Hello, Bakers!
I conducted another experiment on Monday. I baked two batches of my
Daily Bread: http://www.upword.com/bread/daily.html , but only one of
them had the diastatic malt powder in it. The batch with the malt
powder seemed to rise slightly higher than the other batch, but the
difference in size could have been due to the inevitable differences in
measuring, that is, the bigger batch may have started out with more
dough! Both batches were lovely and yummy!
Anyway, the malt powder did not hurt the bread. I am interested in
hearing of anyone else who is doing this type of experiment. Please
share with us!
Also, about bread knives: I cut my bread with a Chicago Cutlery knife.
It has gentle serrations at the very tip, good for getting through the
crust, but most of the long blade is not serrated. I find that I get
clean slices with fewer crumbs than with a regular serrated knife. My
slices are not perfectly the same size, but they are better than what my
husband does! I slice the bread before I put it in plastic freezer bags
and freeze it for the week. I usually bake four loaves at a time.
While I have you handy: I ordered some ascorbic acid from King Arthur.
Two ounces of the stuff is a tiny amount. Does anyone know of a source
of ascorbic acid that comes in bigger packages? I checked a GNC store,
and they have ascorbic acid with rose hips. Would this work or does it
have color in it that might stain my bread? Of course, I bake whole
grain breads, so it probably wouldn't show. I live in the D.C. area.
Keep Baking!
Ruth