The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

dark breads

agres's picture
agres

dark breads

There are recipes in all the standard texts on baking for "dark" breads that call for things like caramel, molasses, coffee, cocoa, and balsamic vinegar. However, I was just looking at a YouTube video on sourdough bread made from fresh milled wheat berries and water, naturally resulting in a dark bread and one of the comments was that there was "too much caramel in the dough". In fact, the dough/bread was the same color I get for sourdough breads from fresh milled whole wheat   As I had another slice of my very dark bread, I thought that putting caramel, molasses, coffee, cocoa, and balsamic vinegar in bread dough is only a poor and sad imitation of the rich colors and flavors that sourdough with fresh milled grain provides.  Can anyone offer an example where things like caramel, molasses, coffee, cocoa, and balsamic vinegar offer a better flavored product than sourdough with fresh milled grain (including malts and various seeds) can provide?

Levaineer's picture
Levaineer

As far as I can tell the things you listed are all used as substitutes for traditional bread making techniques. For example long, low temperature bakes like traditional pumpernickel produce a maillard reaction throughout the dough that leads to a dark crumb that is fairly sweet. This is done around 225F and bake times can be in excess of 16 hours. To replicate this effect and reduce bake times most modern bakeries bake hotter and add coloring and sweetening agents like molasses or caramel. 

David R's picture
David R

I can imagine (never tasted it, but imagining at least) that some smart baker could intentionally use one or more of these things as a strong featured flavour (a coffee bread, a molasses bread, etc) and have it turn out well.

But just as colouring agents? Forget it - please give me honest white bread or honest dark bread, according to the flour you're using.