I really enjoyed exploring the idea of acaraje last week, so, this week, I decided to try making a baked loaf in my mini-cake pan out of the batter.

Baked Acaraje Miniloaf Version 1

Ingredients

• 75g dry red lentils
• 60g onion
• 0.5 tsp tomato paste
• 0.5 tsp miso
• additional fermentation cultures (for this iteration: 1tsp of gingerbug)
• dechlorinated water
• 1/8tsp baking soda

Process

1. Soaked lentils for 12 hours then discarded water
2. Blended together with onion, cultures, miso, and enough water to make a blendable batter
3. Left, covered, at room temperature to ferment for 24 hours
4. Preheated oven to 450F
5. Whipped air into batter
6. Mixed in baking soda
7. Put in mini cake tin and baked for 25mns
8. Let cool for 10 minutes then turned out onto cooling rack to further cool

Discussion

Last week, I noticed that the batter foamed up quite a bit during fermentation and once again when the baking soda was added. Since the beans lack gluten, I suspect trying to pour the fermentation-foamed batter into a vessel and baking it would simply result in a flat baked bean “cake” given that the stucture trapping the CO2 is not very strong. Faced with this, I figured that my options for making a baked loaf out of the batter were either to ferment in the baking vessel or take advantage of the vigourous baking soda reaction to re-aerate the batter after transferring it to a baking vessel. Since the latter would still allow me also blitz the batter with the immersion blender, which proved very important to the structural integrity of the batter last week, prior to baking, I decided that I would try that approach first.

The result was a bit disappointing. It mostly tasted like what it was - slightly acidic lentils with onions - and failed to achieve much loft from the baking soda+oven spring. The doneness was also a little uneven, I think this would be better baked at a lower temperature for a bit longer to give it more time to bake through before the edges go to far. Also, I would like it a bit loftier, but I don’t think the starches in beans alone are capable of giving that effect. To that end, I think the next thing I will try will be adding a bit of xanthan gum to add structure while reducing the oven temperature a bit. Egg whites would be another option for structure building and I suspect they’d have better results, but, in addition to enjoying making things vegan whenever practical, I don’t have any eggs on hand. Since I found the acidity a little bit too strong in this version, for the next iteration, I will be increasing the baking soda content to neutralize some of the acid that the fermentation produced as well as to provide a bit more loft.

Baked Acaraje Mini-loaf Version 2: Now with Modernist Technology

Ingredients

• 75g dry red lentils
• 60g onion
• 0.5 tsp tomato paste
• 0.5 tsp miso
• additional fermentation cultures (for this iteration: 1tsp of gingerbug)
• 50g dechlorinated water
• 0.125tsp xanthan gum
• 0.25tsp baking soda

Process

1. Soaked lentils for 12 hours then discarded water
2. Blended together with onion, cultures, miso, and enough water to make a blendable batter
3. Left, covered, at room temperature to ferment for 24 hours
4. Preheated oven to 375F
5. Added xanthan gum and whipped air into batter, let sit for 15 minutes to let the xanthan gum hydrate further
6. Mixed in baking soda and mixed to combine
7. Put in mini cake tin and baked for 25mns
8. Let cool for 10 minutes then turned out onto cooling rack to further cool

Discussion

This fluffed up a bit more than the previous attempt, but it also collapsed more when I turned it out of the pan onto the cooling rack. I suspect this was partially a result of insufficient cooling time in the pan

• I should have let it cool for thirty minutes instead of just ten. It may have also been simply a bit overleavened and unable to hold the loft it had regardless of how I cooled it. Given how different this batter is from anything else I’ve really worked with, it’s hard to get a good sense of what its capabilities are.

Flavour-wise, the extra baking soda helped drop the acidity to a more reasonable level, but this is still definitely a batter that is better suited to deep frying than baking. For the most part, it just ended up tasting like lentils and onions, which is a flavour profile that can be achieved with far less effort and with produce a result that is tastier in my opinion by making them into a simple curry.

Conclusion

After experimenting with baking the fermented lentil batter, I think my conclusion from my first series of acaraje-inspired dishes continues to ring true - it’s good as a deep fried fritter, and probably should just be left as a deep fried fritter.