Bread made of rice flour becoming popular:

Rice to the occasion

by Lionel WIJESIRI

It was reported last week that the Economic Development Ministry will launch a series of workshops to educate bakery owners to use rice flour as a substitute for wheat flour. This program aims at using the expected surplus in the forthcoming paddy harvest.

Rice flour was used throughout Sri Lanka in the past to make many main food items until the critical rice shortage in the 1950s. The then government introduced wheat flour on a large scale under an agreement signed with the USA known as PL40 to import wheat flour.

The wheat flour was cheaper than the rice flour at that time and the years followed people totally got into the habit of using this commodity extensively.

Although the campaign to discourage wheat flour consumption launched as early as 1996, it has so far failed to produce the desired results.

The present Government has decided to minimise the dependency on wheat flour and promote production of flour using rice and other indigenous crops.

As a major step the Central Bank, in association with several key stakeholders and two State Banks has launched a loan scheme to facilitate entrepreneurs to establish rice flour factories with latest state-of-the-art milling technology.

The loan scheme has been established to promote rice based industries in the country with a view to utilise excess rice to produce value added agro based products such as confectionery and bakery items including bread.

Value

Rice, as most of us know, is a staple food in South-east Asia, Japan and Sri Lanka and Southern India. Mostly all types of rice flour are high in protein but the brown rice flour has much higher level of Vitamin B, iron and fibre than white rice flour.

In addition, since rice flour also doesn't contain any gluten, it is a suitable and healthy replacement for wheat flour.

(Gluten is a protein found in wheat, and its avoidance is an essential part of managing celiac disease).

Baking Bread

Three decades ago, when the Western world discovered these values of rice flour, the usage in new applications began growing dramatically.

Barley, potato and millet flours have also become popular, each with their unique advantages. However, rice flour seemed to be less intrusive to the taste, easier on the digestion, while maintaining compatibility with wheat flour recipes.

Manufacturers began switching to rice flour in cereals, chips, crackers and snacks. Cooks and chefs were discovering the lightness of the quality of their creations when replacing wheat flour with rice flour. Using rice flour as a coating batter has become the key to many chicken, fish and vegetable signature dishes.

And then the Food Technologists began to experiment how to bake bread with rice flour. One question typically came into their minds.

'How can you possibly bake bread without wheat?' The mere thought of making bread without 'flour' initially seemed to them like trying to solve a mystery without clues or attempting to play Scrabble without vowels.

But for most of them armed with varying degrees of knowledge in the area of traditional baking with wheat flour, the scenario was rather similar when they first decided to become gluten-free (GF) sleuths.

With intensive investigating, they quickly found a trail of leads that unfold before their eyes.

They introduced the peculiar ingredient called Xanthan Gum, a critical link in providing 'stretch' to help build structure and bind together gluten-free bread.

As the GF mystery further unfolded, the chefs throughout the world rolled up their sleeves, donned their aprons and eagerly dived into the task of experimenting with rice flour in their own kitchens.

They drew upon their knowledge of traditional methods of baking, but soon learned that they should start fresh with a new slate.

The art of gluten-free baking has come a long way since the time when gluten-free breads were widely known for their dry and crumbly texture, brick-like weight and lack lustre taste.

Technology

But slowly and surely, the mystery of baking without wheat began to unravel. Today, we can enjoy GF breads and baked goods that rival their wheat-based counterparts with tastes and textures that amaze us.

And for this we can be grateful to the pioneers in the field of gluten- free baking who have spent years of exhaustive research and experimentation in concocting GF Flour Mixes that yield the ecstatic "I can't believe it's not wheat" response.

At the same time technology began to change fast. For example, Sanyo, Japan invented Rice-flour bread maker known as Gopan that can easily make bread from rice grain at home.

They believed that by using it will increase rice consumption in Japan and change the eating habits of people.To quote another example, at the Bio-Taiwan exhibition held few months ago in Taipei, bread made of rice flour was featured prominently.

The TN-D80 rice flour, made from domestic rice variety "Tainan 11," was used to bake bread that contains up to 80 percent rice flour and that has the same texture and softness as bread made from wheat flour.

The Director-General of the agricultural station at the press interview said that rice bread currently sold on the market still use wheat flour as its predominant ingredient and contains only 30 percent to 50 percent of rice flour.

However, the bread made from the newly developed rice flour contains no wheat flour but only small amounts of gluten.

Although at present, rice flour is more expensive than wheat flour, improved rice-milling technology or use of less expensive broken rice for making flour could bring down the price and boost the competitiveness of the product, he added.Rice bread is getting more popular in Japan.

More varieties of rice bread are being developed; plain rice bread, raisin rice bread, nut rice bread, rice bread rolls, croissant rice bread, and many other kinds.

Rice bread is being sold commercially, and the number of bakeries selling rice bread is increasing. However, in the world market, the cost of rice bread is still much greater than wheat; however, it has the potential to grow in many countries in the future.

We have lot to achieve from our own research and from the knowledge we could gain from the experiences of other countries.

Our food experts should evaluate the use of rice flour in different formulations aiming to find a flour mixture suitable to us to replace wheat flour in the production of free-gluten white bread.

Production parameters have to be evaluated through sensory analysis taking into account physical parameters (crumb appearance, specific volume and moisture) and sensorial parameters (flavour, appearance, crumb texture, crust colour and satisfaction).

We have to focus on new rice products and improved cooking performance and the development of a local rice-flour bread formula.