SC - Flours was:[Dstlg] beer bread, OOP

[Robyn.Hodgkin at mailhost.dpie.gov.au]

Arabella said:
     I have had the same problem with my bread maker.  I have found that
wheat flour takes longer to cook, and the very best flour for a bread
machine is the type ground specially for the machine.  Gold Medal makes
one, it comes in a yellow package. There's is something about how it's
ground that makes it different from regular bleached flour.

To which I reply:
Most of the flour you buy in the local supermarket is too low in
gluten to make really good bread.  Gluten is the protein in
wheat, and helps to give doughs resilience, stretch and
good rising abilities.  Most shop-bought flours have been
bleached within an inch of their lives (so to speak) and have
very little protein left.

You can buy gluten flour separately from health food shops.
It is also sometimes called seitan flour.  It can be used to make
seitan, or gluten steaks, a kind of vegetarian meat-substitute.
It is really weird stuff to work, if you just add water to it, it goes
like rubber.

If I have not been able to get bread making flour, I use unbleached
flour and add a small dessert spoon of gluten flour per cup of
normal flour.   You can also buy something called 'lecimax'
which is a "bread-improver" but has never done much for me.

Kiriel
Lochac
West
more bread, more bread, more bread, more bread, more bread
more bread, more bread!


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