Kneading Bread

[farmbrewernw]

the no kneed bread is great but it really depends on the sort of bread you are looking for. Most breads you are still going to need to kneed them make sure you use bread flour it has a lot more gluten as some here have said.

 

[PWalk]

Well I baked 4 loaves over the holiday last week and they all turned out great. I used the basic bread recipe adding some butter to the mix on two loaves and olive oil in the other two. The flavor was more pronounced with the olive oil but I was wondering if anyone here could recommend other ingredients to enhance the flavor of regular bread. I've seen powdered milk, baking soda, etc... and wanted to see if there were any other things I could toss into the dry mix before mixing.

 

[zoebisch01]

Well I baked 4 loaves over the holiday last week and they all turned out great. I used the basic bread recipe adding some butter to the mix on two loaves and olive oil in the other two. The flavor was more pronounced with the olive oil but I was wondering if anyone here could recommend other ingredients to enhance the flavor of regular bread. I've seen powdered milk, baking soda, etc... and wanted to see if there were any other things I could toss into the dry mix before mixing.

Cool deal.

I personally tend to avoid fat additions as it creates a different texture in the bread. Save for holiday breads.

Don't add powdered milk or baking soda. Well you could, but powdered milk isn't all that great imho because it has that odd almost rancid flavor, and baking soda is usually used in things like Irish Soda Bread. It has that chemical taste to it as well which I don't like.

Here are some of the things I have done: Sundried Tomato & fresh Rosemary, Cured Olives & fresh Thyme, Cheese (Gruyere, Comte, etc.), Roasted Garlic and a healthy portion of Whole wheat in the dough and a little Molasses...the list goes on and on.

The idea is to keep your dough consistency slightly tacky when adding ingredients. In other words, don't add too much fat, liquid or dry ingredients that will absorb the moisture or interfere with your crumb. Also don't add uncooked veggies, etc as they exude water during the cooking process, unless of course you can compensate by making the dough slightly drier.

 

[zoebisch01]

Again I highly recommend Bread Alone by Daniel Leader for anyone who wants to rediscover the nearly lost art of true bread.