On 11/10/08 10:12 AM, Janice Blair wrote:
<When I tried to get the vitamin C, I found our local
Boots the Chemist sold tablets and powder. I did not
know how I would measure out the powder in such a small
quantity, so I bought 200mg tablets and a pill
cutter/splitter, and cut each into 8. They did not
dissolve as I hoped they would, so I crushed them between
two spoons and although they seemed to stay in bits in
the water, they did the job, anyway. I would imagine the
powder would be easier if you could find a way to weigh
it out.>
According to Encyclopizza, putting ascorbic acid into
your dough is an alternative to using bromated flour,
and bromating flour is an alternative to storing it
for several weeks, shoveling it around so that air gets
to every speck. This oxidizes the gluten, and makes
the dough tough.
The objection to aging the flour is that it's expensive,
and you might get bugs and dirt in the flour.
Bromating flour sounds rather nasty to me -- my only
personal experience with bromine is being fielded by
a fireman when I was racing headlong to a class I was
almost late for -- somebody was bromiding some goop,
the hose on the bromine tank broke, and instead of
shutting off the valve, he panicked and ran, and there
were no classes being held in that building that day.
Encyclopizza says that the objection to bromating is
that if you overdo it, the flour gets *too* tough.
But if you put in too much ascorbic acid, Encyclopizza
says, nothing at all happens -- though I suppose that
if you put in *enough*, the dough would taste sour.
And ascorbic acid is expensive, so you don't want to
shovel it around *too* freely.
So I just grab a teaspoon and put in as much as the
bottle says to take for a single dose, even though my
flour is probably pretty well aged, since I keep it in
small containers, and seldom get to Bonneyville Mills
more than once in a year.
I mix my ascorbic-acid powder with the flour -- but then
I use granulated yeast, and mix that with the flour too.
Egad. I forgot to put lecithin in the batch of bread
I'm baking today. Ah, well, it's destined to be flat,
hard rolls and pizza, so tender crumb doesn't matter.
(The crumb came out all right, and the buns are nice
and crusty, but I think I let it rise too long; it
tastes sour. Went just fine with potted meat, mayo,
and a dill pickle, though.) (The dough destined to be
pizza is aging in the fridge.)
--
Joy Beeson
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather)
west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.
where a few of the trees still have colored leaves.
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