Butter in Bread?

[Chausiubao]

A couple weeks back, I was experimenting with certain recipes, and one of them was a recipe for Poor Man's Brioche. It had a high butter content (to me), and i had never done any bread baking with that much butter before. After I kneaded it in, I noticed that it was really light and soft. Then later when the bread was done, the inside of the bread ( the crumb?) was also really soft and fluffy.

Also, just recently I made the french country bread, Pain de Campagne, using whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, yeast, salt, and water. I decided to experiment and see if it was eggs or butter that made the brioche so fluffy, so i added in a 1/4 C. of Butter. So my recipe was...

Firm Preferment:
1 C. All Purpose Flour
1 C. Whole Wheat Flour
1 Tsp. Instant Yeast
3/4 C. Water

Dough:
3 C. Preferment
2 C. All Purpose Flour
3/4 C. Water
1 Tsp. Yeast
1 1/2 Tsp. Salt
1/4 C. Butter

I mixed up the preferment, and let it ferment in the 'fridge overnight, then i let it warm up. I mixed the water, salt, yeast, and flour together, and then added the preferment to that, and kneaded the butter into it. Then i kneaded it for an additional 10 min, let it ferment until it doubled in size, and shaped it into 8 pieces. These pieces proofed until they too doubled in size, and the whole tray of dough was baked at 500 degrees for 20 min.

And lo and behold, the bread was quite soft, light and fluffy.

So it would appear that butter makes bread lighter and softer. But does anybody know why?

 

[VeraBlue]

try the rich man's brioche!

I have the feeling we are working from the same cookbook....pretty asian girl on the cover holding a large loaf of bread?

If you think the poor man's brioche has a lot of butter, try the rich man's brioche! It is fantastic, and is like eating cake for breakfast.

 

[jkath]

Here's my mom's recipe I've always used. Don't know if it's a rich or poor one, but it is soooooo good!

(you can make it the day before you need it, as it rises in the refrigerator)



Mom's Cool Rise Bread

5-6 cups flour
2 pkg rapid rising yeast
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. softened butter (no margarine)
1-1/2 c. hot water
2 eggs, room temp
(oil for top)

Combine 2 cups of flour and undissolved yeast with sugar, salt and butter. Add all water. Beat with electric mixer 2 minutes on medium speed. Add eggs and 1 cup flour. Beat at high speed for 1 minute till dough is elastic. Stir in remaining flour. Knead 5-10 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel. Let dough rest 20 minutes. Punch down and shape as desired. Brush surface with oil. cover pan loosely with plastic wrap.
Let rise in refrigerator for 2-24 hours.
Remove, uncover, let stand 10 minutes while heating oven to 375 degrees. Puncture surface bubbles with oiled toothpick.
Bake 20-25 minutes, on the lower oven rack, but not the bottom one. Cool (off of sheet) on a rack.

***As for shaping:
You can make dinner rolls, which are quite easy, or you can make 2 nice-sized coffee cakes. If you choose to make coffee cakes (danishes), make sure you cover the filling almost completely with the braiding of the dough. After they're just out of the oven, glaze them by drizzling with a mixture of powdered sugar and a bit of whole milk.

 

[Chausiubao]

yep...thats it...uh bread baker's apprentice