[Sca-cooks] Sourdough

[Ciorstan]

Esteemed Bear writes:

> One cup of sifted flour weighs about 4 ounces.  One level cup of unsifted
> flour weighs between 5 and 6 ounces.  Liquids are approximately 8 ounces per
> cup.  Add up the weights in the recipe, subtract 1/4 of the total for

> A medieval baker wouldn't have used additional gluten.  They would have
> bought the hardest flour they could find.  If you can find a high gluten
> bread flour, try that.

I'm a sourdough lurker.

Hardness refers to relative gluten content of wheat varieties-- soft
wheats are pastry flours where no gluten need apply for employment; hard
wheat varieties make good bread. What you see in the store packaged as
"better for bread" is a harder wheat than regular flour, which in turn
is harder than pastry flour.

The best bread flour, hands down, is King Arthur. I've gotten good bread
results from their regular flour; it's not that great for pastry-making,
though. The KA better for bread flour is high rise as well. One of the
modern bread-rise ingredients is diastatic malt powder-- would that have
perhaps come as a by-product of beer/ale making or is from somewhere
else entirely? I've used diastatic malt powder in whole wheat breads and
gotten quite a rise out of them, so I know the boost it adds to yeast is
quite powerful.

ciorstan