Yeast leavened wholemeal bread 4– The Accidental Recipe

Sunday 15^th May 2011, Recipe 20110515

Actually this is part 10 but as I did not publish experiments 4 to 9 I am calling this part 4. My mum has been complaining my bread is too hard so I have been experimenting with how to soften it without using oil. Notice many of my recipes of late have no preservatives, bread softeners or bread improvers. So it’s a little tougher to get it just right.

One of the options we have to soften the bread is to get it to rise more. Do note that this is a 100% water bread and it would be heavier and slightly tougher than a standard bread recipe but there is no physical work of kneading or the need for a bread making machine.

If I do not want to use bread softener I must try getting the bread to rise a bit more before baking. That is the trick to making bread. You need it to rise before you bake it unlike baking cakes.

To get it to rise more there are several possibilities we can look at. Firstly, lower the viscosity of the dough so that it will be easier to expand during baking. Secondly, we could help the yeast to make more gas so that it rises further during the ‘proofing’ stage before baking. I tried the second option.

Here is the recipe.

Notice that there is extra sugar in the additives, item 12. Actually, what I found out is that a 2% sugar in the bread will make the bread taste a bit sweet. Some sweet bun recipes call for 10% sugar but there is no need for so much sugar if you add it at the correct time. Sugar causes diabetes and diabetes is the mother of all diseases. There is no cure for diabetes. Have you noticed how diabetics get it rages quickly? I wouldn’t be surprised a lot of the road rage is caused by high blood sugar. Someone needs to check it out. This is the reason I avoid all ‘low fat’ products because sugar has been added in to compensate for the poor taste as a result of removal of the fat content. Wouldn’t the added sugar help you put on more weight when compared to the original fat content? You will definitely get that incurable diseases called diabetes, consuming all that low fat stuff. Just stuff it, get the real stuff.

Pour all the water into the yeast sugar and flour mixture.

Fold in the mixture on its self and allow it to ferment for 4 hours.

Mix all the additives together in a separate bowl so that they are uniformly distributed.

Notice how ‘gluey’ the fermented dough is. You will notice the gas pockets.

Fold in the additives into the fermented dough. I am using a large spoon here as it is easier to use.

Leave for an hour to proof. I noticed that it did not rise more than the recipe without the extra 2% sugar. On closer inspection I noticed that there were little gaps in the dough which was allowing the gases to escape. That means the bread was too watery. I should try it will less water.

The sliced bread does look good.

And it tasted good with butter and chilli flakes spread.

I must tell you that I have tried up to 20% bran in the bread and found that 20% bread will scratch your gums when you eat the bread. It’s not a problem if you keep the bran content below 15%. If you toasted the high bran bread you will not have the problems of scratched gums.

At least I now know that adding extra sugar in the additives will not work if the water content is too high. I will have to try 90% water content. It did not appear this watery before and this may be due to a different brand of flour used for this recipe. I will have to go back to the original brand once I have finished this stock of bread flour.