Bread Experiment

[Billyd]

Martha White self rising flour, pork lard, and buttermilk still makes the lightest, best tasting biscuits that it made when I was a young boy.

 

[VineyardsOfEngedi]

Martha White self rising flour, pork lard, and buttermilk still makes the lightest, best tasting biscuits that it made when I was a young boy.

I wonder if I substitute the pork lard with vegetable oil or something along those line if it would still have the same effect?

 

[JohnDB]

I wonder if I substitute the pork lard with vegetable oil or something along those line if it would still have the same effect?

It will give them a Bisquick taste but it will work...
Bacon grease works great too.
Just saying...

 

[Billyd]

I wonder if I substitute the pork lard with vegetable oil or something along those line if it would still have the same effect?

They look and taste like fast food joint biscuits.

 

[JohnDB]

 

[JohnDB]

So today I am starting Brioche.
It's a two day process to get brioche.

I am using this recipe here:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018927-classic-brioche

Already had issues in that I had to add an egg. The dough before adding the butter was so thick and heavy even my 2gallon ehd KitchenAid mixer wouldn't mix it with the dough hook. Mine is stronger than the bulk of the KitchenAid mixers out there...so I was confident that I needed the egg.

I did use equal parts AP flour and Bread Flour because I was using whole eggs instead of just yolks. I considered using honey instead of sugar...but figured that can be another batch later down the road.

Waiting on the first proof...

I'll let you know tomorrow about how it finishes.

 

[JohnDB]

So far so good...
The dough felt kinda oily because of all the butter in it. But it punched down well and wasn't too sticky where I couldn't get it off my hands.

But it took a bit of kneading to get it down to where it should be for refrigerating overnight. It's super yellow...yeah that's brioche for you.

But obviously it's going to take some time for it to proof tomorrow. Coming out of the fridge to get worked into shape is all the warming it really gets. Because you want to keep that butter in it.

So tomorrow it gets a slow long proof. This will increase the "yeasty" flavor and enhance the wheat flour taste as well.
The eggs will give it a really heavy rich flavor (as if the butter wouldn't) this is likely to literally stink of butter after it's baked.

But it's an awesome breakfast bread. I've made enough for the two loaves. One will likely be eaten as is with honey, Nutella, raspberry jam, and whatever.

The other will probably get turned into french toast...or bread pudding...or just eaten.

 

[JohnDB]

Ok...
So I got the bread out of the fridge and punched down and shaped.

A one pound loaf is a fairly standard homemade loaf. 8.5X4.5X2.75 inches.

The batch above made four pounds of dough. So I'm making four loaves.

It's winter...it's having a difficult time proofing so....it's been proofing for three hours and still isn't all the way up yet. But it's close. Which is why this stuff is going to be awesome when it finally gets proofed. And if someone was to put this in a proofing cabinet the temp cannot exceed 75-80° Fahrenheit. Because the butter will break down and come out otherwise. But it's currently covered and I'm trying to be patient.

 

[JohnDB]

All is wonderful.
Cooked @325 for something like 30-40 minutes total...I used a thermometer and cooked to an internal temp of 185.
The bread was very light BUT extremely rich and eggy. (Like it is supposed to be). It was very tender but that slight chew makes me think I can use all AP flour instead to get a more starch to the bread. Also I think I will use honey instead of sugar next time...it was literally screaming at me that it would have been awesome.

So... great looking bread but it definitely tried to stick. Also I'm kicking the temp up a tad to 350 next time. To get more brown.

 

[JohnDB]

Ok... tried toasting the brioche this morning for breakfast.

No additional butter is needed! It's got ALL the butter it needs baked in.

Would you put butter on pie crust?

But it toasted extremely fast...like you need the lightest setting possible on your toaster.

Then any of those jams, jellies, spreads mentioned before work perfectly well with this stuff. It's almost like pie for breakfast.

Just saying that this is an awesome breakfast bread that can be extremely quick and tasty for breakfast.
With the eggs and butter baked into it...it's more than enough to hold you for a while.

 

[JohnDB]

This morning I made french toast.

Yeah... you have never had french toast so good as this. If you have never tried it... you have my sympathies. Didn't really even need syrup.

Bread pudding would also be a thing for this bread.

Awesome versatile bread.

 

[blueluna5]

So today I made an experiment with bread and flours and liquids.

Three batches.

