Soda bread help please [too crumbly]
Hi.
I make soda bread with around 500g of plain or strong flower. I add 200 to 400g of wholemeal.
To that I sometimes add olive oil or vegetable oil about 100g
salt 10g
soda 10g [tweaked to flour content]
whey approx 500 to 700ml [tweaked to flour content]
The reason for whey is the uniformity of the acid content. I carried out experiments to see when the gas production ceased.
I have tried adding duck eggs to increase the protein content.
I have tried various temperatures from 180 to 200C and stop the process when the middle of the loaf reaches 92 to 95C
The problem is the crust is always brittle. I wrap the loaves in a damp cloth but even cutting carefully results in chunks of the crust breaking at the edges.
My aunt baked soda bread with a thin almost leathery crust, very easy to cut.
Has anyone any idea how this is achieved or what I can vary to try to alter the crust flexibility?
See your Aunt for pointers. That's the best bet. Enjoy!
I would need a spade :-(
I think I see now! Enjoy!
Irish soda bread was traditionally made with low-protein flour because that's all they could get. Your aunt may have used different flour what what you get now. The egg you added would help bind the dough together but not because it added any gluten.
I don't know how you or your aunt baked your breads, but the traditional method was using the equivalent of a Dutch oven (I'm not sure what they are called in the UK. A heavy covered casserole, I suppose). My soda loaves improved when I tried that.
How easy a loaf is to cut partly depends on its shape. A tall narrow loaf will be harder to cut cleanly because it will tend to break bits off more easily. Letting the loaf age for a day will make it easier to cut cleanly. I don't know that it would make your bread more like your aunt's, though! Her baking temperature could have been different from yours, too. That could affect the crust. I see that you have tried different temperatures so that's probably not it.
Baking soda bread in a tin works very well and you might find you like the results (and the cutting quality) better. Using a loaf pan, you can add much more liquid and just scrape the wet dough into the tin. A tin doesn't produce that traditional shape but I like the soda loaves it produces better.
TomP
You describe your aunt's crust as thin and leathery. That makes me think it was smooth. Is that right, and is yours smooth, too? If it's rough, cutting it is going to break off chunks.
If hers was smooth and yours is not, you could try smoothing the surface of the loaf with wet hands just before baking. You can do that in a tin, too, though it's a little harder to manage.
I did smooth it with the whey that was left after a suitable mix was produced.
It was very smooth and indeed I should have adopted the technique from then on, but it was still a hard crust and crumbled at the edges.
I looked at two I made today. My first soda in a loaf tin. That has a marginally softer crust, but not too different.
The other is the standard round loaf that I just unwrapped from the wet tea towel it was wrapped in for most of the day.
It's about the same as the one in the loaf tin. Still not as elastic as I would like it.
Thanks!
That is the route I will go down in future.
The tin as you say is a bit of an improvement.
I was tempted to get the Dutch oven out I must admit.
I use it very successfully with sourdough and it does hold the moisture in.
Soda bread is a problem, maybe I'm being too quick, but I have read the dire warnings of overkneading and letting the gas fizzle out before the means of entrapment develops.
I am in Ireland incidentally.
The odd thing is that when everyone made soda bread, anything could be used to bake it in my youth. We had a three legged pot and an iron bar hinged to swing the pot into the fire fixed to the fireplace. The pot was then covered with the burning turf and allowed to bake.
Some had ovens, eat fired, but no real temperature control and the wetting agent was sour milk that was soured by whatever bacteria was passing no doubt.
No fancy scales and not a thermometer in the village.
But every one of the loaves seemed better than mine are now if I look back.
There could be a nostalgic factor at work here :-) Otherwise, the difference must be something very generic, like the flour or the use of whey. But maybe if someone could hand you a loaf just like it was when you were young, you might think the crust wasn't quite what you remember...
Yes, that's what I was was thinking about when I mentioned a Dutch oven.
If you use a tin and make the dough so wet you can't handle it but only scrape it into the tin, then you can't over-knead it (!). You could try covering the tin with a baking sheet or something of the sort. I usually make mine in a Pullman pan, which has a slide-in lid.
You didn't say if you think the dough is too dense. You did say you think you have the balance just right between the soda and the whey. You might consider adding some baking powder, too. That would give extra lift without needing more acid. I've done that and liked the result.
Sorry I replied but for some reason just could not post.
I was wondering what parameters control the crust.
I will use the dutch oven but would like to try to get control over the crust.
I don't know if I can or cannot do much about sourdough or yeast bread either, but have never needed to try. The loaf problems are all density related and very controllable.
