You Learn Something New Everyday

I’ve been making all our bread exclusively for about two years now. You’d think I’d have the hang of it. Lately I’ve not been happy with the rising of my loaves. (Luckily it hasn’t affected the taste.) I read recently on AllRecipes about the difference in handling “lean” doughs as opposed to “enriched” doughs. Enriched doughs have some kind of fat… either butter, milk, oil or eggs. (I’ve also heard that honey slows the rising of bread doughs.) The trick is to hydrate the flour first in the water/yeast mix to develop the gluten strands before adding the fat. I did that with this Cheese Bread and the result was terrific. A great rise. The taste and texture were very nice but ultimately not that cheese-y. (The recipe was from a cookbook and I won’t bother to post it.) I really love cheese bread toasted so I’ll have to keep looking for a good recipe.