interesting loaf this time. I put crushed dried rosemary and (frankly, past date) crushed dried Valencia orange peel in the dough early on as well as some oats like I did the last time I posted about bread. it has added a subtle flavor and not-so-subtle aroma to the bread. I can detect the subtle flavor because the loaf is otherwise pretty bland tasting. Texturally, I somehow, got a thicker but also more crumbly crust than that last time. maybe it has to do with how I put the oats through the food processor before adding to the dough this time? I'll have to try again next time with fewer changes from my base recipe to isolate the effect.
#breadposting #bread #baking
The extra fat content of the oats helps with the crumbly texture. The citrus acid in the orange browns at a lower temp than the dough, so that's probably why the browning penatrated deeper into the loaf.
@Pat oh. cool. I didn't know there was much fat content in oats or about the acid and browning. do you think the orange peel would still have that effect even though it's dehydrated? that might explain why my loaf today was a bit underbaked when i first took it out: I judge doneness more on appearance, sticking a knife in, and tapping than precise timing since I change up the quantity of dough so much, so I'm really susceptible to effects on browning
Normal browning of bread is due to the Maillard reaction, which happens at high temperatures (>250F). This temperature is usually only reached at the very outer portion of the dough because the creation of stream inside keeps the temperature near boiling temp., which is too cool for the Maillard reaction.
When cooks want to brown something without a lot of heat, they can coat it with lemon juice to cause the browning, e.g., on a pie crust.
The browning you saw inside the bread was possibly Fischer esterification using citric acid or acetic acid, which happens at a lower temperature but takes a long time. Or maybe some other esterification process. The esters are probably what gave it that nice smell, too.
Cooks also use the other browning reactions in place of the Millard reaction to avoid producing acrylamide, a carcinogen, which is produced at high temperatures during the Millard reaction.
Yeah, bread crust causes cancer. :)
