What do liquids do? They activate the yeast, and they combine with gluten to form the elastic strands that help bread to rise. What else do liquids do? They provide flavor cheese or maple syrup, for example ; structure eggs -- whole protein contributes to the strength of the loaf as it bakes ; nutrition dairy products and eggs and texture and freshness fat, which gives bread a finer, softer texture, and keeps it fresh longer. Varying the liquids in your bread machine recipes will allow you to produce very different types of bread, in both flavor and texture.
This is an area where experimentation is both useful and fun. Flour is the basis of good bread, but many of the bread machine manuals give the reader poor information concerning flour. Be sure to use a good quality flour, one that is untreated with either bleach powdered bleach belongs in your laundry, not your bread , or potassium bromate, a suspected carcinogen.
The gluten combines with water to form the elastic strands that trap carbon dioxide given off by yeast, allowing bread to rise. A flour high in gluten will produce a nicely risen loaf, while a low-gluten flour such as pastry flour, cake flour or self-rising flour will not. Most bread machine manuals and cookbooks call for bread flour rather than all-purpose flour.
King Arthur also makes an extra-strong bread flour, King Arthur Unbleached Special Bread Flour, which is especially good in sweet breads and breads containing whole grains, which may have difficulty rising sufficiently. Be aware, however, that the higher the protein level of the flour you use, the more liquid it will absorb; be sure to check your dough during the kneading cycle, and add more liquid if necessary.
The proper consistency for your dough is a smooth, soft ball. Because the bran cuts the gluten strands as they form, rendering them useless, unable to trap the carbon dioxide being generated by the yeast. But what about whole wheat bread? And pumpernickel? And New York rye? You can make wonderful whole-grain breads in most bread machines. You can also try adding some pure gluten to the mixture. Look for vital wheat gluten not gluten flour and for each cup of whole-grain flour used, put 1 tablespoon of gluten in the bottom of the measuring cup before filling with the flour.
When making whole-grain breads, we like to tell people to start with a mixture that is 1 cup whole grain flour, 2 cups all-purpose flour, then work from there.
Gradually increase the whole grain and decrease the all-purpose, at the same time increasing the yeast a bit and perhaps adding gluten, till you get the combination of taste and texture you enjoy. This is the part where some creative experimentation is involved. Many people feel they have to eat only whole-grain bread to get any health benefits at all.
This is simply untrue. The endosperm from which all-purpose flour is ground is, after all, the food source for a new wheat seedling the germ ; the bran is merely its protective coat.
All-purpose and whole wheat flours are comparable in many areas. Whole wheat is also noticeably higher in potassium and phosphorus, and a bit higher in protein though some of this is tied up in the fiber, and is therefore not nutritionally available. All-purpose flour is lower in fat and sodium. Which should you choose? But if you really should eat more fiber every day, then use whole wheat flour.
Some machines feature a whole-grain cycle. What does this mean? Generally, this cycle will knead the dough a bit longer, and give it a significantly longer rising time.
By this we mean raisins, dried fruits, nuts, seeds, chocolate chips In order to keep these things from being shredded or mashed during the kneading cycles, add them at the end of the second kneading cycle, about 3 minutes before the machine is due to go into its first rise. View our privacy policy.
Helpful Hints: Don't be afraid to open your machine to look at and poke the dough as it kneads. Can I use regular bread recipes in my new bread machine? A more fail-safe method is to just make dough, and go from there Q.
Can I make a bread machine recipe by hand? What qualifies as a liquid? Why did my loaf sink in the bread machine? My crust is always soft. How can I make a crispier crust? My bread didn't rise. My crust was crisp but I wanted it to be soft. What can I do? Why do I have raw, doughy spots in my finished loaf?
Why do I get coarse, crumbly loaves? Too much yeast —While it seems counterintuitive, too much yeast can actually cause your bread to collapse. The yeast will make the bread rise like crazy, but later it all falls in on itself.
Yeast Type or Condition — The yeast might have been old or might have been the wrong type for the setting. Click through to read about what happened to me.
Maybe you accidentally measured something wrong or forgot an ingredient. If you made the recipe correctly, the next step is to try it again, making just one or two changes. Also, make notes about the changes. How did you vary the recipe? What was the result? Use your revised recipe as the new baseline. Look at the result, look at the variables and try again if needed.
This is important so that the dough can retain the maximum amount of gas possible. This makes for a bigger rise and prevents the bread from being dense. Kneading with efficient hand kneading techniques or a dough mixer saves you time, energy and makes perfect bread! Decreasing the amount of yeast or sourdough starter slows the rate of the rise. This is necessary in no-knead bread recipes where the gluten develops naturally over time, instead of mechanical force.
Many recipes combine kneading with a longer rise or a two-stage rise. This provides a stronger gluten network as the dough becomes more mature. Cool proofing temperatures are used to slow fermentation. We want to allow plenty of time during the first rise for the dough to mature, whilst stoping it getting too gassy.
Too much gas early on, forces the dough structure to collapse if the weak gluten cannot contain it. Knowing how long to push the first rise is a challenging skill. Letting the dough rise to double sometimes more works wonders for an open crumb and more intense sour flavour in sourdough bread.
If making bread with lots of yeast 1. This will prevent it from rising after shaping and probably collapse when it meets resistance as it goes into the oven. A highly active sourdough or a recipe with a high ratio of starter to flour should rise less before shaping.
A good check to know when the dough is ready to bake will stop you from over proofing bread. For this, we can use the poke test. As the dough rises, wet your finger and poke it into the dough about half a centimetre just under.
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