I don't know how much of a thread this can be but it was only about a year ago that I discovered how incredibly awesome vital wheat gluten is for your bread recipes.  I now have a 'light wheat' bread that is easy too make and really good imo and it has great texture.

Do you make your own bread products and have you discovered this stuff?

Gluten is what makes bread bread.  While you're merrily adding even more of it to your recipes, spare a thought for us celiacs who have to do without 😊

10 minutes ago, lzamm said:

Gluten is what makes bread bread.  While you're merrily adding even more of it to your recipes, spare a thought for us celiacs who have to do without 😊

 

True, and also those who aren't celiac sufferers but just have a "sensitivity" to gluten. 

 

1 hour ago, sightseer said:

 

Do you make your own bread products and have you discovered this stuff?

Hey Dave

I do, sourdough (grey wheat flour with a rye leaven) for the main meals and vaguely Turkish 🙂 buns for breakfast.

I do not know this gluten. Our flour is little weak in protein in France and reaching a good dough elasticity is not easy (I am not a pro either !). This stuff would maybe help.

But with the flour you have in the US with 13-odd % of protein do you really need it ? What kind of bread do you do ?  

I was in the wholesale bakery supply buisness for almost 40 years and yes we sold plenty a 50# bag of vital wheat gluten .

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

But with the flour you have in the US with 13-odd % of protein do you really need it ? What kind of bread do you do ? 

Well I don't do sourdough - because I don't know how.  I use yeast - SAF instant red that I bought from Amazon.  I get the Vital Wheat Gluten from Amazon too.

All I know is that all of my attempts created bread that was far too crumbly and a slice would break in half easily but then I discovered the wheat gluten and it makes the bread stretchable and bendable and you can do that thing you did as a kid where you just wad up an entire slice into a little condensed ball...so good.

I use a bread machine - an inexpensive Cuisinart.

First I mix flours in a metal bowl:

100 grams wheat flour

50 grams vital wheat gluten

230 grams King Arthur all purpose flour

Then, in the bread machine, I put:

240 grams buttermilk

40 grams water

7 grams salt

25 grams brown sugar

and you mix that a bit with a spoon and then add the flours and finally a spoonful of the SAF instant yeast and put it in the machine on the dough function and after 1/2 hour, when the machine thinks its time to add other ingredients, I just take out the dough and press it out into a rectangle on a lightly floured surface and then you roll it up and place seam side down in standard loaf pan (mines stainless steel) coated with a thin coat of lard.

let rise in a warm place for about two hours and then bake at 325 degrees fahrenheit

I have an electric oven and I preheat with the bread in the oven.  I set the timer for 27 minutes and then preheat the oven and 27 minutes later, get the bread out of the oven and let sit in the pan for 5 minutes and then turn out onto a rack to cool.  I set my rack on top of two vegetable cans so the bread's heat  doesn't create steam on the counter.

It took me a year to come up with the recipe and I think its good.  My mom likes it.

Edited November 10, 20214 yr by sightseer

54 minutes ago, sightseer said:

It took me a year to come up with the recipe and I think its good.  My mom likes it. 

Quite an energetic bread, sounds delicious  ! I have to check this vital gluten thing.

Mine is more rustic : wheat flour (400 g - bread grey flour), water (250 g) and salt (about 10 g). Plus the leaven of course which is only fermented rye flour with water (90 g). The only thing is that you have to feed the leaven everyday. I use the all-American Kitchenaid Artisan 😄. No bread machine. I started at the beginning of the pandemic to cut on the outside shopping and found it amusing. I have learned it with a couple of  good You Tube videos. 

 My breakfast buns are made with white flour (375 g), water (173 g), leaven (50 g), dry yeast (5g), salt (10 g), flower honey (60 g) and olive oil (30 g). That makes 6 buns of about 120 g each. I took the recipe from a baker from Paris. It is supposed to be a Turkish bread.

The process is more or less the same : I mix/knead (do some autolyse first which helps to make the gluten because my flour is a little weak in protein and the added rye leaven doesn't help !), let it rise for a good couple of hours, pre-shape to strengthen the dough, let it settle, shape it, let it rise a second time and bake for 45 minutes half at 260° C/ 500 F¨and half at 230° C/446 ¨F

To do the proofing, I use a old ice box in which I have installed a small heating mat that regulate the heat !  

Easy peasy but it took me several months to get  a really nice spring ! The in-house taster is the wife. So far, no complaint 😉

PS 100 g is about 3.5 oz

Edited November 10, 20214 yr by Dominique_K

Yeah we make our own daily bread here too. Mixed with lots of flours together. .Oat bran cereal, whole wheat flour, white general purpose flour, and Krusteaz All Purpose flour.  (Krusteaz AP is gluten free sorghum, brown rice, and millet flour mixed). Kreutzers is the closest thing to white wheat flour replacement that I know of.

Like OP said, gluten makes any flour rise more than otherwise.

In America, Walmart online has very cheap wheat flour, delivered free and fast.

Most doctors will tell you that oat bran daily will remove cholesterol from artery walls. Not many foods have proven to do that.

Swanson's Vitamins is the cheapest online source we found for oat bran, like Bob's Red Mill brand, free shipping if you put enough in the cart.