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CONTENTS:
Composite flour pudding
Potato, green leaves and sardine
Yam, carrot and liver
Stirred sweet potato pudding
Green banana or plantain pudding
Nutritive values of home-made infant foods
Adapted from Feeding the weaning age group in the Caribbean. Proceedings of a Technical Group Meeting. Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute, Kingston, Jamaica, 1979.
COMPOSITE FLOUR PUDDING
Method
1. Mix together the flour, skimmed milk powder and salt (optional).
2. Add water and stir over a low tire for five minutes.
3. Add sugar and sieved fruit puree.
4. Reheat, add oil or margarine and mix well.
5. Sieve if necessary and allow to cool a little before serving.
Note. The composite flour used was a blend of wheat, cassava and soybean flours.
Ingredients (yields 6-7 oz or 17 200 g)
2 tblsp composite flour
2 tblsp skimmed milk powder
1/4 cup hull puree, banana or guava
1 cup water
1 tsp honey of sugar
1 tsp oil or margarine
Salt, if needed
POTATO, GREEN LEAVES AND SARDINE
Method
1. Bring water to the boil and add chopped leaves and potato.
2. Cover pot and cook for 12 to 15 minutes.
3. Mash in cooking liquid.
4. To this mixture add sardine and margarine or sardine oil and salt.
5. Sieve and serve.
Variations:
1. Substitute green banana (1 1/2 medium fingers), yam, breadfruit, cocoyam or 1/2 cup cooked rice or macaroni for potato. Green bananas may need to be cooked 10 to 15 minutes more than some varieties of yam and potato, to become tender.
2. Substitute carrot, okra or pumpkin for green leaves.
3. Sausage, liver, canned mackerel or comed beet (bully beef) or 1 egg may be used instead of sardine.
Ingredients (yields 4 oz or 120 9)
3 oz (85 9) potato, sweet or Irish, peeled and diced
1 oz (30 9) fresh green leaves, finely chopped
1/2 cup water
1 oz (30 g) sardine, mashed
1 tsp margarine (optional)
Small amount of salt
YAM, CARROT AND LIVER
Using the same method described in the previous recipe, substitute yam for potato, carrot for green leaves, and liver for sardine in the same proportions.
Liver should be cooked, grated and added to hot mashed yam and vegetable. Milk may be substituted for water, it additional liquid is required when sieving.
STIRRED SWEET POTATO PUDDING
Method
1. Boil the water and add the thinly sliced sweet potato.
2. Cover and cook over low fire for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove.
3. Mash potatoes in the cooking liquid.
4. Stir in the oil or margarine, egg, sugar or honey, and milk powder to the hot mixture.
5. Sieve and serve.
Ingredients (yields 5-6 oz or 150 to 1809)
1 small (3 oz or 85 9) sweet potato, peeled and sliced
1/4 pint water (142 ml)
1 egg
1 tblsp skimmed milk powder
1 tsp honey or dark sugar
1 tsp margarine or oil
or 2 tblsp coconut cream
GREEN BANANA OR PLANTAIN PUDDING
Method
1. Finely grate the plantain or bananas.
2. Beat in 1/2 cup of water until free from lumps.
3. Boil remaining water with added milk powder.
4. Add the plantain paste, stirring continuously.
5. Cook over a low fire for 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Add the oil or margarine, honey or sugar and salt to taste.
7. Cook, sieve if necessary and serve.
Ingredients (yields 1 lb or 450 g)
1 1/2 medium green bananas, peeled
or 1/2 medium plantain, peeled
1 pint (500 ml) water
2 tblsp skimmed milk powder
2 tblsp honey or dark sugar
Pinch of salt
Nutritive values of home-made Infant foods
| Infant food | Moisture % |
Energy (Kcal/100 g) |
Protein in % |
Fat % |
Ca mg % |
Fe mg% |
Na mg% |
K mg % |
| 1. Composite flour + guava | 78.8 |
98 |
3.6 |
0.6 |
102 |
1.0 |
111.2 |
150.1 |
| Composite flour + banana | 79.4 |
91 |
3.1 |
0.3 |
83 |
0.8 |
12.7 |
181.3 |
| 2. Potato, green leaves and sardine | 81.0 |
112 |
4.7 |
4.2 |
65 |
1.2 |
185.5 |
228.8 |
| 3. Yam, carrot and liver | 81.0 |
93 |
2.3 |
1.7 |
16 |
1.1 |
62.5 |
130.9 |
| 4. Sweet potato pudding | 69.8 |
166 |
3.0 |
4.7 |
82 |
2.0 |
64.2 |
123.1 |
| 5. Banana pudding | 89.4 |
45 |
1.8 |
0.4 |
56 |
0.6 |
140.0 |
151.7 |
| Plantain pudding | 80.2 |
84 |
2.5 |
0.4 |
78 |
1.0 |
84.9 |
136.3 |
Source: Feeding the weaning age group in the Caribbean. Proceedings of a Technical Group Meeting, CFNI, Kingston, Jamaica. 1979.
