December 25, 2014 - 9:15am
Lecithin?
Season's Greetings everyone.
Has anyone used lecithin to extend shelf life of their breads? I see it as an ingredient in many commercial breads. Does it work with sourdough?
GregS
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Season's Greetings everyone.
Has anyone used lecithin to extend shelf life of their breads? I see it as an ingredient in many commercial breads. Does it work with sourdough?
GregS
anything at all, really. It helps to make the crumb more regular, to incorporate fats more evenly (especially with weaker flours), but it doesn't really work as a preservative. It's an improver when you don't use eggs, just that.
It's also supposed to preserve gluten integrity when you freeze dough, but I can't say for sure as I haven't tried this feature yet.
I use fat-free lecithin in every loaf I bake, sourdough or not, wheat or rye, about 0.5 g per 1lb loaf. It reduces dough buckiness, softens crumb, retards the firming of the crumb, so it gives impression of delayed staling.
Still, I have no idea even about that feature, how much it retards staling. It is supposed to delay it for 2-4 days, but in my place bread disappears so fast, that I have to bake twice a day more often than not. No time for staling.
as it's phospho-lipid. If you read the nutritional facts you will see near 100% lipids.
I meant de-oiled lecithin in form of non-greasy to touch powder. To distinguish it from the usual form of commercial lecithin sold in a blend with oils at least 1:1.
Does lecithin affect the flavor of the bread?
San Luis Bakery uses soy lecithin and soy flour in its sourdough. I don't know why they use soy flour. If their sourdough were any good I wouldn't have to bake my own.
At least, not so I noticed. I use a liquid soy lecithin mostly as a pan release. I mix about 1 tsp liquid lecithing (a thick golden liquid) with about 1/2 c vegetable oil and brush this in pans as a pan release. Works great!
I have used it in breads early on but since I don't have breads hanging around long enough to stale, I stopped using it.
Several bread-ingredient lists I have looked at contain soybean oil, and other bakers on TFL have suggested oil or fat to keep bread moist longer.