This just in

[achild]

Wheat germ != Wheat Gluten.  Subbing 1tbs of wheat gluten for 1tbs of wheat germ = very chewy bread.

That's behind me now though.  Now I'm working on oatmeal raisin bread.  No substitutions.  

Comments

[jenmarie]

Yum! I add the wheat gluten to get my whole wheat bread to rise better.

You making it a sweet raisin bread? Or just raisin-y oatmeal bread?

And if you ever take on sourdough, let me know. I have some great starter that I am happy to share.

[achild]

Yeah, I had the gluten around because I kept bricking whole wheat loafs. It works great, but I was just using all-purpose flour on this loaf and the added gluten made it chewy. Still totally edible (just had a sammich) but chewy.

The one in the machine now is a honey raisin oatmeal bread following this recipe:
http://www.food.com/recipe/oatmeal-raisin-bread-abm-49942

I added a couple teaspoons of cinnamon and a few extra raisins. I'll know in a couple hours how it comes out, but so far I'm pleased with the smells coming from the kitchen.

Sourdough: Tempting...very tempting. Can you do that in a bread machine, or would I have to be less lazy and knead it myself?

[jenmarie]

That oatmeal sounds good! I may have to do a loaf for next week. I'll bet the girls would love it. I still have some orangey cranberries, so maybe I'll do it with those instead of raisins. And add a dash of ground cloves to enhance the orangey-ness.

I do all my bread, including sourdough, using the bread machine for most of the work. I use the dough setting and then take it out and shape it and put it in the pan or on a bread/pizza stone for a final rise and bake it in the oven. For sourdough I do almost the same thing, but I let it rise in the pan, punch it down, let it rise one more time, and bake.

I also do sourdough/buckwheat waffles and pancakes on a regular basis... super-easy and SO good. I make a big enough batch to freeze and reheat for the kids for more than one breakfast. My dad did sourdough stuff when I was a kid, but he was a white flour purist. I mix it up and experiment with other flours too, with usually pretty good results. My starter is unbleached white flour-based, though.

[achild]

The sourdough process doesn't sound too terrible, and I love a good sourdough.

I've been lazy, I normally just let my bread cook in the breadmachine, but that leaves the big gash in the bottom from the kneading paddle. I've done a sticky bun in the oven, which was damn tasty...I should try baking some bread in the oven. How novel.

Sounds like sourdough would be fun. I'll probably take you up on the starter sometime.

[tanjent]

looooool rubberbread

[fulguritus]

It wasn't really that chewy. It was good!