Bread Machines For Dummies Read Online Free PDF Page B

change the flour’s nutritional value or functional use. Whenever you hear the word
chemical,

it may be an alert word that sparks a watch-out, avoid, or do-not-use thought pattern. However, chemicals are part of food production and are not necessarily harmful to your health. In the chemical whitening of flour, the bleaching agent evaporates and no harmful chemical residues remain in the flour.
    Self-rising flour
    Never use self-rising flour in a bread machine. Milled from soft wheat, it has baking soda and salt added and is used for dumplings, biscuits, and pancakes. Even if you think you can use it by omitting the salt in the recipe, your bread will not turn out okay. Self-rising flour doesn’t withstand the rigorous mixing or kneading of the bread machine, and the bread will not rise well. Don’t disappoint yourself unnecessarily.
    Cake and pastry flours
    Made from soft wheat, cake or pastry flour is very low in protein and is ideal for making flaky pastries and light-as-air cakes. Do not use it to make bread, however, as it produces too little gluten.
    Bread flour
    Bread flour is milled from hard wheat and produces the largest loaves of any flour, because it has a high amount of protein. Protein becomes gluten and forms an interlocking network of elastic strands that trap the gases produced by yeast, causing the dough to rise. As the dough is kneaded in your bread machine, the gluten network increases and strengthens. You can easily find bread flour in supermarkets, specialty stores, and ingredient catalogs.
    Whole-wheat flour
    As the name implies, flour producers use the entire wheat berry to make whole-wheat flour. When you make breads with whole-wheat flour, you will find them to be shorter and denser than breads made with bread flour. This may be true for two reasons:
    The whole-wheat flour may not be from a hard wheat, so the protein content is low and not enough gluten is produced.
    The bran and germ in whole-wheat flour make it more difficult for the elastic network to develop.
    If you use whole-wheat flour, the dough in the bread machine may look too wet at first. This happens because the bran in the flour resists absorbing the liquid. Therefore, it takes longer for the whole-wheat flour to absorb the moisture than it does for bread flour. Be sure to check the dough in your bread machine after about five minutes of kneading. If the dough is still too wet, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. However, if the dough is quite dry looking, add more liquid, 1 tablespoon at a time.
    You can make 100 percent whole-wheat bread in almost every bread machine, but most recipes use a combination of whole-wheat flour and bread flour. Blending these flours makes the texture softer and the bread more palatable, while at the same time providing the fiber and flavor of the entire wheat berry. The whole-wheat flour found in most supermarkets is only of average quality for making bread. For you purists, purchase whole-wheat flour especially milled for bread making. It is available in some specialty food stores or mail-order catalogs. Also, there is a blend of whole-wheat and white flour on the market, which works beautifully in your bread machine.
    White whole-wheat flour
    This is a fairly new flour, milled from a new variety of hard winter-white wheat grown in Kansas. It has the same nutrient value as other whole-wheat flour but is milder and sweeter in flavor and lighter in color than flour obtained from hard red wheat. You may use it in any of our recipes that call for whole-wheat flour. We think it performs very well in a bread machine, either on its own or mixed with bread flour.
    Wheat germ
    The germ is the embryo of the wheat kernel and is milled out of white flours. When it is added to bread, it provides fiber and gives a slightly nutty flavor. Wheat germ tastes better lightly roasted than raw. Usually, wheat germ is in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, but we have also found it with the dietetic health