Dear Bakers,
Recently, in an off-list discussion with a fellow baker, the following
point came up:
<<Milk, especially the powdered variety significantly weakens the gluten
structure in proportion to the amount used. >>
Well, my Daily Bread Recipe: http://www.upword.com/bread/daily.html
has a whole cup of powdered milk in it, and I was wondering what effect
it had. So I thought I would test it. I made two batches of the Daily
Bread, one with the dry milk, and one without.
The loaves without the dry milk did rise higher than the ones with the
dry milk, but not substantially so. I was surprised to find that the
loaves with the dry milk had darker crusts than the ones without. As I
thought about it, though, I realized that milk has a lot of lactose, a
sugar, that would probably carmelize and make the crust darker.
In the taste test, my husband noticed that the loaves without the dry
milk felt a little springier, than the ones with the milk. This would
fall into line with the theory above.
My conclusions: Both loaves were perfectly acceptable. Since I have a
three-year-old who often will eat only a few bites of toast at a meal, I
will continue to add the dry milk for nutrition's sake. I will,
however, make dry milk an optional ingredient in my bread recipe.
Keep Baking Bread!
Ruth