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Some important lessons i learnt by trying out the same things again and again and which I sometimes forget to mention in the recipes.
- Salt kills yeast if it comes in direct contact with it. Add salt after adding the first cup of flour to the yeast mixture and mixing it well.
- Kneading the bread dough by hand or in bread machine for 5 minutes or longer gives great gluten strands and hence softer, chewy and air filled bread.
- On the other hand, muffins/cakes should not be overmixed as more gluten strands will give you a tougher cake/muffin
- Whole wheat flour is the stone ground whole grain flour. I got mine from safeway. The chapatti/roti flour is not all whole wheat and also has some content of farina which usually increases the hardness of the crust of the bread or cake.
- For first try of any recipe, use all purpose flour or bread flour.
- For softer crusts, use milk instead of water for some added fat.
- The dough after rising is usually very sticky to handle. Use a well floured surface and well oiled hands to knead the dough.
- If the crusts keep coming out hard in spite of the above tips, then you might be overbaking. Each oven is different and the baking times vary. I used to check every 5 minutes after the first 20 minuted of baking to be sure of the timing.
- I usually bake breads on the lower shelf of the oven, muffins on middle level and all pizzas on the upper shelf.
- Moist ingredients in Bread (pureed or grated carrots, cauliflower, apples etc) lose moisture during baking, so keep the dough a bit on the dry side.
- Moist fruits like strawberries, raspberries etc will make a cake or bread soggy if put in large quantities or big pieces.
Will add more tips after some more thought.
