Non-fat dry-milk...purpose?

Does not go rancid in storage and is easier to handle than milk

Replace the milk powder and some of the water with an appropriate=20 quantity of low-fat or no-fat milk. You can also crush your "unuseable brick" and dissolve it, use it.

--=20 Sincerly,

C=3D=A6-)=A7 H. W. Hans Kuntze, CMC, S.g.K. (_o_)

, snipped-for-privacy@cmcchef.com"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it Happened"_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/=20

Tnx; however, let me rephrase my question. What chemical purpose does it (or milk) serve in the dough? The whole wheat breads I buy at the store just have ww flour, honey, yeast, water, salt but most of the recipes I've found include dried milk. Why?

That seems to work. Tnx!

~Deepak

Commercial breads are usually produced as cheaply as possible.

Milk powder adds proteins, makes for better crust color, increases=20 keeping quality, nutrition, better texture of the crumb.

A commercial bakery/bread factory will try to achieve that as cheaply as =

possible, by selecting flours and through the addition of chemicals,=20 enzymes, etc.

Just add the milk powder.

If they add honey, then only in minute amounts, it adds marketing appeal.=

Personally I think molasses is better, but has no marketing appeal.

If you don't want to use milk powder, just leave it out and see if you=20 like the product as well. If not, put it in again the next time. No big deal.

Personally, I like a whole wheat bread with it better than without,=20 makes better toast, better texture.

--=20 Sincerly,

C=3D=A6-)=A7 H. W. Hans Kuntze, CMC, S.g.K. (_o_)

, snipped-for-privacy@cmcchef.com"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it Happened"_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/=20

It is not that critical in whole wheat bread loaves.You can make white or whole wheat bread with just flour,salt, yeast and water... In general in relation to doughmaking... Milk is considered an enriching ingredient, it is also functional due to its buffering effect and therefore dough that contains milk does not become sour easily on overfermentation if compared to milk free bread. Milk contains lactose that contributes to crust browning during baking. the protein in skim milk also binds the gluten due to its calcium content and the protein will interact with the wheat protein in a minor way contributing to slightly to improvement of shelf life by slightly delaying the staling rate. Milk powder will bind more water so it will increase the moisture content of the bread and that can be interpretted that softer bread stales slower than tough lean bread.

the proteolytic enzymes in the dough can modify some of the milk protein releaseing amino acids that are good flavor precursors during the Maillards reaction in the baking process. So the bread taste better with added milk. Nutritionally the high protein in NFDM will improve the bread quality. Therefore this skim milk powder is advantageous if added to bread dough what ever the flour used: whole or white flour. Roy

I was also wondering this same question. I've been using a bagel recipe that called for dry milk powder. I searched though these groups for awhile and found out that the milk powder is supposed to create a tighter crumb. I think the premis behind it is there are still living enzymes in the milk powder that break down the gluten (I think) so the weakend structure can't support the big bubbles in the dough. Makes sense for bagels since you want a dense bagel. Not sure what style of wheat bread your making, and there might be other reasons for it.

Hope this helps...

Anton

My understanding is that non-fat dry milk is used in place of skim milk or whole milk to produce a "softer" product. The ubiquitous commercial "squshy white bread" was originally known as a milk bread for this reason.

Dry milk handles well, stores easily, is inexpensive, and is "reconstituted" by the water in the recipe.

But authentic bagels would never be made with any milk or dairy products because of traditional Jewish dietary laws which forbid milk to be eaten with meat. It would be too hard to determine whether one had a dairy bagel or a non-dairy bagel, so bagels

-- like most Jewish baked goods -- are made only with water and vegetable shortening (if any) and not milk and butter.

If you like making bagels with milk, be all means do so -- they may be delicious. But just don't consider them authentic.

Cheers, The Old Bear