If you want to find out what salt does for your loaf, try and leave it out and take a bite…
Klik hier voor de Nederlandse versie
A while ago we took a closer look at the percentage of salt we put into our bread. If you are a big bread eater, chances are high you get a lot of your daily salt intake via your sandwiches.
The UK recently came out with a new standard for the amount of salt in bread baking. So we tested this new standard to find out what the effect would be for our own bread baking and want to share the result with you…
First, some things you need to know about salt and bread baking:
What does salt do?
- Salt acts as a natural antioxidant in the dough and not only adds taste but especially helps bring out the flavors and aromas present in the flour and other ingredients.
- Next to its role in boosting the flavor of your bread, salt plays a role in tightening the gluten structure and adding strength to your dough. It helps the loaf to hold on to the carbon dioxide gas that is formed during fermentation, supporting good volume.
- Salt slows down fermentation and enzyme activity in dough. The salt crystals draw water away form their environment (salt is ‘hygroscopic’). When salt and yeast compete for water, salt wins and the yeast is slowed down.
- Because of its moisture maintaining properties, salt can prevent bread from getting stale but it can also (this is especially true in humid environments) absorb moisture from the air and leave you with soft crusts and soggy bread.
How much salt is considered normal in bread baking?
In bread baking the percentage of salt added that is considered normal, ranges from 1.8% to 2.2% of the total amount of flour, depending on the recipe and personal preference. Low salt contents can lead to bland loaves, anything over the 2.2% norm will likely be considered too salty. The UK recently came out with a new standard of 1 gram of salt per 100 grams of the final baked bread or about 1.5 to 1.6% of the total amount of flour. So instead of a percentage of salt to flour, they give the amount of salt per 100 gram of the actual finished product / bread.
Should I be afraid of salt touching my yeast?
Short answer: NO! Usually you add salt and yeast to your flour and immediately start mixing. It is totally unnecessary to put salt on one side and yeast on the other and seconds later start mixing them together anyway. You do not want to add salt on top of fresh yeast and leave it for minutes because then the salt will indeed kill the yeast.
What type of salt should I use for bread baking?
All salt is good, as long as the salt crystals are fine enough and dissolve easily. A lot can be said for different types of salt, some contain additives, some have other minerals next to the sodium chloride (NaCl) considered beneficial for you (like Celtic sea salt which is also lower in sodium). You can make up your own mind as far as the health benefits go, taste wise it will not make a big difference to your loaf. Due to the relatively small quantity of salt it would be really hard to detect subtle differences in flavor.
Our own findings with the new salt content standard
So, we looked at our own baking and did a test with this new UK standard of 1 gram salt per 100 grams baked loaf. For example, for a standard pain rustique (750 g dough, weighing about 680 g after baking) this would mean lowering the added salt from 8 g to 6.8 g or from 1.17 g to 1 g per 100 g bread.
Examples of bakers percentages for a loaf of pain rustique:
2.2% of total flour would mean almost 10 g of salt added to the recipe
2% – about 9 g of salt
1.8% – just over 8 g of salt
1.5% – about 6.8 g of salt (the new UK standard)
We tested and tasted the bread with new, lower salt content several times, together with some bread friends. Result: We all had a very hard time noticing any difference. There is a line below which it would become noticeable of course, but this new standard is no problem for us. We have to add that using high quality (organic) flour also makes a big difference in taste and perception of saltiness. Also see our flour experiments. To enhance flavor, salt has to have something to work with, and it will have a hard time bringing out any flavor when the flour you work with is overly processed and bland to begin with!
We now use it in most recipes for our daily bread, except when making dough for things like pizza and focaccia and other flatbreads. For these special breads our personal preference is to make this dough a bit saltier.
Let us know your thoughts on salt!
FAQs
Scoring helps create a consistent rise
King Arthur Baking says that the main reason for scoring bread is to control its appearance as it rises in the oven. When a loaf of bread is put in the oven, it releases vital steam and moisture which gives it an "oven spring," in which the dough rises rapidly (via Slate).
