Bread – Does teff flour destroy gluten, and what do do about it

breadflourkneading

I like to add various different types of flour to bread when baking for sake of variety: Amaranth, Chickpea, Teff, Corn, Sorghum, etc. These all worked fine when I was using a bread machine.

Now I like to do everything by hand, and I'm encountering the following problem with Teff flour specifically (and none of the others so far!). Basically, the dough becomes extremely thin (like a liquid) even with just a small amount of Teff (even just 15% Teff and the rest wheat). Even when I use less water to maintain a reasonable consistency in the dough, I can't seem to form it into a loaf; the gluten just breaks down almost immediately. This is not just an issue about not having enough wheat flour: I can add easily 25% of other gluten-free flours such as chickpea flour without any problem. Does Teff flour destroy the gluten in some way? Is there any way around this other than baking in some sort of receptacle which creates the correct shape for the loaf?

Best Answer

Teff is probably one of the oldest domesticated plants so doesn't lend itself well for modern processing:

  • Normally the seeds are boiled just like rice
  • If you insist on making bread with it, you can make Injera (an unleavened bread)
  • For baking a "standard loaf of bread", it's not really suitable for that due to its high protein and mineral content, but you can still generously dust your bread with teff as you're using a small % anyway
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