June 17, 2018 - 1:34am
Broken gluten
Can someone please tell me what went wrong to have gluten disintegration with this bake?
All of the following ingredients were mixed together and started autolyse.
6 hour BF @ RT created nice volume but couldn’t pass the window pane rest. The dough was so wet I just couldn’t shape it at all.
Mixture of BF+APF+WWF+Graham
20% levain
90% hydration
15% raisins
2% cinnamon
I wonder whether it was cinnamon...???
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'broken gluten'?
i just could not get a window pane... it kept tearing....
A crumb shot and further description of the problem could help...but here is one guess...
Cinnamon inhibits microbial activity (and so fermentation). It doesn't break down gluten, but it could extend the time necessary for sufficient fermentation to occur while proteolytic enzymes continue to do their thing. Many add it late in the process in various ways, even using it in place of flour on the bench during final shaping, to minimize its effects. That cinnamon swirl serves a purpose...
Also, at 90% hydration - of course it is going to be super wet and challenging to shape.
That was what I thought and it was my first time to add cinnamon in SD mix. It makes a lot of sense. I am not too good at uploading photos here on TFL. I will upload crumb shot on a separate entry.
Thank you for the clarification!
Young Hee
I tried making a whole wheat cinnamon-raisin bread substituting dried cherries for the raisins. The dried cherries burst in the dough. I also grind my own cinnamon from the sticks. The dough Did. Not. Rise. One. Tiny. Bit. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.
Baked it as a flatbread. The texture was similar to lebkuchen. Delicious with a little peanut butter and a drop of peach preserves on top. Also made an interesting and delicious bread pudding.
I think it was the combination of the freshly-ground cinnamon, plus the burst dried cherries upping the sugar % in the dough, both interfering with the yeast. I don't know what, if anything, happened to the gluten.
Not sure why cinnamon raisin bread works for some people some of the time...
so they say that we should use cinnamon as addition during BF. I always baked raisin and walnut sans cinnamon and never expected the disaster. I think I will just dust it in during shaping and perhaps outside before scoring.