Bread Baking 101 -- Flour and additives

The picture to the left is my flour cabinet.  I have 100% whole wheat, spelt, cake, all-purpose, buckwheat and in a trash can in my pantry I have my industrial size bag of bread flour.  Along side my flours are two of my favorite additives, oatmeal and wheat gluten and not pictured is my newest addition, whole white wheat.

I don't expect that you will have as much or as many different flours as I do, but try a few different "flavors" and see what your family likes and then stick with it.  I will tell you that baking with 100% whole wheat is pretty difficult and so I wouldn't start with that one but one of the recipes that I will share with you is made with the whole white wheat which is missing the part that makes the regular wheat so difficult to use, but it's still 100% whole grain.

If you want to ease your family into eating whole wheat, try a recipe that has some white flour in it or go straight for the whole white wheat.  The white wheat is missing the part, the bran, that makes most brown breads slightly bitter.  Just like the whole wheat pasta, I'm not a big fan of whole wheat breads.  They are normally pretty dense for my liking but there are plenty other alternatives. 

To the right is my baking cabinet.  Obviously I do a lot of baking or I wouldn't have an entire cabinet devoted to it, but when we talk a bit more about a well stocked pantry I'll talk more about what I keep and why.

I bake a lot of cakes so that's why there are an addition two boxes of cake flour in this cabinet as well as a glass jar with the same flour in the above picture.

Things that are of interest are the dried spices and the cinnamon, the honey, maple syrup, and molasses and finally the raisins way at the top.   You can't see it but there is brown sugar hidden away next to the raisins something that I will use in one of the recipes that I will share with you this week.  

I love making my own different Italian breads so the different spices come in handy for those.  The 3 different sugars help to "color" the crust of my bread.  Honey makes a light crust, maple syrup (depending on it's real color) will make a darker crust and molasses will make a very dark crust.  Frankly I use the maple syrup and molasses in my business more then I do in my bread but those help to "flavor" your bread so they are options to try.  Not all recipes call for sugar, and unless you are making "sweet" bread then the sugar is really optional.  The sugar in a non-sweet bread is really there to help the yeast be a little more happy or more active.  If you are trying to avoid sugar then by all means don't use it.

Speaking of yeast...buy your yeast in bulk.  It's easily kept in your refrigerator in a sealed baggie or container but yeast that you buy in the little packets are sometimes pretty old and often they won't work as well.  A package of yeast is approximately 2 and 1/4 tsp so when you see a recipe call for a package of yeast and you have the bulk kind you won't have to guess how much to add.  Yeast can be temperamental because it likes to be warm but often if the water is a little to cold you will warm it up during kneading.  

Whew...tomorrow I'll share my recipes for sandwich loaf and cinnamon breakfast loaf.