wrote in message
oups.com...
Nom-

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. I'm sure your wife would be delighted
to know you are carrying on her work in the kitchen :-)

To follow up a bit on Mike's comment

Mike Avery wrote:

The most common issue for beginning bakers is using too much flour.
Beginning bakers feel the dough shouldn' t be sticky, and that leaves
the
yeast trying to raise something much like concrete.

I love Shirley Corriher's materials on flours in her food science book
_Cookwise : The Secrets of Cooking Revealed_ You might find it an
interesting read. I also love King Arthur flour, tho I use their AP
which has a protein level up with other mills bread flour.

If it happens that your recipe was written for AP flour and you are
instead using a high protein bread flour then your flour will be
absorbing more liquid than the AP would have absorbed, leaving you with
a drier dough. I encourage you to get Shirley's great book out of the
library but this web site also refers to this topic using her as their
reference: " For example, a batter made with 2 cups of high-protein
flour absorb 1 cup of water to form a soft, sticky dough. The same
recipe made with 2 cups low-protein flour and 1 cup water make a thick
soup. " http://www.baking911.com/pantry/flour,grains2.htm

This came home to me very clearly this fall when I had been reading
her section on flour after I came home from BBGA Camp Bread with a new
interest in flour. Twice I made a scone recipe I make all the time for
my family and found it was way wet. The light bulb went off with the
second batch. I realized I was using bulk organic AP instead of the KA
AP I had been using up til then. I knew from reading Corriher that KA
AP was a higher protein content and I knew from her that that would
mean it would absorb more liquid. I knew therefore that clearly from
my sloppy scone mixture the bulk AP was a lower protein content than
the KA.

One other possible thing is you might have over kneaded the dough if
you are kneading by machine. Overkneading would damage the gluten net
that holds the gases allowing bread rise.

Enjoy!
-Marylouise


As I recall, Ms. Corriher addresses this issue in that book and says that
over-kneading is unlikely, but discusses a phenomena called "de-mixing" or
the like. She asserts this is observed when one alternates between high and
low speed when using a mixer to knead dough. I also think it is unlikely
that some would over-kneed dough in a home kitchen.

I have used all the various brands of flour available in my area including
King Arthur. I have come to the conclusion that there is very little
difference between the $3.00 bag of KA flour and the 79 cent bag of house
brand flour at Aldi.