The basic starch paste
In ordinary wheat bread production, vital wheat gluten is the key ingredient that entraps fermentation gases from yeast and allows the bread to rise. In making wheatless bread, vital wheat gluten is replaced by a thick starch paste. Therefore, this is what we make first.
Start by adding 400 g of cassava or rice starch to 2 200 ml of water in a saucepan. (The starch may be replaced with cassava flour or rice flour.) The starch has a tendency to settle, so make sure you stirit up vigorously in order to keep it in suspension. Put the saucepan containing the suspended starch on the stove and start to heat it at medium to high heat with constant stirring. Do not let it burn! As you keep stirring you may see small pieces, or strands of precooked starch starting to form. This is a sign that the starch suspension will soon turn into a thick paste. Keep stirring while on medium heat. The paste will be very thick! As you continue to stir, the appearance of the paste will start to change in colour and will become more clear (or translucent). When the paste is uniformly translucent, take it off the heat and cool it with occasional stirring. It may be convenient to cool the saucepan in a sink containing cold water so that the saucepan temperature comes down quickly.
The wheatless bread batter
First measure out all the ingredients.
Yeast. Start by adding 25 g of fresh yeast in 150 ml of water and 5 g of sugar. Mash the yeast in and stir until uniform. You can also use dry yeast, 2 teaspoons in 160 ml of water with 5 g of sugar, (or follow manufacturer's instructions). This is the yeast suspension.
Sugar. 100 g or to your taste preference.
Salt. 40 g or to your taste preference.
Vegetable oil. 20 to SO ml depending on your taste (corn oil, sunflower oil, etc.).
Basic flour ingredients. 2 000 g of either rice flour, maize flour, sorghum flour, or millet flour. You may also use cassava flour (not starch) but will have to supplement it with SO to 70 g of high quality soy flour if you wish to bring up the protein level. You can also add 10 to 40 g of soy flour to the other flours. You can make mixtures of the various basic flour ingredients, but the total flour weight should remain in the 2 000 g range.
Baking the bread
Take all the starch paste and put it in the bowl of a mixer (use a spatula to make sure you collect all the paste). Add the flour slowly and mix with a wooden spoon or stainless steel spoon to incorporate it into the paste. This step takes some patience because the flour has a tendency to be dusty. When the flour has been moistened by the starch paste, you can put the bowl on to an electric mixer for the remaining steps. Add the sugar and salt. Mix slightly. Test the temperature to make sure that the mix is not hot, in order to be certain that the yeast is not damaged. Add the yeast suspension while stirring and you will see the batter become looser. Then, add the oil and continue to mix for five minutes. (The batter consistency will vary with the flour used.)
While the batter is being mixed, fully grease the inside of the baking pans using any vegetable oil. The best results are obtained with small rectangular pans 20 cm long, 7 cm wide and 6 cm high, with straight sides. You may experiment with different sizes and shapes of pans.
Pour the batter into the greased pans to a level of about half the height of the pan. Place the pans in a warm place (30 to 40°C) and cover with a wet cloth in order to allow the bread to rise or proof. Proofing time will vary according to the recipe. Let it proof or rise to about one centimetre below the top of the pan.
Place the pans in an oven which has been preheated to 210°C, and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove the breads carefully from the pan and place in a cool area. Allow to cool for a minimum of 12 hours. (In the case of 100 percent cassava bread allow to cool 24 hours or the bread will be too sticky.) After cooling, the bread will be ready for slicing and eating.