[shokkyy]

I use my machine to make the dough, shape by hand, prove and then bake in the oven. It's always worked pretty well for me. In the past I've just used whatever bread flour was cheapest and had good results, but I just switched to Dove's bread flour, which in theory is better quality, and all of a sudden my bread's not rising enough. Nothing else has changed except the flour. It's kind of rising a bit in the pan, though not as much as before, but then seems to be going down again on baking. It's not the oven, because I've got more than one oven in my cooker and I've tried using a different oven but the same thing happened.

Anyone else had problems with Dove's?

[mumofstig]

different flours absorb different quantities of water, so perhaps it needs a little less/more water than you are used to using 

[shokkyy]

I hadn't thought of that. The basic recipe I use for everyday bread comes from the recipe book that came with my bread machine, and it uses a couple of tbsp olive oil as well as water, so maybe that's too much liquid for that flour. The Dove's website has tons of recipes that I guess are tailored to their flours, but I'm not really sure how well they'd work in a machine. Maybe I should try one and see what happens.

[Aunt Sally]

What recipe do you use shokkyy ?

[Squibbs]

We've used Dove's flour in our breadmaker and all seems fine except for rye bread.

[compostqueen]

I used two different sorts of Doves flour this week and both were fine.  I gave up on my breadmaker and do it by hand now.  I think with the machine you don't get a feel for it the way you do when you make it with your own two hands. 

[shokkyy]

What recipe do you use shokkyy ?

550g flour, 1.25 tsp quick yeast (and I've tried putting this up), 2 tsp sugar, 1.5 tsp salt, 2 tbsp oil, 320 ml water

I've been using that same recipe for ages and never had problems before. It's puzzling.

[New shoot]

I use Dove Farm flour, but I only use the machine to mix the dough and I don't use fast acting yeast.  I let the dough rise in a covered bowl, then shape and prove and get good results. 

If I'm busy during the day, I leave the dough to rise somewhere cool to slow it down until I'm ready to deal with it.

You get a really good flavour this way as the dough gets to mature 

[madcat]

I use Shipston's flour (similar quality to Dove's) in a bread machine.  Scaling my recipe up to your quantity - I would go for more like 330 - 340 ml of water and a tsp max of salt.  I think the gluten in Shipstons (and probably Dove's) is stronger than sainsco's, so it needs a bit more water to make it stretch properly.  If I can't get my usual flour and am forced back to picking it up on the supermarket run, I usually have to scale the water back a bit or it gets a bit OOT, which doesn't make for good lunchbox sarnies.

[shokkyy]

Whatever's going wrong, I'm convinced it's happening before the dough even gets to prove. The dough used to come out of my machine full of air and now it doesn't. I wonder if something in my machine is getting worn somewhere, and it's just coincidence that it happened at the same time I changed flour.

MC - do you also use a bit of oil or just water? I'll try using a bit more water and a bit less salt and see if that helps.

[Aunt Sally]

I use all sorts of flour and never have a problem.  I mix and prove on the dough setting in a bread mixer and then mould by hand and prove in tins then bake in the oven. 

This is the recipe I use for two large loaves:

500ml warm water
3 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp Vit C powder
100g Vegetable oil
500g Strong White flour
500g Strong Wholemeal flour
1 sachet yeast.

[sunshineband]

The other thing to be careful of is that the salt oyu add does not directly contact the yeast (I put them in diagonally opposite corners of the bread machine's tin)

because it will kill off the yeast, or affect it's ability to make the dough rise.


I expect you knew that

[Aunt Sally]

I add salt, sugar, vit c, oil to the water.  Flour on top and yeast on top of that.

[mumofstig]

Aunty do you find the vit C powder makes much difference?

[Aunt Sally]

I think it does.  My FIL was a master baker and he always used 'flour improver' which is basically vit c.