough. In fact, that's what I do. I created a few years ago a flatbread that's kinda like naan meats tortilla. It's a risen bread, like naan, but includes masa harina, like a regular tortilla, so you get the delicious corn taste of a tortilla with the superior structure and chewiness of naan.
Whenever I make donair meat, I eat it in this flatbread.
>>7563770
Oh, you can do many doughs without wheat, just none that would be very good for bread unless you use a huge number of different powders to achieve something similar to the make up of wheat flour.
I'm not too familiar with gluten free baking, really. The only gluten free things made from flour that I make are corn tortillas, certain sorts of cakes and biscuits/cookies and skin noodles.
To make an elastic dough that's not awful for bread-baking using a flour that lacks gluten (not rye or spelt as they both have it), mix X-flour and strong flour 1:1 then add 20% that weight of gluten. IE, if you want to make buckwheat bread, use 100g of buckwheat flour, 100g of strong flour and 40g of gluten. However, due to the nature of other flours and the propensity of doughs/batters made from them to sour much more quickly than straight-up wheat ones would, you'll want a quick rise rather than a slow ferment so either increase the amount of ADY in the recipe or use instant yeast. This is fine because wheat flour doesn't have much flavour of its own and the long fermentation lends it that flavour, like sourdoughs. Other flours are generally more flavoursome than wheat flour is, so they need that long fermentation.
>>7563788
>Other flours are generally more flavoursome than wheat flour is, so they need that long fermentation.
Err... meant
> Other flours are generally more flavoursome than wheat flour is, so they WON'T need that long fermentation.
Fix'd.
>>7563788
>flavoursome
>>7563795
Yes.
>>7563740
Please post your flatbread recipe.
>>7563813
Super easy. In recipe notation, it's:
Maseca, 100g
Strong flour, 100g
Vital wheat gluten, 40g
Salt, 4-5g
Active dry yeast, 6g
Oil, 20ml
Water, 210ml
Whisk all dry ingredients together.
Stir in water and oil.
Mix until it just comes together.
Knead a little.
Let sit somewhere warm for 30-90 minutes, depending on the temperature of the water you used and the ambient temperature of where you put it.
Break it off into five equal pieces.
Roll them out flat and cook on a comal or griddle.
>>7563821
Thanks, I may try that. But damn, that's a lot of vital gluten.
>>7563843
Vital wheat gluten isn't 100% gluten. It's actually around 70-75% gluten.
Strong flour is 12-13% gluten and maseca is 0%. Adding 40g of VWG to the maseca.
Some maths:
13g gluten + 0g gluten + (40 * .75)g gluten = 43g gluten.
43g gluten ÷ 240g total flour ≈ 18% gluten for the flours. By contrast, durum atta, which is the flour meant to be used for making naan, is also 18%. It's not that high at all, really.
