Yes, you can mix gluten and other starch sources to replace bread. The amount of gluten added depends on what type of flour you are trying to approximate.
All numbers below give the final ratio of gluten. So, "cake flour: 5-6% gluten" means you should mix 5-6 g gluten with 95-54 g of your other flour to get an approximation of cake flour.
The gluten ratio is roughly:
- cake flour: 5-6%
- pastry flour: 6-8%
- AP flour: 8-11%
- bread flour: 12-13%
- high-gluten bread flour (bagel flour): 14-15%
Flours above that are typically made from durum, not wheat. They are used for certain styles of noodle.
Note that, if you are using a refined grain starch in addition to the gluten, you will roughly approximate white wheat flour, with slight differences depending on the source of the starch. Tuber starch is also an option, but will absorb different amounts of water.
But if you are working with whole grain flours of other grains, and not their refined starch, you will have a much different behavior, closer to whole grain wheat flour, and possibly with some other surprises along the way. You will certainly have to test your recipes 4-5 times, fine tuning the water amount at least.
I don't have a scientific backing to what I am going to say, but still I will try to make my point clear!
Cooking eggs is more of an intuitive thing. The fast vs. slow thing comes more from your own rendezvous with it.
Like in my house, when we say omelet, only my husband is allowed to put hands on it because he gets that perfect round thing without breaking any of the edges every single time he does it. I will share his method:
Take a flat pan and heat it good enough.
Drizzle a little oil on it and rotate the pan once so that oil gets to the sides.
Now all you need to do is pour your beaten eggs on the pan and slowly cook it on a low flame until the edges start separating from the pan automatically(atleast it will come out easily when you raise it with spatula)
And bang on, our omlete gets cooked pretty fine everytime with a very soft and fluffy texture.
But when you say scrambled eggs, I would follow a different methodology in which I would:
- Take a pan with deep base and heat it good enough.
- Pour very little oil, just so that eggs don't stick to the pan.
- Pour the egg mix and keep the pan on very high flame and stir the thing vigorously until the eggs are cooked and it looks ready.
Basically what I think is, when you cook anything on a high flame, you need to stir it along so that the food does not stick to the bottom and gets burnt(even when you are using a non stick pan, eggs might get stuck in a minute or so), which you can do while making scrambled eggs but can't do while making an omelet obviously.
I hope next time you put your hands on it, you will listen to your heart!! Happy Eggs!! :)
Best Answer
Your question has two main parts, what's elastic about gluten, and why don't other plants have this unicorn we call a gluten protein. I'll provide some background info first, but feel free to skip ahead to the spoilers if you like.
Quick and dirty background on proteins...
All proteins (like gluten) are made of differing sequences, and number of about 20 or so basic amino acids(glutamine, lysine, cysteine, arginine, isoleucine, just to name a few). So when we talk about large proteins like gluten, it's sometimes hard to remember that chemically, we are talking about many-many amino acid (AA) molecules which link together. The way the AA's link together matters because, the chemical interactions create the overall larger shape, and helps determine the physical properties of the final protein.
If I didn't put you to sleep, or you want to geek-out on this stuff: resources regarding the secondary(bonding between AA's which creates alpha-helices and beta-pleated sheets), tertiary (AA side chain interactions and AA's backbone), and quaternary (3D) structures of proteins, pubmed is where you need to go.
Glutens and what they are:
Gluten is the main storage form of proteins in wheat. Gluten itself is a fusion of glutenin and gliadin protein units which belong to the prolamin superfamily(prolamines are cool, look them up).
Gluten subunits fall into three broad categories:
Variances in the spread of these proteins contribute to the way wheat varietals are utilized commercially(like winter or summer wheats...you have seen the variations available to buy on store shelves). The composition of gluten protein in whatever wheat strain that's being used translates into differing physical properties(elasticity, density, etc) in the dough it makes.
Where do the elastic properties come from?
Elastic properties in gluten come from the way the components of the protein matrix interact with water. The gluten proteins react with water in ways that other storage forms of protein cannot, namely in the swelling/hydration bit. There are two things going on at the same time. The gliadin sections of the gluten protein contribute to the friction with which the hydrating liquid is able to move around in and near the protein matrices(viscocity). The glutenin portion of the molecule is responsible for the elasticity or strength of the protein matrix. Glutenin seems to undergo reversible (not as common as you'd hope) stretching because of the way it is folded.
Why don't any other grain proteins seem to have gluten?
I would like to point out this is more of a plant physiology/phylogeny question rather than one related to cooking.
They just don't have what it takes.
The way different plants create the storage form of their proteins is determined by their specific DNA sequences within the genome. AA Structure, order(N-C terminus) and final shape of the proteins created by the plant are a result of the transcription, translation and post-translational modifications of DNA sequences in the plant.
References for those that want them:(I did try to find free online ones)
Cereal seed storage proteins: structures, properties and role in grain utilization http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/370/947.full.pdf+html
Wheat Gluten Functionality as a Quality Determinant in Cereal-Based Food Products Annual Review of Food Science and Technology Vol. 3: 469-492 (Volume publication date April 2012) DOI: 10.1146/annurev-food-022811-101303
Distribution of gluten proteins in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) grain http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/108/1/23.abstract
The formation and properties of wheat flour doughs http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10408399009527517
Wheat Protein Composition and Properties of Wheat Glutenin in Relation to Breadmaking Functionality http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10408690290825510