Garbanzo & Pine Nut Grissini (B&P-6)

Baking & Pastry Project #6 - Garbanzo & Pine Nut Grissini

I finished the week with the recipe for Grissini (page 133) for the Baking & Pastry Project using the Culinary Institute of America's Baking & Pastry book. This dough can be used to make thin breadsticks that are either hand rolled or cut with a fettuccini pasta attachment (pg. 203).

The breads from the Baking & Pastry book, are made with either bread flour or a high gluten flour. The challenge as a gluten free baker is that most of the flours that we use don't have a high protein content and the ones that do can have an adverse taste when used in sufficient quantities alone to make these recipes (i.e. bean flours). For a better taste and texture, we add a couple of different starches to the flour mix, which lowers the overall protein content. In my conversions of the Baking & Pastry bread recipes, I tend to use the bean flour or nut/seed meals to raise the protein content.

However, there is another option, you can use egg white powder (albumin), as Chef Coppedge does with his Lean White Bread recipe in Gluten-Free Baking with the Culinary Institute of America. It has 11.5 g protein for 1 Tb/14 g or 35 g per 100 g of powder to increase the protein content of your flour mixture. For example, if you use Bette Hagman's Four Flour Blend Mix, as it has 7.5 g of protein for 100 g of flour. One of my conversions typically has 20 Tb/284 g of flour, so using Bette's Mix the dough would have 21.3 g of protein. To match of the amount of protein contained in bread flour, you would need to add 4 Tb/56 g of egg white powder and use 16 Tb/228 g flour blend.

This recipe is made with a high gluten flour that in the original version has 39.4 grams of protein per 100 grams of flour. The gluten free version has 36.55 grams of protein for 100 grams of flour. The protein contents of each flour used follow in the parenthesis.

When you go to make your pine nut meal, add some of your flour blend to the grinder before processing. Pine nuts are quite oily and once you start grinding you get pine nut butter quickly without the flour. So process the nuts in smaller amounts along with some of your flour blend.

My family thoroughly enjoyed eating the grissini, especially the ones that were sprinkled with sea salt. We ate them with a spaghetti dinner and my daughter tried dragging them through peanut butter - to her great enjoyment. They take a little time to make, but they are a nice addition to an Italian meal.

Recipe

40 g brown rice flour (3.6 g)
40 g sweet rice flour (2.4 g)
35 g sweet potato flour (.735 g)
35 g sorghum flour (4.2 g)
78 g garbanzo bean flour (17.16 g)
50 g raw pine nut meal (7 g)
6 g chia seed meal (1.26 g)
2 g agar agar powder
7 g sea salt
135 g whole milk, room temperature
42 g butter, softened
10 ml olive oil
5 g sorghum malt syrup (see notes)
10 ml agave syup

Toppings

sea salt
oregano
sesame seeds
olive oil

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and stir together. In another bowl combine all the liquid ingredients and add to the dry mix. The dough should be a little stiff.

2. You can make the grissini as thin hand rolled sticks or as thinly sliced sticks about the thickness of fettuccini. For Hand Rolled Grissini: On a sheet of parchment paper sprinkled with sweet rice flour, divide the dough out into small balls about 1 in/2.5 cm. Then roll the dough out until it is about 1/4 inch in diameter. Gently set on another sheet of parchment paper sprinkled with sweet rice flour. For Thinly Sliced Grissini: Divide the dough in half and place one piece on a sweet rice sprinkled sheet of parchment paper. Flatten the dough with your hand and sprinkle with sweet rice flour before setting another sheet of parchment paper on top. Roll out the dough until it is about 3/16 in/5 mm thick. Gently ease the top sheet of parchment paper off the dough and sprinkle with sweet rice flour. Lay the top sheet back on the dough, then flip the dough over and repeat. Remove the top sheet of parchment paper and using a long sharp knife, cut the dough into strips that are 3/16 in/5 mm wide. Gently ease the strips apart, but leave them on this sheet of parchment paper for baking. Repeat all these steps for the second half of the dough. Note: If you own a pasta machine you can use it for the thinly sliced grissini using the fettuccini attachment for cutting.

3. Preheat the oven to 385 degrees F/196 degrees C. Allow the dough to rest for 15 minutes, before brushing olive oil over the grissini. Then sprinkle with your choice of toppings.

4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes and cool before serving.


Notes


Ingredients: All dry ingredients can be purchased from Barry Farms.


Sorghum Malt Syrup: Is available in a 3 lb container from Midwest Homebrewing Supplies.


Other Baking & Pastry Project Posts


Baking & Pastry Project #5 - Soft Rolls
Baking & Pastry Project Week 3
Baking & Pastry Project #4 - Rosemary Bread
Baking & Pastry Project #3 - Whole Grain Bread
Baking & Pastry Project Week 2
Baking & Pastry Project #2 - Bagels
Baking & Pastry Project #1 - Lean White Bread
Baking & Pastry Project - Week 1