The Secret to Better Bread
6 March 2010 // Filed under Arts + Culinary + Posts
Try as I may to produce light, porous white bread I have also been left with dough that does not rise sufficiently or retain moisture. And although my previous bread entry suggests that I have mastered the skill, buying a french bread pan has made all of my previously effective techniques go by the wayside. I attribute this change due the perforated surface of the pan, while great for retaining the shape of the bread it does not allow for the expansion of the dough.
That's where my experimentation began (or at least with types of flour, as experimenting with bread began a long time ago). Postulating that the variety of flour was causing the yeast to react differently and therefore rise to a lesser or greater extent I purchased flour specifically for the purpose of baking bread, appropriately named 'bread flour'. But what distinguished bread flour from all-purpose flour? I looked to the chemical composition of different flours and came to the realization that it's all about the percentage of gluten (or composite protein):
- Cake flour: 6-8%
- Self-rising flour: 8-9%
- Pastry flour: 8-10%
- All-purpose flour: 10-12%
- Bread flour: 12-14%
The higher level of gluten combined with malted barley in bread flour "helps the yeast work, and the other additive increases the elasticity of the gluten and its ability to retain gas as the dough rises and bakes" (ochef). For a more technical explanation
When dough made with wheat flour is kneaded, gluten forms when glutenin molecules cross-link to make a sub-microscopic network and associates with gliadin, which contributes viscosity and extensibility to the mix.[4] If such dough is leavened with yeast, sugar fermentation produces bubbles of carbon dioxide which, trapped by the gluten network, cause the dough to swell or rise. - Wikipedia
Substituting all-purpose flour with bread flour in the same recipe produced a result much to be desired. The bread was much denser, rising little more than the previous doughs, although this could have been due to a lack in kneading after the first rising. The crust was baguette-like in its crispness, the effect of placing a cup of water in the oven.
My next attempt was a 50-50 mixture of bread flour and all-purpose flour, or 1 1/2 cups each. I did knead the dough between leavening, producing evenly sized air pockets, less crisp (using the same water in oven technique) but more browned crust, and an overall lighter bread.
So what is the secret to better bread...the search goes on!
2010-03-06 :: admin