Vitamin C and Bread

squeaky

I tried them and never could spot the difference. Maybe it's just me or my particular breadmaker.

Where I have seen a difference is from a tip posted some time ago.

Next time you boil potatoes save the water. You can freeze any extra in portions.

Don't worry about bits of tater in it - in fact you can odd the odd dollop of left over mashed if you like.

Use this to make your bread with.

Free - and a virtually limitless supply

lil_me

Mine do seem to rise better when I use the tablets, cheap ones of course! I use it in all my bread, not just the wholemeal (Currently using Tesco value)

thriftlady_2

Why not just leave it out ? I never use anything other than flour, yeast (which doesn't have vit C already added), salt, sugar and water.

Angelina-M

I buy the bread improver that contains vit C (ascorbic acid) from wessexmills mail order. Its 250g for £1.40 so last ages.

However its worth noting that even the supplier says its not needed for most types of bread!! I've also crushed vit C tablets up and got the same result. I dont bother putting anything in my breadcakes (cobs) and they rise really well.

Its probably worth you giving it a go without an improver and seeing whether you notice a difference?

ravylesley

Call me stupid but I have been making bread for years both by hand and in a BM and I've never added Vitamin C to any of my doughs whether white,wholemeal or granary so what benefits are there to adding it.Is it just to make the bread rise more?

Lesleyxx

Gingernutmeg

squeaky wrote: »

I tried them and never could spot the difference. Maybe it's just me or my particular breadmaker.

Where I have seen a difference is from a tip posted some time ago.

Next time you boil potatoes save the water. You can freeze any extra in portions.

Don't worry about bits of tater in it - in fact you can odd the odd dollop of left over mashed if you like.

Use this to make your bread with.

Free - and a virtually limitless supply

I've been using up some not-very-nice instant mash this way, just by stirring a couple of spoonfuls into the warm water. It's a good way to try this out too if you're like me and have got a teeny tiny freezer

julbags

It is supposed to help it rise, particularly with wholemeal flours. I used it for a while but haven't for ages and there is no difference to my usual 70% wholemeal loaf. I'm sure on the side of my Dove's farm wholemeal it says it has ascorbic acid already in it, I will check when I get home tonight.

JEFFWT

I got some pure vitamin C powder at Holland & Barrett - £6 or £7 for 170g.
Only use it for wholemeal loaves but must admit I've never tried not using it to see what happens

The theory is wholemeal flour does not form as much gluten as white bread flour with the same protein content and the gluten structure is an essential element for a well aerated loaf. Some of the protein in wholemeal flour is supplied by the bran and the germ and these proteins do not form gluten. In addition the wheat germ contains components that interfere with the development of gluten, so the gluten that is present is partially inhibited. Also, the sharp bran particles in wholewheat are supposed to sever the gluten strands that do form. Vitamin C is meant to address this.

Jeff

kunekune

Yes, it's about gluten. In NZ and Australia, the local flour is very low in gluten and it is virtually impossible to make bread at home without adding an improver of some kind: the recipes I used to use added quite a range of things, not just asorbic acid (which we got in the supermarket). However, I would have thought that UK flour was fine, and there was no need for this (perhaps some bread machine recipe books put it in to make the bread more like store-bought? or perhaps some of the bread recipe books around are actually australian? murdoch books produce a lot of recipe books that are just reprints of oz editions without any explanation of this).

Bongedone

Gingernutmeg wrote: »

Vitamin C is also known as ascorbic acid (which is used as a bread improver) and you can buy tubs of this online and sometimes from pharmacists. However it might be hard to get hold of as chemists have got a bit funny about selling citric/ascorbic acid because it's used in the drug trade. Worth asking though, as you only need a little bit.

I was in a Chinese supermarket yesterday and they sell packets of citric acid next to those packets of spices you get everywhere.

Not sure what its used for. Maybe tenderising meet.