This seems a very good site, but I am finding the captcha thing makes it unuseable. There are no pictures to click on, just a blank box.
I don't have much to offer about crusts, and most of that comes from sourdough breads. It seems to me that a loaf baked at a low temperature will get little or no crust - I mean, the surface would not be much different from the rest. If it were baked for a long time, I think that the crust, such as it is, would get thick and tough, without browning much.
If I were to bake a loaf at a very hot temperature, the crust would get overbaked before the insides reached the right temperature. That crust would end up being thin, hard, dark, and tough.
For "artisan" style breads steam in the oven improves the crust as well as the rise. Using a Dutch oven is usually said to do its own steaming by trapping water vapor coming out of the bread.
Some rye breads are finished by a heavy massage with water to smooth the surface. This gives them a lovely baked appearance. I've seen a few videos showing this done but didn't save the links.
When I make empanadas, I like to brush the envelopes with an egg yolk/water wash. This gives them a very nice, glossy finish and I think it also helps to give an impression of crispness.
That's about all I know.
One thing may be involved here - soda breads tend to have a much rougher surface than breads that are kneaded and stretched. I would think that anything that can be done to smooth the surface would help. A very wet dough that one has to pour into a tin would go in that direction.
Thank you.
I did try a reply but it was lost and my previous ramblings were probably not up to much as I was too taken up with just trying to post.
Thick or thin would be fine, it's just the brittle that I dislike.
For some reason the loaf I did in the tin yesterday that seemed so good is very loose and breaks easily.
I am going to start from an Odlums recipe, they make the flour, so they should be in the know about the best method.
I am using the whey to seed the buttermilk and will adhere to their quantities and temperatures.
Frankly apart from the buttermilk and half the quantity of salt that I use, there is little difference.
As regards the knead and stretch, I avoided much kneading which Odlums dont seem to worry about and being a sourdough baker, I don't think I could shape a loaf of any kind without making a "tensioned" ball at the end :-)
To some degree that's a characteristic of soda bread, isn't it?
Try a lower baking temperature, then, and extend the baking time. See if that comes close to what you want. I remember you wrote you had gone down as low as 180C. I usually think of 190C for these kinds of breads. Remember, in home ovens the effective baking temperature can be way off from the setting. Also, if you are using fan try turning it off, to reduce drying out the crust.
Another possible approach, as an alternative to the Dutch oven: use a twin sized loaf pan as a lid. It captures the steam/moisture similar to the DO, but is much easier to deal with. I do this quite often with my sandwich breads, to keep the top crust from setting too quickly and allowing for a bit more oven spring.
If you have a graniteware roaster that your loaf pan will fit in, those work too. Likely any covered roaster would work really.... but the graniteware ones are thin enough to transfer heat more quickly and efficiently than some other heavier materials.
Mary
Thank you.
As a matter of fact I have produced several loaves based on buttermilk rather than the whey I was using.
I seemed to have success with whey but thinking back, I probably added another element that made the crust less brittle.
The home soured "buttermilk" using the whey to seed the low fat pasteurised milk produced a brilliant loaf. This was just in a tray in the fan oven.
The second was done in the dutch oven, and frankly there is little difference, it looks good too.
I just finished the final one in order to use the buttermilk, it is cooling now. I "painted" the remaining buttermilk onto the surface to make it smooth and then sprinkled wholemeal flour on it to give a "rustic" look.
I suppose it was stupid to assume that whey would be better than the tried and tested buttermilk, but I did add proteen and oil thinking this was just as good an I would retain the control over the "rise". As it happens the bread rises fine with buttermilk.
Two lessons learned: Use buttermilk
And; Don't worry about kneading, I went to town on the last loaf, and still have an amazing rise. Not quite to sourdough standards, but I wouldn't be too surprised or dissapointed if the odd Sourdough came out looking similar in size and shape.
Good! Looking forward to pictures, and the winning recipe.
TomP
Agreed with Tom.... Winning recipe and approach please. My attempts at soda bread have always come out as inedible failures. I have generally been able to find some use for any other suboptimal bake, but soda bread has been the exception to that. My Irish ancestors must be shaking their heads, lol.
Mary
One thing that might be hard for many of us to get - the whey that was used to sour the buttermilk. I mention this because of the apparently big difference between the breads made with just the whey and those made with this buttermilk.
In the US, at least, buttermilks are made by culturing using a starter powder. I can get a thick, rich buttermilk made by a local dairy and that's mostly what I have used. Others may have to make do with buttermilk from their supermarket. I wonder if these buttermilks might not give the same results.
My whey was derived from supermarket yoghurt.
