I tried this bread recipe that was posted in the Silly Yaks forum yesterday. Ohhh, it was sooooo good. It reminds me of the honey rolls that you get at Ryans Steakhouse but these are even lighter! Here is a picture, a link to a Quicktime movie (about 2.4 mb) that we made of the texture, and the recipe we did.

The Quicktime video:

To see how tender and bread-like it is, go to http://s47.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1WDCCGJWMMDVD0YNW3X5S8PBLG to download the Quicktime movie we made. You Send It is a free file hosting service but they will keep a file for only 35 downloads or 7 days whichever comes first. So, if you want to see it but the file is gone, just e-mail me. The quicktime is small enough to attach it as in an e-mail.

Here is a picture of the internal texture:

My image host is lagging a bit for some reason. Probably a lot of uploads at the moment. If you cannot see it yet but want to, check back a bit later. Image Shack should be caught up by then - sorry:

Recipe:

The recipe was originally called Egg Bread Loaf. I titled ours as Honey Rolls because they taste so much like Ryans Honey Rolls. I will list the recipe with the modifications I made to the original recipe -

Honey Rolls

1/4 cup softened butter (not hot and melted because guar gum needs cool liquid)

3 Tbsp honey

2 eggs

1 c plain yougurt

1/2 c potato starch (buy it or make it using instructions from Carver in earlier post)

1 1/2 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp baking powder

2 tsp guar gum (can get at Amazon.com or Gluten Free supplier - neat stuff)

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vinegar (any kind - used to activate the baking soda)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin mixing the liquid ingredients in stand up mixer on lowest setting while combining the dry well to blend thoroughly. Add the dry into the mixer bowl. Keep on low until the dry ingredients are incorporated in then increase speed to medium to incorporate air into the thick batter. Scrape beater and pour into loaf pan or 4 to 6 mini (hamburger bun sized, 4.5 inch) springform pans. The 4.5 inch pans will give you a bun about 2.5 inches tall after baking when you use 4 pans. If that is too tall for your needs, use up to 6 bun sized pans. Smooth the tops of the thick batter using a wet finger. Bake until golden and knife inserted comes out clean.

In the picture below, three have been smoothed. One (top right) has not and will give you a good idea of the texture of the batter as it comes out from the mixer. When you smoot the tops with a wet finger, the idea is to smooth it without desproying the air pockets below.

Modifications:

For a yeasty flavor add 1 pkg of dry yeast.

For hamburger buns, cut back on the honey a bit.

For a sweet bread, try adding sugar, cinnamon, and raisins

If you have xanthan instead of guar gum, you can use it instead - same measure

If the tops of the buns seem to 'bumpy' try adding a bit more of the liquids (yogurt, egg, honey) to smooth out the texture netx time.

**** I have removed the pineapple juice addition idea for Hawaiin bread - tried it. Major bigtime didn't do well. I don't know if it changed the pH or if it was the enzymes in the fresh pineapple juice. Flavor yucky and texture altered.

Want to know where to get mini (hamburger sized) springform pans?

I found our 4 last week at WalMart. I went back yesterday to buy more but they were all gone. :0(  Once I got home I tried walmart.com but there weren't any there either. We ended up ordering 2 sets (8 in total) more that are made by a company in Germany at amazon.com (you can order guar gum from them at the same time). About $20 for 4 pans. Well worth it if you are trying to make GF hamburger buns! Though my WalMart finds last week were only $2.50 each. I guess I will count my blessings for the Walmart ones and not grumble about the German one's higher price. LOL. Just glad to be able to get some more.

Guar Gum is some neat stuff:

I researched a bit on this stuff last night. It thickens 8 times better than cornstarch. It is the ground up endosperm of the guar bean grown in India. I found a mention of it making a neat gel when mixed with wet borax. We will have to try that when I feel we have enough extra to not hoard it for baking.  It is used in many store bought products as a texture enhancer such as for ice cream and beverages (many dairy oriented ones). It is used in many diet foods and drinks because you can get 'bulk' without a lot of calories. It dissolves best in a room temp (cool) liquid. That is why I mentioned not to use hot melted butter in the recipe. Lots of health food stores sell pure guar gum powder as a health aid to lower cholesterol, help with diabetes, weight loss, and to help IBS sufferers. As a medicinal you add it to water and drink it. This was interesting stuff to learn about. I found several places online to order it.  We will probably do so from amazon.com's associated sellers just because they have so many different sizes and we deal with Amazon a good bit. Here is the webpage: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dblended%2526field-keywords%3Dguar%2520gum%2526results-process%3Ddefault%2526dispatch%3Dsearch/ref%3Dpd%5Fsl%5Fov%5Ftops-1%5Fblended%5F8852355%5F1/103-8989917-9732602. Generally you can buy a whole pound of guar gum for about $7 to $8 before shipping. That can make a lot of bread and homemade ice cream.

You can also use xanthan gum instead of guar gum. I haven't researched it as much. All I know about it is that it is made from fermented corn sugar.