Chia Bread Rolls

 

It has been a long search for a simple, quick, tasty, gluten/dairy/soy free bread substitute that works well as toast and bread rolls. I think I've finally found it! I've been musing over this recipe for chia pan bread for a while now and finally made a small batch the other day. I followed the recipe fairly closely the first time (except I cooked them in the oven as there's no way I'm going to stand there cooking dozens of these things in a pan!). The dough turned out to be rather wet and I added just enough extra potato flour so that it wasn't so sticky but the final product ended up about the size and shape of profiteroles and very dense and moist on the inside. However, the outside was nice and crispy and the taste was great and got the thumbs up from all 4 males, with the kids begging me to make more. The all-'round approval is a rare thing so I was determined to tweak the recipe and make it work.

Today I made another batch, aiming for something like an English muffin in size and shape. I decided to omit the onion but added a little salt. I mixed the ground chia seeds, potato flour and baking powder in the food processor. I then gradually poured in enough of the lightly beaten eggs so that the mixture came together into a ball (probably worked out to be < 2 eggs for every 6 Tbsp of flour). I let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes while I cleared up and prepped the trays etc. I kneaded the dough on a lightly floured surface for another 5-10 minutes, adding a small amount more of the beaten eggs, until it felt like the dough had a good texture - reasonably firm, moist but not sticky. I then rolled the dough out to just under 1cm thick and used a container to cut out shapes. When I had to re-roll the dough I added a tiny bit more egg as the chia kept absorbing and dried out the dough a little. Into a moderately hot oven for 20 minutes or so, flipping halfway.

They turned out pretty good! Could probably still do with some minor tweaking but, overall, I'm happy with them. They were still a bit dense inside but we don't mind that (we've been doing very simple homemade breads for so long now that the air-filled, barely there slices of store-bought bread seem so insubstantial). Next time I might go back to free form shaping the rolls and see how they go. I have some in the fridge and we'll see what the kids think of them as a toast replacement tomorrow morning. The real test, however, will be the ones I have in the freezer. Cooking in bulk and freezing is something we do a lot of so hopefully they freeze well (or maybe that should be defrost well!).