The yoghurt could I'm sure be used to sour the milk directly.
My mother and aunt simply left the milk to sour naturally. This might in fact be a good way to go as nature and chance bacteria plus wild yeasts gave me an excellent sourdough starter,
It probably does not matter too much, but I am now convinced that whey on it's own is not a good way for me to make soda bread.
I make yoghurt and kefir, but avoid the use of commercial cultures due to the cost here. In fact organic buttermilk is ten euro a litre.
In the US most milk has been through a high-temperature pasteurization process and I can never get it to curdle right (for making cheese) any more. I don't hold out much hope for letting it sour naturally. Yogurt-souring might work, and I've read that sour cream can also be used, and perhaps I'll try it.
The good thick buttermilk I mentioned is pretty expensive too, but I don't make soda breads often so I don't mind too much. I like to use it to make biscuits (UK: scones) and they take less buttermilk.
Is your pasteurised milk what we in Europe term UHT [ultra heat treated]?
That is useless for yoghurt, so I would assume buttermilk and cheese are out also. Frankly I have no idea what I would use it for, even in tea and coffee, It makes the stuff undrinkable.
Pasteurised, homogenised milk is fine, although raw milk from the farm is reputed to be the best.
I did use raw milk for a couple of batches of yoghurt. It is good without a doubt, but the gain in flavour and physical properties is not really going to justify the expense for me.
If raw milk was going to give a worthwhile increase in flavour, I would be inclined to go in search of a dairy farm.
The stuff on sale is very tightly controlled and thus expensive, but like my duck eggs, if produce is provided with a request for a "donation" rather than direct sale, then the law is not a problem.
The sour cream might be pasteurised too might it not? Some yoghurt on sale here is, so I stick to known varieties. "Live" yoghurt is perfect anyway, but frankly I have never bought a heat treated version. They will be the long shelf life cheap ones I assume.
In the US, yes, UHT. There are actually several methods in use, and some of them are not really UHT but still get the milk pretty hot. Supposedly the carton labeling will tell you which variety, but If its not UHT I haven't been able to find the designation for the most part.
I should try the milk from the local dairy that makes the buttermilk, but it's pretty expensive too.
The cost of trying to meet standards can be high, but often the inspection regime cost dwarfs even that.
I was never aware of any different UHT versions, but one in particular that I recall that would pop up in hotels all over the world was the small containers of the stuff with "none milk fat" added.
The sick joke was the label that in large lettering stated "Tastes just like fresh milk". It was a truly foul concoction.
If you have a local dairy, then would they not carry fresh milk? If it serves local farmers maybe one would help? Over here I think one could be persuaded as there was always the odd animal that needed hand milking anyway.
It's probably different in the US? Mind you, times have changed, I suppose hand milking might be too expensive or the skills are gone over here, with the poor old cow becoming burgers if she doesn't take to the milking machine.
Not in the US. In most US states it's not allowed, for fear of disease. In some states you can consume fresh milk if it's from a cow that you own, and you may be able to buy a share of a milk cow from a dairy farmer. Your share might entitle you to draw a gallon (4 litres) a week, for example. Technically speaking you are getting the milk from your own cow so it's legal. These animal shares are more common with goats, BTW. Of course, you are not expected to go milk a gallon out of your cow. The farmer will bottle it for you to pick up.
In the US, and I suppose it's much the same in most industrialized countries, a dairy will combine the milk from all its client dairy farmers. The first thing that happens is that the milk gets pasteurized. Then it is centrifuged to remove the fat. Then measured amounts of fat are added back to meet the legal definitions of the various milk products. In the US whole milk for example must have at least 4% butterfat, as I understand it.
This lets the consumer get a standardized product with consistent performance, and it lets the dairy juggle things around to meet the demand for different kinds of products.
But it's not like milk right from a cow except for being disease-free.
All I Can say is - ya gotta know someone. Enjoy!
According to the International Dairy Foods Assoc., most milk in the US is pasteurized using the High Temperature Short Time process. The milk is heated to ≥161 °F for ≥15 s, followed by rapid cooling. Ultra Pasteurized milk is heated to 280 °F for 2 s. UHT conditions vary because it is equipment specific and each site is validated with the FDA, but it is in the range of UP milk. Also note that it is produced under sterile conditions and packaged in aseptic packaging.
https://www.idfa.org/pasteurization
http://milkfacts.info/Milk%20Processing/Heat%20Treatments%20and%20Pasteurization.htm
The pasteurisation process is the same spec as here.
I have no problem whatsoever with buttermilk or yoghurt from that milk.
I don't consider raw milk carries any advantage for me, and that is the only way to go better unless I get really fanatical and chase real niche farmers.
