If you'll remember from last week, I had wanted to experiment with add-ins. At its most basic, bread is just combining 5 ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt, and sugar, and you will get people who would argue about the necessity of sugar. Why is it then, that if you buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store, the list of ingredients is as long as your arm? I understand that many of these are preservatives (yet another reason I'm only too glad to be making my own bread), but what about all of the sweeteners and oil? Is it really necessary to add to make a better loaf? And if so, what types and in what amounts?
I tried to keep this in mind as I searched for a new recipe to try this week. As I had also wanted to try more "traditional" recipes, I was quite happy to find, in my grandma's recipe box a recipe for an oatmeal bread that requires the addition of both vegetable shortening and molasses.
Vegetable shortening is a fat made from vegetable oils, that gets its name from how it shortens the gluten strands the form in baked goods, like bread (Weston, 2009). I was surprised when I read this, as I had assumed that in bread making, the goal was to get nice long gluten strands. Isn't that the reason for all the fussing with yeast and the multiple rises? Shortening is supposed to help with creating softer, more tender baked goods however because of its higher fat content, but I had only ever thought to use it in things like pie crusts, where you want something soft and flaky.
Given my skepticism about the bread, I wasn't expecting it to rise as much as it did! It more than doubled after the first rise, and in the oven it rose to towering heights above the edge of the pan. I had no idea what to expect when I cut into it, but as I waited for the loaf to cool (which I learned you should always do with bread, no matter how difficult it is to restrain yourself from cutting off a slice while it's still piping hot), the most amazing smell was coming out of the oven. The loaves I had made before smelled quite yeasty, or maybe a bit toasty and nutty, but this bread smelled sweeter. The molasses gave it almost a caramel-like smell (and flavour), and gave the bread its darker brown colouring. The actual texture of the bread was extremely soft and fluffy, which I can assume is because of the vegetable shortening. I'm interested to see if other forms of fat would create the same effect, or if this was unique to the vegetable shortening. This bread was amazing for breakfast, eating it on its own or with a cup of coffee, but unfortunately, it really was too sweet (for my taste) for sandwiches.
Oatmeal Bread
Flavour- lightly sweet
Crust- crisp when fresh, nice and soft later with a bit of chewiness
Crumb- very moist, fluffy texture
Chewiness- very fluffy, barely chewy
Great for- breakfast, tea time with butter on it
Overall rating- 8 out of 10
Next week, I would like to continue exploring the effects of fats and sweeteners on the flavour and texture of bread, and at some point I would still like to make a bread that requires a starter (fermented dough used in place of yeast)
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