OIL or NO OIL in bread
I have been making what I think is some very flavorful bread recently. A few years ago I discovered a local mill and have been playing with their organic wheat and rye flours. The other week my mother-in-law, a great baker herself was enjoying the bread and she asked what oil I used. When she learned that this bread was only flour, water and salt she was puzzled. Why would I make a bread without any fat? She learned to bake in the 40's and used pork fat.
That raised a good discussion, why would I use oil. I had always thought the fat was used to add some flavour to breads made from processed flours where the taste of the wheat was processed out of it. The bread i have made is moist, flavourful but does tend to dry out a bit faster than bread made with oil/fat.
Having learned the great flavour of wheat are not possible in the grocery store, bleached flours I wondered if that is the primary reason for its inclusion in recipes. Fat is flavour?
I love this site and the shared knowledge of the community of bakers.
Comments welcomed.
JL - Gatineau, Quebec