.
Any marginal improvement raw milk gives just isn't worth the extra cash.
The aseptic part must be pretty good. Milk lasts a surprisingly long time before spoiling these days.
UHT milk does last a phenomenal length of time.
I tend to wonder if it's down to the aseptic conditions, or just the fact that the bacteria have to be pretty desperate :-)
I did use UHT in tea but didn't like the flavour in anything else, so I went pasteurised.
I polished off the last of my Odlums recipe soda bread today, with Pooch having the last rather large chunk.
It really was excellent. Three days on the breadboard and still no drying and crumbling. The flavour was perfect too.
From this point, that will be my basic recipe. One's culinary abilities are not the best, but I truly am happy with the outcome and doubt that for a basic loaf it could be much improved on.
I owe the success to the Odlums website incidentally, I just bunged it all together and added heat!
I'm so happy I might even splash out on the real Mc Coy and use Odlums flour for one when my cheap stock runs out :-)
My problem is that it's hard to impossible find the choice in my area, aside from that local dairy milk that is expensive.
Sorry to hear that.
I have not visited the US for a few decades, but wherever I went in the world UHT was always the milk supplied with the room tea and coffee kits.
Never once did I have the slightest problem getting fresh milk sent up.
Even in places where you would think it would be off almost before the trek from the mall was over, fresh milk was never a problem. Where they kept the cows though in places like Abu Dhabi is a mystery. There were all kinds of dairy products in the supermarkets and nothing but sand and dust for hundreds of miles as One flew in to the place. Even the grass cultivated for recreational use wouldn't impress a cow, it looked artificial and sick.
Most grocery store buttermilk I have found is thickened with some sort of gum or another. The exception is this one, a cultured buttermilk I discovered at Natural Grocers. It has worked very well in a variety of other recipes I have used it in.
Edit to add: cost at our local store is $3.55 for a 32 oz container.
2lb??
Most places here sell it in 1l containers for one euro.
I have bought it in the past, but I simply put it in the freezer and used it as needed, or when it started to drop below what would make a loaf, just seed fresh milk with a dollop.
The fresh milk being either pastuerised, or low [1%] fat pasteurised.
The cost isn't great, but I like the control producing my own buttermilk and yoghurt gives. I always keep four or five litres of milk in the house anyway and when making yoghurt, I produced a precision temperature controller as an add on to convert the slow cooker.
It's a power kick! Giving life to cartons of milk :-)
Yogurt is next on my list! Home cultured buttermilk does seem like a natural progression, lol.
Brilliant!
Just don't use the whey instead of buttermilk. like I had the not so bright idea of doing.
If you like yoghurt, it's great. I make a thick Greek style, no additives and so easy.
You may know this, but I read somewhere that if you want a fruit yoghurt, you can put the fruit into the milk and then add the culture or whey to start it.
It cannot be done, yoghurt first and then fruit unless you are doing a no seed lemon yoghurt. In which case it's simply milk and lemon.
When I tried seeding fruit and milk together, it was a total disaster, a nasty grainy texture that looked too bad to even think about eating.
Best of luck anyway, enjoy I find it fun.
Tell me more about the slow cooker conversion. I have thought about doing this but haven't gotten around to it. I would be interested to know what you did for the conversion.
I use a Crockpot about 3.5 to 4l slow cooker.
You can use an old duvet or blanket to hold the temperature incidentally, but you have to be around the thing during the day as it's a longish process.
The controller was fro n Temu as it was cheap there. Amazon list it too
https://www.amazon.co.uk/sourcing-map-AC110-220V-Temperature-Controller/dp/B0C6KPNJHT/ref=sr_1_47?crid=1Y060HWFL8U3X&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pWXvonUtD2H3J8Mv...
I simply added a plug, box, socket for the cooker and a stainless steel drinking straw to hold the probe sealed at the end with a silicon rubber end cap used to shield the sharp end of a food temperature probe.
I start at a setting of 88 to 92 C, allow to cool to 42 C,, seed it and leave it for a few hours. From around fie hours it thickens to buttermilk standard, bur most cultures if left longer will get very firm after seven or eight hours.
I have held the temperature for days, but there is little change after fourteen hours at 42C
I will sort the gear out and get a piccy if you wish.
I don't want to strip it down, but the control wiring should be obvious anyway, even if you don't do such things yourself, the skills to put it together are pretty basic and within the reach of most dabblers.
For those in the Midwest, Kemp's and Prairie Farms Lowfat Buttermilk contain no added gum thickeners. But a store-brand (Schnucks) does have a thickener added.
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