The Fresh Loaf

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tenderizing lean dough

sannimiti's picture
sannimiti

tenderizing lean dough

hi, i want to make jeffrey hamelmans 6 grain sourdough bread into rolls and while i like the recipe i like my rolls a little softer than bread. i know milk, butter and egg all tenderize dough but have no idea what would work best. i don't want a soft roll just a little softer a crumb. i thought about adding about 2 tbsp. of butter as suggested in the laurels bread book but maybe some milk or buttermilk in the dough would also be good? of course the baking temp would have to be decreased a little. so i've got a couple things in mind but if someone has experience with the ratios or baking temp any help would be appreciated! thanks, sanni

KosherBaker's picture
KosherBaker

Hey Sanni.

Interesting post. For a few months now I have been wanting to experiment with making a sandwitch loaf, meaning a softer bread without using the usual shorteners, like fats. The techniques I was going to try were. 1. Making sure that the dough is as close to 100% proofed as possible in the final proofing. 2. Baking the bread covered for the duration of the bake. 3. Baking the bread at a relatively lower temperature somewhere between 325F and 350F

One other thing I noticed was that in addition to fats baking powder/baking soda also has an effect of softening the dough and the crust. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to all these experiments but if you do yours I'd love to hear about the results.

Rudy

hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

hi sanni,

you could also try adding some olive oil, for instance? in bakers %, i would suggest trying something in the region of 5% olive oil in the final dough.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

in my lean pizza dough and came out with the softest pizza crust.  I don't think i'd repeat it for pizza again but it might make great rolls. 

Mini O

josordoni's picture
josordoni

Was that baking soda?  And was it deliberate? :D

Lynne

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

spoon for spoon.  Actually with all my dental work at the moment, it's not so bad. I had to bake the second pizza right on the rack to crispen it up, but it is still soft.  Yes, baking soda.

Mini O

josordoni's picture
josordoni

What made you think of that substitution? 

Did you know it would soften it up, or was it just an educated guess?

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

substitution. 

The first finished pizza was so soft, I thought it was water condensation between the pan and the crust.  We could hardly pick it up.  I had baked the crust first and then put on the toppings without moving the crust off the parchment and pan.  My husband had mentioned I bring it up here, and I argued that I would embarrass myself with reversal of my pizza skills.  That was yesterday.

But this evening, the second crust came out of the oven and went straight onto a rack, and was ...soft.  (I thought about this thread) I put on the toppings and noticed it was still soft.   Normally it comes crispy out of the oven and stays that way.   After baking the pizza, the crust remained soft, not as wet as the first pizza but definitely different from pizza made with salt.  And heck, I wanted to know what it would do, but that was before Rudy wrote his entry above.

Mini O

josordoni's picture
josordoni

Salt is made up of sodium and potassium - it is the sodium that is bad for your heart, so we can get a potassium lo-salt here, don't know if something similar would be available, and I don't know how it would bake.

Has anyone used potassium instead of sodium in bread?

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

 Table salt.   SodiumChloride  is half sodium and all table salt containers can truthfully say they contain 1/2 or less of their weight in sodium.  High Potassium levels in bread might just make it a diuretic.

Mini O

SteveB's picture
SteveB

Actually, since the atomic weights of sodium and chlorine are roughly 23 and 35.5, respectively, common table salt is more like 39% sodium.   :) 

SteveB

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