We contend there is no bread recipe. What we call a bread recipe is merely a combination of ingredients in proportions to suit the conditions under which the baker is working. We all have books full of bread recipes, each a little different from the other, and all striving to obtain the same bread, or give their bread a slightly different character.
One baker finds his conditions are suitable for one combination of ingredients; another finds he cannot use this recipe at all. He finds another combination which suits his conditions. All are working under different conditions of climate, temperature and manner of handling. Consequently, it is necessary to find the proportion of ingredients which best adapt themselves to the present conditions. The character of bread desired naturally influences the ingredients used, and as conditions change the ingredients must change to meet these conditions, if a special character and individuality in bread is desired.
Most bakers do not use as much water as is possible in bread-making. A hard, northwestern flour requires a slack dough if the flour has been made from wheats having the right characters and properly milled. The best results are obtained by setting the dough as soft as can be handled. When mixing the dough the water at first is not thoroughly absorbed by the flour particles, as the gluten is so hard it takes some time for these particles to thoroughly absorb all the water they will hold. This continuing to absorb is known to the baker as “tightening up.” This feature is characteristic of Northwestern flours, and is lacking in other flours. When mixing a dough from Northwestern flours always allow for “tightening up,” and mix the dough softer than it is intended to be when you “take the dough.” The opposite is the case in softer flours as they “slack off.”
Any flour will lose this characteristic of “tightening up” if a dough when mixed is too hot. Gluten is in reality a vegetable glue and softens when the dough is mixed warm, and consequently will not absorb the amount of water it should, and it will have a tendency to “slack off” instead of “tightening up.”
Of course, we all know that wheat grown under certain conditions varies, and, as the climate and soil differ, so does the gluten, as is exampled between comparison with a soft and a strong flour. In the same way it applies to milk. The composition of fat in new milk is determined by the breed, climate, food and health of the cow. A really rich milk would produce as much as ¾ ounce to 1 ounce of fat to the pint, especially just now, when the animals are kept up and fed pretty well. They give less milk, but it is much higher in quality. In summer, when there is plenty of grass, the cows give more milk, and, on the whole, more fat, but the percentage is not so high as it is just now. In Holland, for instance, milk is poor, and more deficient in fat, because the pastures are more moist and watery. Whether the various fancy brown breads do or do not carry out, as they are reputed to do, all the properties accorded to them I am not prepared to say. Time must be given for a suitable trial, and if they are are not found suitable we must turn our attention to something else. A milk loaf of a favorable quality is generally being inquired for, but I am sorry to have to record that the majority of bakers do not treat it with the same respect that they accord to its rivals. Its rivals are sold under certain conditions. You must not adulterate it in any sense, for if you do you are liable to prosecution. But the old milk bread is not standardized as to its composition, and there is hardly a bread-maker who does not sell “milk bread.” I may also safely venture to say that the milk added to the bread is as varied in quantity as there are purveyors of the commodity. There is no stipulated or understood quantity, and in consequence the quality of the loaf suffers.