How do you score bread loaf? ›
Scoring bread is easiest with a sharp implement. You can use a sharp paring knife or kitchen scissors to snip lines into the top of the unbaked bread boule. Or you can use a tool that professional bakers use to score, called a bread lame. It's essentially a razor blade affixed to a handle for easy maneuvering.
Is baking bread a chemical change or physical change? ›
It is a chemical change. The transformation of flour into gluten chains creates a new substance with different properties, and an altered chemical composition.
How to score bread without a lame? ›
If you do not have a lame and do not wish to purchase one, you could also use a sharp knife, razor blade or even scissors to score your bread. A lame or razor blade gives you the most precision, but a knife or scissors also work.
Does it matter how you score bread? ›
Tips for Better Scoring
Move the blade with confidence; faster strokes make cleaner cuts in the dough. Score across the bread axis rather than across the loaf. Make the cuts at a 30- to 45-degree angle and make them about 1/4-inch deep.
Why do you need to score bread? ›
Bread dough rapidly expands when it is first placed in the oven (an effect known as “oven spring”), and scoring controls this expansion. Bakers score their loaves to prevent them from cracking—and to give the dough a helpful boost. If a loaf is under-proofed, a deep score can help it open up.
How deep should you score bread? ›
There is no need to press hard and score excessively deep, but the cut does need to be deep enough so the surface of the dough doesn't fuse back together when baking — somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2" deep.
Can you use a knife to score bread? ›
Let your dough scoring knife do the work, as you're scoring, slashing or docking your way to an ear! Scoring is slashing the dough with a blade or a sharp knife to allow it to expand during baking.
Should you score the top of bread? ›
If you do it right, these bubbles expand from the heat, making the bread rise another 15–20%. This is called the 'spring'. This heat-rise has to happen before the crust forms, or the crust will restrict the rise. You score the top of the bread to make it easier for it to rise in the oven.
What makes dough rise? ›
When you add yeast to water and flour to create dough, it eats up the sugars in the flour and excretes carbon dioxide gas and ethanol — this process is called fermentation. The gluten in the dough traps the carbon dioxide gas, preventing it from escaping. The only place for it to go is up, and so the bread rises.
The reaction is: Sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid reacts to carbon dioxide, water and sodium acetate. The solid baking soda was placed in liquid vinegar producing carbon dioxide gas, which is evident because of the formation of bubbles in the foaming mixture.
Why does my bread deflate when I score it? ›
My loaf deflates when I score it. Why? It is over-proofed.
Can you score bread too much? ›
Steam will always find the weakest point in the dough in order to escape. In addition, if you score your dough too deeply, there ends up being too much dough for the steam to be able to lift. Think of the score like a shelf that you're creating, not just an incision that you're making.
Why is my bread hard to score? ›
Hydration: If your dough is too wet, from 85% hydration to 100% hydration (or beyond!), scoring your loaf will do nothing. It's basically going to expand all over. Not to mention, a wet dough is impossible to score with a knife because you don't encounter any resistance.
What happens if you don't cut bread before baking? ›
By slicing open the top of your loaf before baking, aka scoring, you provide a clear exit route for the gas, but if you don't score your bread, the carbon dioxide will break itself out by any means necessary. The built-up pressure will cause your bread's crust to rip apart at random.
Do you need to score sandwich bread? ›
IS SCORING BREAD NECESSARY? Not all bread requires scoring, but the technique typically serves both aesthetic and practical purposes. Scoring helps bread expand more evenly in the oven by relieving resistance and helping to prevent erratic cracks in the crust, but some instances call for skipping this step.
How do you know if bread is underworked? ›
Roll your dough into a ball and hold it in the air for a few seconds. If the dough remains a ball, it means that the gluten has been worked enough and is durable. If your dough flops between your fingers, it needs to be kneaded more.
What happens to overproofed bread? ›
underproof dough will spring back completely correctly, proof will spring back slowly and only halfway, and overproof dough won't spring back at all. after baking, the underproof dough will be dense and deformed. while the dough that was ready will be fluffy and light. and the overproof dough will be flat and deflated.
