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Re: Texture question

Roxanne Rieske <rokzane@comcast.net>
Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:15:07 -0600
v107.n010.6
Lisa W. wrote:
>I bake a simple bread recipe that I have a question about.  My kids 
>would like it to have the texture of store bought bread.  Mine 
>crumbles easily and seems dense.  The recipe only calls for flour, 
>honey, oil, salt, water, and yeast.  Should I add something else or 
>do something different?  I mix by hand and I follow the time line 
>given.  I would appreciate any help.

I would suggest replacing the oil with softened butter (or at least 
half of the oil with butter). Also,, consider adding some dry whole 
milk powder (which you can find online and at some Whole Foods 
markets). I would use about 1 tbs for every 4 oz of water that is 
used in the dough. Also, an excellent product to try is Lora Brody's 
Bread Dough Enhancer; it helps to improve the texture of bread dough; 
it's a combination of wheat gluten, vitamin C, and diastic malt 
powder. I usually use about 1 TBS for every cup of flour.

These additions will make a remarkably improved loaf, but it won't be 
quite as close to store bought bread, because those types of breads 
usually contain a whole host of stabilizers and chemical additives to 
improve the texture and feel, but I believe the taste and nutrition 
of home baked bread more than makes up for all that.

Hope this helps!
Roxanne Rieske