1 C liquid
2½C flour
1T sugar
1t salt
1 envelope yeast.

All three were the same as far as kneading in my mixer.

But one had ½ C egg whites and ½ C warm water and used All Trumps high Gluten Bread Flour.

One used the basic recipe with an additional 1 t of lemon juice added and I used All Trumps flour.

The third was the basic recipe except I used Gold medal bread flour from the grocery store.

The results are...

The egg white was very chewy by far comparison and didn't rise as well as the other two even though I made and formed it first.

The lemon juice added loaf was indeed almost as chewy as the first one but much lighter and rose more than the egg white loaf.

The third loaf had very little in the way of chewy texture...(gold medal bread flour) seemed almost like a waste. Very starchy by comparison of the other two loaves.

All loaves were free formed into baghetts and allowed to proof with cut marks being the identifying characteristics as to which was which.

Now if I had some sort of better proof box to get more rise out of them than what I did...it would have been a smidge better. No large tunnelling or air pockets were seen and the crumb and air holes were uniform and generally good.

Now...can you use egg whites and lemon juice to get the chewy texture out of store shelf bread flour in the Southeast?....that's a really good question. But currently my thinking is "no".

Do bread machines work for baking bread when you have no clue?

I've never had any luck with yeast and gave up after hours of waiting for my bread to rise.

 

[Billyd]

Do bread machines work for baking bread when you have no clue?

I've never had any luck with yeast and gave up after hours of waiting for my bread to rise.

Yes. Just make sure that you use the proper ingredients, and they aren't outdated.

 

[JohnDB]

So this next experiment is with Danish Dough.

I wrote a new recipe and went for it.

I'm thinking that this isn't going to work.

4½ C AP flour
3 TBs yeast
⅓ C sugar
3 eggs
1 C milk
4 T melted butter
2 tsp cardamon.

Rolling in 3½ sticks of butter.

The dough has been troublesome. I've had difficulties with the butter not being cold enough. So I let it rest in the fridge before rolling it last night...
And let it rest overnight before rolling and proofing it this morning.

And I've especially had issues getting it rolled out thin enough this morning. A dough sheeter would definitely have been helpful doing so.

I'm going to need to do this again and again to get this right.

I've gotten low osmotic yeast to help it rise. So it is currently rising. It's about half proofed this morning so I'm going to put in the fillings and give it an egg wash and see what comes out.

 

[JohnDB]

I really need a proof box for this stuff.
The first time I got the dough rolled too thick and not proofed enough.
Two days later went back and rolled it much thinner....let it proof more. It did much much better.
Also the extra two days of resting helped a lot as well.

Now I just need a better cheese filling recipe than the one I used...no where near sharp enough. Otherwise they were pretty good. Made some creme patisserie to fill with a few I blind baked and then topped with berries.

 

[JohnDB]

So I made 2 loaves of Italian bread.(kinda like French but with an Italian bent)
Went all bare bones.

Went with 1#10oz of flour and then a 70% hydration. (.7 x 26) and tablespoon of sugar and salt.

I let the mixer just get it together and homogeneous...then pulled it out and hand kneaded the dough.

I let it rest for 30 minutes to an hour and it had risen.

So I punched it down and again formed it by hand.
Except when I did the triangle fold and roll I did the fold but then briefly stopped to brush it with pesto and sprinkle it with parmesan before I rolled it up sealing each ⅛ roll as I went.
(It didn't seal well at all. )

Then let it proof.

Just before I baked it I washed and scrubbed the loaves with a brush dipped in water.

Extremely chewy and had a great crust and smell.

 

[JohnDB]

 

[de-emerald]

So...
Last night I made my infamous honey, oatmeal bread.

I really need a proof box and better quality honey than what I used.

But it wasn't horrible.

have you ever tried mixing nuts with egg white befor adding the oat flour, preferably cashew nuts. And add a bit of baking soda.

Personaly I like to fry a pizza bread base in a pan with oat flour, works better in taste for me. 😂

 

[de-emerald]

View attachment 236720

nice job lol haha. 😊

 

[de-emerald]

Oh I forget to mention you make a gooey peanut butter with the cashew nuts and egg white by blending them together then add the flower and baking powder and bake or fry, if you fry you can tastes more tastes if you add more ingredients to the mix,. 😊 Anyhow I'll give you a picture soon after I've tried yours