November 3, 2015 - 2:48pm
Didnt see these ingredients?
Hi, I picked up a bake bread (i bake it at home as its not fully baked) at the store, but i have been to this bakery and seen how they make it, but my concerns are some ingredients are not what i saw them mixed at the bakery, here is the full list of ingredients:
unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, sour culture, salt, yeast, cultured wheat flour, white degerminated corn meal, wheat flour, guar gum, gum arabic.
The ingredient that i have in bold above is what i did not see them add at the bakery when they were making it, could you please help and identify what these are and why they would be added,
Thanks
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> niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid
These are added to the flour before it gets to the store. They're either being 'put back' into the flour, having been removed when the bran was sifted from the flour, or are there because someone once decided that bread would be a good way to dose the populace with something they thought everyone should be getting. They're the 'enriched' bit in 'enriched flour'.
> sour culture
That should be a sourdough starter but the dog's dinner of ingredients you list suggests that this loaf is as likely to be 'sourfaux', where the culture is used to make the bread seem like sourdough when it isn't, as it is to be the real thing. The cultured wheat flour is probably there for the same reason as it adds ascetic acid to the mix.
> degerminated corn meal
That wasn't in bold, so I assume you knew about that. I imagine it's there because it adds bulk to the loaf at low cost. That's a guess, however. It may be there to counteract something undesirable which another ingredient or the production process does to the dough or for some other reason entirely.
> wheat flour
That's just common or garden flour. Did you mean to embolden it?
> guar gum
Was the loaf frozen? This is often used to help baked goods survive freezing.
Most of those ingredients have no place in bread. Were I you, I'd find another bakery which makes bread, not something which looks like bread. Or buy some good flour and make it yourself, of course!
The cultures wheat flour is there to prevent it from moulding as the bakery dont fully bake the bread and yes the bakery does freeze their bread, i think they just add the corn meal to the loaf at the bottom when on the shaping line again i am not sure, but the ingredients i asked about do they come in powder, i asked about the starter and they said its made from flour and water and a combination of 40-60% and they let it ferment for 12Hour before its added into the mix, i asked my intial question as i only saw the mixer put in starter, water, yeast, cultured flour for mould, the gum arabic, and ice, dont know why they add ice but they said its to do with the outer weather, but i am not 100%, i look forward to hearing fom you guys, also the bread i picked up from the store was French baguette
That's something a true sourdough starter would do, too. It's the ascetic acid doing the anti-fungal job.
If it's only fermented for 12 hours it's not much of a 'starter', as that's not long enough for the yeast in the flour to become active. It will develop a touch of sourness, though, so it's much as I thought: sourfaux.
Corn meal is good at stopping dough sticking to benches and peels. I don't know that it would be listed as an ingredient in the UK, if that's what it's used for, as the quantities involved would be very small. It would probably be mentioned as a possible allergen, instead. I assume that the US has different ways of doing this stuff.
I assume that the 'enrichers' will be in powder form, as they'll have been mixed in with the flour, and the wheat flour and guar gum will be in powder form as well. The starter will, as you were told, be a paste of flour and water.
This is in the usa not uk also thy don't call it sourdough on there package if they did i am sure they will get into trouble
You don't say.
Sourfaux, by any other name...
Panera bakeries call their bread sourdough when in reality it also is a faux sourdough. To me a sourdough should be naturally raised from a sourdough culture not with the addition of yeast. Why would they add wood pulp to bread (Microcrystalline Cellulose), does it make it authentic sourdough? I think naming conventions in the U.S. seem pretty wide open for the manufacturers as long as there are no legal definitions for the product or trademark infringement.
Gerhard
Ingredients from Panera's website
"I think naming conventions in the U.S. seem pretty wide open for the manufacturers as long as there are no legal definitions for the product or trademark infringement."
That's a complaint the UK's Real Bread Campaign is making. It wants to see: "Meaningful, legal definitions for the terms 'fresh' and 'freshly baked' when used in the marketing of loaves - not to be used for 'bake-off' products. Meaningful, legal definitions for the words (and related terms) 'sourdough', 'artisan', 'wholegrain' and 'craft.'" At the moment there are none and deceiving manufacturers are having a field day.
Gerhard and Jon
I think you are absolutely right about naming conventions in the States.
Here's a story that will amaze you I think. This took place about 10 years ago or so (during the GW Bush administration) so the particulars might be a bit askew, but the principle is accurate.
I think it was when Congress was establishing a legal definition for the term 'Organic' in food stuffs or 'Free Range' for chickens and their eggs (maybe both).
