[Sca-cooks] bagels

[Bill Fisher]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 08:04:47 -0500, Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adelphi.edu> wrote:

> I've tried it myself twice, with poor results (which might have been
> because I was using my low-carb bread recipe rather than making a
> batch of dough just for pretzel purposes).  On one occasion at home I
> boiled the pretzels for a minute or two in a fairly strong baking
> soda solution, and they turned out inedibly bitter.  At Pennsic last
> I boiled the pretzels for a minute or two in a weak solution of
> Mistress Thora's fireplace ash (which she has used as a source of lye
> in the past for dyeing purposes); they weren't inedibly bitter, but
> decidedly uninteresting.  I'll have to try again some time with
> ordinary bread dough.
> --
>                                      John Elys

>From what I remember from your low-carb bread  components, you 
substitute a good deal of gluten proteins for starches.

Alkali solutions are bitter, and gluten is alkalai ( and acid ) soluble.
Your extra gluten is absorbing the alkalai and then it is baked into
your bread.  Unless you used a lot of potash to make lye water,
your lye solution wasn't very strong and the ph wasn't very high.

Your low carb bread is an alkalai sponge :-)  albiet a tasty one no doubt.

I think this is where your taste difference is coming from.

Cadoc
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