Ascorbic Acid Preservative

When we made quick bread rolls in Home Economics at school (this is going back some LOL) we put half a crushed vitamin C tablet in with the flour, and only did a single rise. Can't remember how much that was in mg, but the tablet was tiny IIRC. The purpose of vitamin C is to speed up the rise.

I've noticed that vitamin C is added to some, but not all, white bread flours here in the UK. The basic Waitrose white bread flour has it added in, whereas the ordinary Tesco own-brand does not. It doesn't appear to be added to the more expensive white bread flours.

If you want to extend the shelf life of your bread, then the easiest way to go about that is to add fat to your dough. I find that adding an ounce or so of lard to my dough (I rub it into the flour & salt mix before putting in the liquids) tends to work quite well.

(AA) my two cents worth;

I have a close contact, who has made a career in the flour analysing biz, the subject of ascorbic acid has come up more than a few times. It is evidently standard practice world wide in the milling industry to add ascorbic acid at the rate of 2ppm, this amount is adjusted according to variables in crop quality etc. Because this addition is undetectable in the finished product, a labelling declaration is often not required, this varies from country to country. It is a mistake to believe that there is any benefit vitamin wise from the AA addition.Smaller regional mills often lack the equipment required to evenly mix this minuscule amount in the flour.    I have a few textbooks on loan from the flour testing lab, in a nutshell, what I glean from them is that L. ascorbic acid (more often just referred to as ascorbic acid)is in itself not an oxidant, however it has an oxidising affect.  Snippets from „Baking Problems Solved“ by Stanley Cauvin and Linda Young -Wood Head publishing 2001page 54   „(AA) In bread making it is used to improve dough gas retention through its effect on the gluten structure. In terms of chemistry AA is a reducing agent, but during mixing it is readily converted to dehydroascorbic acid(DHA) in the presence of oxygen and ascorbic oxidase enzyme, which occurs naturally in wheat flour.The dependency on oxygen for the AA to DHA conversion means that the quantities of air incorporated during dough mixing play a significant role in promoting oxidation. This means that AA-assisted oxidation varies with mixer type because of the ability of different mixers to occlude different quantities of air.„The net result of the AA effect is to improve the ability of the dough to retain gas (as seen by increased oven spring) and to yield bread with a finer(smaller average cell size) crumb cell structure. These changes also result in bread crumb that is softer to the touch yet has the resiliency to recover much of its original shape after compression. This helps to convey the impression of improved freshness to the consumer.from page 55 „ The oxidising effect of AA is mainly limited to the dough mixing period because’ yeast will remove any oxygen remaining in the air bubbles by the end of mixing or soon after its completion“„If AA is used in dough making processes with extended periods of fermentation then the opportunity exists for the reducing effect of AA to weaken the gluten structure with subsequent loss of gas retention in the dough. Ascorbic acid is thus best suited to no-time dough making systems.“