I remember there were a number of Congressmen from states like Ohio (and the surrounds, who produce a lot of poultry products) who were pushing to allow within the law; that if a producer couldn't be profitable by following the demands of the definition (Organic or Free Range) that they should be allowed to use the terms at point of sale even tho such practices were not followed.
Such is the state of conservative politics in the US. I don't belong to any political party (and tho I vote), I distrust them all equally.
dobie
Your distrust is wholly justified.
Well said.
What can be added to increase fiber content as its only 1g in the recipe above?
.
Buy i can add wheat germ, oats, 100% stone ground wheat foour right and still have the bread looking white
Why do u add the following and can i buy these from any supermarkets
Niacin, rediced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, sorbitan monostearate, ascorbic acid, dough conditioner, microcrystalline cellulose, corn starch
Thanks
You've already been told why most of them are there: It's because most of the good stuff has been stripped out of the flour so that it looks white and allows people to make loaves which look, and taste, like expanded polystyrene. The law says it has to be put back so that you don't become undernourished if you base your diet on 'bread' made from it. The rest is there because the bakery has decided to make something which looks like bread instead of real bread and you need all that crap to do so. You'll have to ask someone there why they decided not to make real bread. They'll probably tell you it's because it's what the customers want and, going by your posts and your eagerness to keep adding crap to your 'bread', they're right.
Why don't you try making some real bread from flour, water, salt and yeast and forget about the chemicals? They're not there for your benefit and they're of no benefit to you. Or anyone else. Except the 'bakery' which puts them in its 'bread', of course.
Let me preface this by saying that I used to work at an industrial bakery and now work at a small shop that makes traditional artisan breads. I think this gives me a somewhat unique perspective. Although I somewhat agree with your seething attitude towards the industrial bakeries I think the consumers, retail stores, and restaurants are just as much to blame. Often times its is not that the bakery wants to add these ingredients it's that the consumers are demanding certain things of the bread that are not possible through traditional methods. For example, stupid chain restaurant wants a hamburger bun that won't mold or be hard after sitting on the shelf for two weeks...or grocery store demands a certain shelf life on the product...It's an issue that boils down to what people are willing to pay for a loaf of bread (what they consider a loaf of bread), and what has to be done to get the sale at the end of the day. Not everyone is able to afford what it costs to buy quality artisan bread and there is a huge lack of education on the matter across the board. I think the issue is somewhat complex is all and not all the blame ought to be put on the bakery, hell, you might as well blame capitalism. I feel privileged to have the understanding of bread that I have and as much as it pains me to see the crap in the grocery store I understand it on a certain level. I think it is important to try to share your passion for bread with a positive message rather than a you're an asshat for eating that chemical filled crap open your damn eyes attitude.
...the bit where I say: "You'll have to ask someone there why they decided not to make real bread. They'll probably tell you it's because it's what the customers want..." So my seethe was against attitudes and ignorance rather than individuals; those customers happy to eat something which looks like bread.
In this particular instance, however, the OP has been asking the same, half-formed questions in different ways for some time. Several people, myself included, have responded but it's as if much of what's being said isn't being heard. What's being asked is how to make industrial bread at home, despite everyone pointing out that you don't need to make industrial bread, so you don't need to buy all of those ingredients. All the OP needs are flour (or perhaps I should say 'flower'), water, salt and yeast to make the bread but they don't seem willing to try that because it doesn't include all of those ingredients in the industrial bread.
If you read back through the thread you'll see that my attitude was helpful but discouraging of the course the OP is describing, up until the point when I felt that the OP was being downright rude by ignoring pretty much everything that was being said to them. Had they at least acknowledged and assimilated some of the advice people were giving which deviated from their expressed direction, or carried on a rational discussion regarding their inexplicable desire to load home-made bread with unneeded chemicals, I would have been happy to carry on in that manner. Either the OP is someone who only came here to have their ideas validated or they're a troll. Whichever they are, I feel no obligation to waste any more of my patience on someone who seems so little inclined to consider the advice I'm giving, so I had a seethe at the customer who is happy to eat something which looks like bread, instead of bread, and doesn't even bother to look up the word 'artisan' before posting on a site described as being '...for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts'.
I can't begin to imagine what an asshat would look like.
better for you than plain white flour where these nutrients have been removed in sifting but not as good whole wheat flour and which isn't as good as whole grain flour which isn't as good as sprouted whole grain flour.
here is the history of enriched flout - an fun read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_flour