Friday, December 5, 2008

Sandwich bread success

I've been on a quest for a great sandwich bread recipe for my Zojirushi. Mark and I love our Zojirushi. It was totally worth the investment. He's usually the bread baker in the house. We(he) regularly make(s) dough for dinner rolls and pizza dough. We've made naan, cinnamon rolls, sandwich bread, jam, pretzels, and more. Our issues with sandwhich bread include over-baked, too-dense, and sometimes even bland loaves. I prefer wheat bread which is more challenging in the breadmaker. Before picking up Sissy from school and Bud from the bustop, I started a loaf in the breadmaker. It was a white bread using a recipe from Annie's Eats and a custom bread cycle recommended by Berlin's Whimsy. Wow, these recommendations really delivered. My mother enjoyed the bread with butter and strawberry preserves. Sissy devoured it with butter. Bud enjoyed it plain. They couldn't get enough. I finally had to cut them off.

With a successful loaf under my belt, I'm on a mission to make a good loaf of wheat sandwich bread. I have vital wheat gluten to try, but dough enhancer has been more elusive. I checked Whole Foods, Ellwood Thompson's, and Good Foods Grocery. Good Foods used to carry it. Used to. Bah. A little research online and I was ready to fork over the money to have some shipped. Then, I stumbled across a recipe for Ellen's Bread Dough Enhancer. I think I've found the ingredients locally. I need to double check the diastatic malt powder. I'll leave out the gelatin for sure. More on this one later...

2 comments:

EllwoodThompsons said...

Hi Tara,
Ellwood Thompson's also used to cary a clean dough enhancer (there are not many natural ones available) however it did not sell well for us so we discontinued it. You can however special order it, if you are interested the brand is King Arthur and it is made from malted barley and dextrose anyone at E.T. can order this for you. I hope this helps.

Anonymous said...

Tara,

The dough enhanser that we used to carry is no longer available to us through our distributors. The King Arthur that ET can order for you is probably closer to what you are looking for. My search only came up with Authentic Foods Gluten Free Dough Enhanser, containing lecithin, ascorbic acid, tapioca, ginger -ingredients that I never would have thought of as dough enhansers. I think that making it from a recipe is a smart idea. But my memory tells me that vital wheat gluten was the main ingredient in what we used to carry.
Good luck on your quest.