Water.
Most bakers do not use as much water as is possible in bread-making. A hard, northwestern flour requires a slack dough if the flour has been made from wheats having the right characters and properly milled. The best results are obtained by setting the dough as soft as can be handled. When mixing the dough the water at first is not thoroughly absorbed by the flour particles, as the gluten is so hard it takes some time for these particles to thoroughly absorb all the water they will hold. This continuing to absorb is known to the baker as “tightening up.” This feature is characteristic of Northwestern flours, and is lacking in other flours. When mixing a dough from Northwestern flours always allow for “tightening up,” and mix the dough softer than it is intended to be when you “take the dough.” The opposite is the case in softer flours as they “slack off.”
Any flour will lose this characteristic of “tightening up” if a dough when mixed is too hot. Gluten is in reality a vegetable glue and softens when the dough is mixed warm, and consequently will not absorb the amount of water it should, and it will have a tendency to “slack off” instead of “tightening up.”
MILK VALUE IN BREAD
BY W. E. BREEZE, OF LONDON
Of course, we all know that wheat grown under certain conditions varies, and, as the climate and soil differ, so does the gluten, as is exampled between comparison with a soft and a strong flour. In the same way it applies to milk. The composition of fat in new milk is determined by the breed, climate, food and health of the cow. A really rich milk would produce as much as ¾ ounce to 1 ounce of fat to the pint, especially just now, when the animals are kept up and fed pretty well. They give less milk, but it is much higher in quality. In summer, when there is plenty of grass, the cows give more milk, and, on the whole, more fat, but the percentage is not so high as it is just now. In Holland, for instance, milk is poor, and more deficient in fat, because the pastures are more moist and watery. Whether the various fancy brown breads do or do not carry out, as they are reputed to do, all the properties accorded to them I am not prepared to say. Time must be given for a suitable trial, and if they are are not found suitable we must turn our attention to something else. A milk loaf of a favorable quality is generally being inquired for, but I am sorry to have to record that the majority of bakers do not treat it with the same respect that they accord to its rivals. Its rivals are sold under certain conditions. You must not adulterate it in any sense, for if you do you are liable to prosecution. But the old milk bread is not standardized as to its composition, and there is hardly a bread-maker who does not sell “milk bread.” I may also safely venture to say that the milk added to the bread is as varied in quantity as there are purveyors of the commodity. There is no stipulated or understood quantity, and in consequence the quality of the loaf suffers.
During my experience I have known and seen bread sold as “milk bread” which had never seen the sight of milk, but, on the other hand, there are other bakers who are most particular and have the most liberal quantity of milk, the result being they produce a beautiful and most honest loaf. I have seen other bakers who put in about six quarts of milk, and the bread is made up in fancy shapes and weights, and styled fancy bread. There is no recognized standard for the quantity of milk used per sack. Whether it is of sufficient importance to the trade that such a loaf should be made and sold is another matter. But I wish to put before you the value of milk in bread-making, and also to emphasize the benefits which, in my opinion, are derived from bread made with the addition of milk. I have eaten brown bread which has set up irritation in the stomach, but this has never happened to my knowledge when the bread has been made with good sweet full cream milk. I am convinced if this milk bread were kept before the public, made, of course, from the proper ingredients and in proper proportion, there would be no doubt as to the best loaf to be obtained at fancy prices, a loaf which would leave the baker an equal, if not better, profit than we obtain to-day for our fancy browns. In 1908, at the London Exhibition, for the first time, a milk powdered loaf won the first prize in the milk bread competition, and thus beat the new milk itself. That bread looked very nice, and its color was excellent, the weight sent in being about 2 pounds. It is true there is no recognized standard shape for milk bread, so several shapes were sent in, the competitors seeming to satisfy themselves to produce an ordinary loaf with milk in it. I do not know whether it would be possible for the manufacturers to suggest lines upon which shape and quality could be combined to produce a standard milk loaf. I do not know whether I am asking too much, but in time it would not amount to anything more than asking for a cottage loaf, a crumby or tin loaf. If manipulated and produced properly, it would increase it dietetic value, and be a different commodity, with changed properties, and yielding nourishment in a new and concentrated form.