Lessons Part 2

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.