I never thought about that, but why not give it a try. On second thought, pasta water is pretty salty--Lydia B. on PBS says it should taste like the sea, so maybe that is not such a hot idea. Also, there is probably a big difference between potato water which probably has good stuff in other than just starch that comes from the potatoes. Pasta water probably just has salt and a little starch from the dried durum wheat.

--Pamela

I take you point about the salt, although we do not add any salt to the pasta water when we cook it.  Although I'm sure the pasta water contains less starch than potato water, I figured it would have lots more than plain water, so may contribute to the loaf.  I guess the converse of this is that the dough has plenty of wheat starch from the flour, so why would it need more.....

This is something I've been meaning to try myself. In fact the last few times I made pasta I reserved the cooking 'liquor' for precisely that purpose but just never got round to it. 

More than just an additional source of starch, the pasta water should contain gelatinized starch (from being boiled).

(Pre)gelatinized starch or scalded flour is sometimes used when making rye breads and also sometimes in beer mashes. I believe the theory is that it aids starch saccharification since the gelatinized starch is more easily broken down. In the case of bread, I guess there should be a sweeter end product (or perhaps faster fermentation time??). Some asian breads use a 'glue' made from flour and water heated to the point when starches start to gel. Adding this to the final dough is supposed to improve the keeping properties and texture of the bread.

If you decide to use pasta water in your bread, please let us know how it went. I'm curious to know the results!

FP