I Knead the Dough wrote:
Yes . . . . and hello to you all!

This post's about the hand-baking of white bread. I've made quite a few,
now, and whereas I'm very happy with the *taste* of the finished product,
it's in the *texture* department that I feel improvements could be made i=
n=2E

I'm from the UK, and I tend to use the 'Super Strong' white bread flour m=
ade
by the Hovis company (though I've also used the standard-grade stuff by t=
he
same firm), and their 'Fast Action' yeast, which only requires one "knead=
ing
and proving".

I always follow the instructions to the letter. Kneading takes 10 minutes,
after which I let it "double in size" (that's *so* specific!). As it's st=
ill
summer, that usually means I allow it to sit for about an hour-and-a-half,
at room temperature, before I pop it into the oven for half an hour (230=
=B0
C). In winter, I'll place the dough somewhere warm.

When finished, it looks good, and tastes good. The problem is that it ten=
ds
to be a little . . . . well . . . . "denser" than the uncut loaves I can =
buy
from a baker. Nothing wrong with that, as such, but I'd really like to try
and aim for something a little lighter, while still keeping the great tas=
te.

Question is - is this possible? I wonder if a *second* kneading, or
something, would result in a lighter product? Or perhaps letting the dough
sit longer? Perhaps adding some ingredient that's not mentioned in the
instructions, like sugar?

Anyone else use the basic methodology, above, and get a non-dense result?=
Or
is that just the way of things?!

Without your recipe all anyone can offer is {{{{wild}}}} specualtion.

Sheldon

"Randall Nortman" wrote in message
link.net...
On 2005-09-14, Janet Bostwick wrote:

"Randall Nortman" wrote in message
link.net...
[I'm redirecting follow-ups to rec.food.baking, which is the best
group for this discussion. My comments are inline below.]
The best group for this discussion is alt.bread.recipes

Is it? Nobody has posted a recipe in this thread yet -- we're
discussing general baking techniques, which seems like just the thing
for rec.food.baking. (If there were a rec.food.baking.bread, that
would be better.)

Of course, the real reason I didn't redirect to alt.bread.recipes is
that I don't follow that group, so I'm not familiar with what goes on
there. Browsing the last few posts, though, I do see that it's quite
a bit more than just recipes, so maybe this would be appropriate
there. Perhaps I'll have to start following that group as well.

Not trying to start a flame war here, just trying to find my way.

--
Randall
It was named recipes long, long ago. The standard accusation is that there
are no recipes.
Janet

On 13 Sep 2005 22:07:46 -0700, in rec.food.cooking, chembake wrote:


The Brits are not known to add sugar into their basic doughs.
Besides English flour are known for its high diastatic activity( can
provide sufficient sugars for the yeast to "munch " on.)
Just give it a proper kneading,check for' window pane' and give it
prolonged fermentation with knock down in between to allow the gluten
to stretched to the limit and hence will result in better volume and
lighter textured bread.

My British wife uses honey, malt syrup, molasses, etc. normally in our
bread.

Try a bread machine, we get light bread out of ours!

Doug
--
Doug Weller -- exorcise the demon to reply
Doug & Helen's Dogs http://www.dougandhelen.com
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk

Sheldon wrote:

Without your recipe all anyone can offer is {{{{wild}}}} specualtion.

Sheldon

I would disagree....a recipe is not usually the reason for product
variation... the technique being applied , counts..
In fact having more recipes will lead to confusion that( will make you
speculate) supposing the results is not what you expected and will
make you think whether that particular recipe is right or wrong..