Gluten is an ingredient in the bread recipe. To many, this may be an item not heard of so far.
Gluten forms the bulk of protein in wheat flour. Depending on the wheat it could be anywhere between 10% and 19%, but typically about 12%. To get a feel of gluten, do this - make a fistful of dough with the flour, knead for about 10 minutes. Then, knead some more holding the dough under running water (from a tap). The starch will run off, finally leaving an elastic mass in your hand, this is gluten, almost 100% protein. The elastic nature of the gluten in a form of network holds the starch, and provides strength to the bread. To get the network develop properly, the dough is kneaded well.
Gluten is made up of two proteins - Glutenin and Gliadin. Bread flour requires about 14~15% of gluten content to provide reasonable strength. Cake flour will need less than 9% gluten, typically about 7%. High gluten will render the cake somewhat chewy.
We need to add external gluten to the bread dough to make up for the shortage in the whole wheat flour available, or obtained from grinding the wheat purchased. Unlike the west, in India the awareness of the contents of publicly available flour is rather dismal, manufacturers rarely give out information. Gluten can typically be purchased in India from dealers who sell raw materials to bakeries.
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What would you say is the protein content of ordinary maida? 'Elite' is the brand available to me.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for a gluten solution recently, if I can't find gluten powder do you suppose it would work to use the rinsed-dough method and add it to a bread recipe that calls for a high-gluten flour?
Researching online I did find some Indian companies that produce a high-gluten flour but it seems as though they do so purely for export.
First, where are u located in India? I have not come across this 'elite' brand yet. I use just plain maida bought from the local grocery store, at Rs 22 a Kg. I did use a branded packet once (Rs 28, don't remeber the brand)but didnt find any specific difference. And as usual, no one tells about the protein content, or anything else about it. But my judgement is that it is about 8%.
ReplyDeleteBut, for whole wheat flour it is given on the packets of all the known brands. I prefer Pillsbury - 12.5% protein, though I don't know the detailed break up or how much of that is gluten... but it is safe to assume almost 90% will be.
Rinsed dough - I don't know what you mean by it.. is it just holding the dough ball under running water to rinse out the starch? If so, a waste. And I wouldn't know the results. Gluten should be available in every major town in India, you only need to locate the wholesale supplier of bread raw materials (If you have located a source for fresh yeast in cake form, he will have, or he will know - and if you are using active dry yeast granules, it is too expensive!).
And yes, there are quite a lot of products for export meant for the descerning buyer elsewhere, but I guess we Indians do not fall into that category.
I'm in Kerala, and not too near any larger cities. That said, I guess I can probably find a supplier for gluten. I didn't realize before that it was commonly used by bakeries - I thought it was more of a health-food thing.
ReplyDeleteAs for yeast, I've been using some imported yeast but infrequently and in small quantities so the cost is not too much of a burden. I've never seen yeast cakes here.
One other thought I had was to try to get a local mill to make me some maida from 'hard' wheat.
Don't know if the hard wheat available in India has a high protein content. Such information seem to be of no importance here... You can try your luck.
ReplyDeleteYeast cake is just compressed fresh yeast, which needs to be kept under refrigeration in a closed container. I have been able to keep it for upto three months. What I get is a blockn6 cm x 6 cm x 15 cm approx, about 500 grams, Rs35/-, Enough for more than 50 Kg breads. This also should be available with bread raw material suppliers. You can probably also get the improver from them.
All the best for your search for Gluten. High gluten definitely improved the bread texture.
How successful are you normally... are you able to get the bread to be about 2.5 times the volume of the base dough? If you have achieved this, your process is basically right...