Putting more Wonder into my whole grain bread

November 5, 2024 11:50 AM

How do I make a dense baking-soda bread a little more, well, fluffy?

I make simple bread with spelt or rye flour and baking soda as a leavener. It is lovely and flavorful, but I would be thrilled if it were just a little less dense and rose a little higher.

Ingredients / proportions:

*) 330 milliters spelt or rye flour
*) 115 milliters rolled oats
*) 50 ml mixed seeds (mostly sesame)
*) 220 ml buttermilk
*) Generous teaspoon baking soda
*) Generous teaspoon salt
*) Just enough water to ensure all dry ingredients are mixed in

Throw into loaf pan, bake at 175 degrees Celsius (convection oven) for 25 minutes or so.

More baking soda perhaps? More water and less buttermilk?

posted by rabia.elizabeth to Food & Drink (15 answers total)

The only thing making that fluffy is the baking soda chemistry; I'd gradually raise the baking soda and salt until (just before) it tasted bad.

Smaller pan, so the leavening has more help against gravity?

The acid in the buttermilk should be helping the baking soda, but it might possibly be making the flours slightly weaker (though people usually use that to weaken *gluten*, not your problem).

One bit of advice I've found helpful is to mix the dry ingredients for soda bread much, much, much more than seems necessary. Don't know if it's getting a little air in or distributing the soda better or breaking up flour clumps, but it does help with texture.
posted by clew at 11:55 AM on November 5 [1 favorite]

From what I understand rye is a pretty dense flour. Usually fluffier ryes are incorporating some general bread flour into the mix.
posted by AlexiaSky at 12:28 PM on November 5 [3 favorites]

I'm not super familiar with baking soda breads, but I wonder if a whipped egg might add a bit of fluffi-ness? Here's a bit of info. (If eggs are an allergen: aquafaba or a flax egg might work similarly.)
posted by hydra77 at 12:39 PM on November 5 [1 favorite]

Usually fluffier ryes are incorporating some general bread flour into the mix.

I definitely do if I'm making yeasted bread, but this is a quick/soda bread - not sure if it's the same since you'd generally use the bread flour for its higher gluten content while in quick breads you're typically trying to prevent gluten from developing.

The ingredients and proportions in the recipe you're following are almost exactly what I use for biscuits (US version like what you get as a side dish at KFC) except for the biscuit recipe having 3 teaspoons of baking powder (in addition to the baking soda) and some butter (which acts like kind of like butter in a pastry recipe where steam gives some lift). You might not want your bread as fluffy as an American biscuit, but maybe a teaspoon of baking powder added might do it. Baking powder is basically baking soda plus its own acid component so it provides some rise without having to add another reacting component; too much affects the taste.
posted by LionIndex at 12:43 PM on November 5 [2 favorites]

I don’t know if this helps you at all, but I use a recipe for a brown soda bread that calls for a bit of cake flour to lighten things up a bit. Cake flour is not something I keep in the house, so I use a mix of regular flour and cornstarch to replace the cake flour. Maybe worth a shot if you already have cornstarch on hand?
posted by stowaway at 12:52 PM on November 5 [3 favorites]

try adding some oat bran. I cannot tell you what proportion (sorry) but my husband was working on his whole wheat pancake/waffle batter and it was a bit dense until he added some oat bran (maybe 1/4 of total flours?) and it gave a nice bit of fluff to the waffles and 'cakes.
posted by supermedusa at 12:54 PM on November 5 [2 favorites]

Physics. I recently learned to (roll-and-fold)_n the slab before "Throw into loaf pan". Works for scones, which are just small soda loaves with some fat. Also nthing the suggestion to add a bit of CO₂ catching wheat flour.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:23 PM on November 5

I would consider adding some baking powder as well. Baking soda will create bubbles when added to the dough (when reacting with the acid from the buttermilk), while baking powder is double-acting, which means it reacts to produce bubbles both when mixed and again when heated. The second bubble production helps lighten the bread once it starts to cook in the oven. Start with a teaspoon.

More mixing will not hurt and could help develop a little more strength in the dough before baking to help trap the bubbles. This will be much more effective for spelt (which is a type of wheat) than for pure rye.

More liquid may also help, because a very dry dough will tend to produce a denser bread, all other things being equal.
posted by ssg at 1:38 PM on November 5 [1 favorite]

I mean, all of the suggestions above are probably helpful, but I would just note that by its general nature, soda bread is just dense, and more so if you're using spelt (whole grain?) or especially rye flour. There is a reason why light, fluffy bread is made with wheat flour and yeast: the yeast gives off carbon dioxide for a longer time than chemical leavening, and the gluten in the wheat traps the carbon dioxide to make the bubbles that give the bread its light, airy texture. Not that you can't improve what you've got, but there is only so far you can go with baking soda/powder.
posted by number9dream at 3:01 PM on November 5 [6 favorites]

It would help to know if you’re avoiding modern wheat flour specifically, or just like spelt for itself.
posted by clew at 3:39 PM on November 5

I like to make bread, cookies, quick breads and cakes with whole wheat flour, other coarse flours, seeds and the bran from different grain. I do this because I want the fibre and like the taste, but it can come out extremely tough and flat. My easy solution is to add gluten flour. But I'm not avoiding gluten. Is that why you are baking with spelt and rye?

I use gluten flour to get the stretch of a white wheat cake or pastry flour so that my coarse flour baking doesn't come out tough at all. I get it at the En Vrac/Bulk Barn in Canada but any store that carries a wide range of baking supplies will carry it. Some stores sell dough conditioner in the baking section, which is gluten flour mixed with other additives, but I prefer just the gluten flour and avoid the azodicarbonamide and similar more processed additives.

If you do want to try gluten flour, you only need to add a very small amount to each batch you are making. I add maybe a tablespoon to a soda bread recipe that uses two cups of flour. If you are sensitive to gluten that much will be enough to make you unhappy. A little of it goes a long way.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:06 PM on November 5 [1 favorite]

Best chance: beat the living shit out of the dry ingredients while they're still dry, then be really really gentle with the mix once it's wet.

Also, try wetting with beer instead of buttermilk and water. Every little bubble helps, and as well as the bubbles that come directly out of the beer, its slight acidity will convert some of the baking soda into more bubbles.
posted by flabdablet at 8:37 PM on November 5 [2 favorites]

Jane the Brown called for gluten flour. I use "Vital Wheat Gluten" which used to be only available at natural food stores but has turned up in my local general supermarket.
posted by tmdonahue at 5:17 AM on November 6

Response by poster: I don't bake with wheat at all; my body does not tolerate it well.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:35 PM on November 6 [1 favorite]

I thought of one more approach— if the insides of the loaves are gummy/heavy because they’re slightly undercooked, I’d try steaming instead of baking; steaming heats the whole thing through more evenly. Maybe bake the finished item afterward for a crisp crust, or even slice and toast all of it for crisp outsides and soft insides.

Will continue thinking about non-gluten techniques.
posted by clew at 12:06 PM on November 7