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Breadmaking machines. just got one secondhand and all the recipes seem to recommend the use of powdered milk in the mix. Can anyone shed any light as to why and, also, if it's really necessary? Have made bread the manual way and have never used dried milk.

There is no requirement for milk in bread. Some recipes use it for taste or to enhance protein content.

I used it in my first few loaves but experimented without it with I ran out and discovered I didn't need it. My current favourite recipe just has flour, water, salt and yeast (and the breadmaker version uses a little bit of sugar, too).

Wulf

You'll find the answer on the internet because somewhere out there I've read what it does - something to do with the crust I think, or maybe that was sugar? Frankly I don't think that either sugar or milk powder are necessary or make much of a difference. Having said that I always use it!

I'd always assumed that powdered milk was recommended (rather than 'real' milk) because of a bread machine's timing function - so that, if you put the mix into the machine before going to bed at night in order to have a fresh baked loaf waiting in the morning, then you won't be leaving the milk out of the fridge.

I don't bother with any milk or sugar though.

Milk in bread, either liquid or dried, gives the bread a softer texture .. like baps.
I use dried milk occasionally especially when I want a loaf for toasting, but as others have said it's not at all necessary.

Odsox wrote:Milk in bread, either liquid or dried, gives the bread a softer texture .. like baps.

Exactly. And since the Brits are supposed to be all toothless wonders and unable to chew their bread, everything "has to have" milk in it. If I want bread with additives (i.e. milk, sugar, vit C etc) I don't bother to make it myself, I might as well go and buy it in the shop.

ina wrote:

Odsox wrote:Milk in bread, either liquid or dried, gives the bread a softer texture .. like baps.

Exactly. And since the Brits are supposed to be all toothless wonders and unable to chew their bread, everything "has to have" milk in it. If I want bread with additives (i.e. milk, sugar, vit C etc) I don't bother to make it myself, I might as well go and buy it in the shop.

Absolutely bloody right Ina!

My pumpernickel, plaits, fruit loaf, garlic rolls, various rolls and easy breads can have powdered milk added but do not. I often swap a recipe using water for a 50/50 milk/water mix.

I read somewhere (google is your friend) that some recipes use milk powder to provide a softer loaf, too.

But I think it depends on whether or not you are using a bread flour which already has sugar added, along with improver.

I think it is called strong flour over the home country

I think once you have got your moisture to solids ratio correct, you can experiment with adding or deleting anything - I often add a couple of tablespoons of LSA (crushed linseed, sunflower and almond mix) - affectionately known as LSD here

Great texture, too.

Love just loafing around

Doc

Doc wrote:My pumpernickel,

Pumpernickel with milk in it? Ergh, what kind of pumpernickel is that?

(It's supposed to be - by some - the bread we Germans eat all the time - it's not - but still... )




Sorry, I do have to laugh at that... Just had a look at the recipe of that supposed pumpernickel - oh dear... (Do we have a smiley with tears of laughter running down my face? )

Pumpernickel is sourdough, 100% rye, and takes hours and hours to bake, very slowly, and looks really black. Which is why nobody makes it at home. The loaf featured in that recipe is nothing like it.

I just wish people wouldn't apply names so willy-nilly... The stuff I've seen that;s supposed to be Stollen, too - that's another of my bugbears!

Gee, Ina

I just wish people wouldn't apply names so willy-nilly

That was what my bread recipe book called it.

I am no expert, I just follow the friggin recipes.

Who cares what the poop its real name is, it still taste nice.

Sorry for any offence caused.

Nothing like public humiliation to brighten my day.

Takes ball, leaves.

I have more important things to work on, like my sock drawer needs sorting

Doc

Edited coz it did not really need a swear word

Aww Doc no need to take your ball and leave. Ina wasn't getting at you at all - she was merely commenting on the contents of the pumpernickle recipe and stollen - something that she, being German, will be very familiar with, that we, not Germans, have messed around with until it's nowt like wot it's supposed to be!
BTW - thanks for the links to the other recipes - I'll be having a peek my self.

Yep, sorry Doc - didn't mean to offend you! Just imagine: you go to Germany and tell the people you are staying with you love pumpernickel. So they go and search the shops to find some real stuff - you take one look at it and say - what the hell is that? Disgusting! Because the pumpernickel you know is something entirely different!

It does annoy me that recipe books call everything by names that are often protected (like Dresden Stollen, for example - only Stollen baked in and around Dresden after a particular recipe which does NOT contain marzipan!!! may be called so). I've seen recipes for very nice fruit cakes called that - just because they sprinkled some icing sugar on top... And it's the same with other food products. I think a lot of foreigners don't recognise the food that's presented under a certain name as such. I was once given something strange to eat in England and was told that was a pizza. Ah well. I'm not Italian, but that wasn't a pizza.... Why not call it a veggie tart?

Apologies again, Doc - it's the system that's at fault, not the fact that you like the bread!

It's a universal thing Ina and one that now is impossible to amend.
Just think of Hamburgers, Frankfurter sausages ... how about Canadian Cheddar cheese ?

Madeira cake is well known in Madeira where they call in English cake, and Champignons de Paris become plain old mushrooms outside France.

ina wrote:It does annoy me that recipe books call everything by names that are often protected (like Dresden Stollen, for example - only Stollen baked in and around Dresden after a particular recipe which does NOT contain marzipan!!! may be called so). I've seen recipes for very nice fruit cakes called that - just because they sprinkled some icing sugar on top... And it's the same with other food products. I think a lot of foreigners don't recognise the food that's presented under a certain name as such. I was once given something strange to eat in England and was told that was a pizza. Ah well. I'm not Italian, but that wasn't a pizza.... Why not call it a veggie tart?

Ahem and why call bubbly elderflower cordial CHAMPAGNE. A very protected word indeed.