Gluten: a tenacious elastic protein substance especially of wheat flour that gives cohesiveness to dough (courtesy of m-w.com)
Glutton: one given habitually to greedy and voracious eating and drinking (courtesy of m-w.com)
Okay, you know how I am about ‘texture’. To be perfectly honest I love Wonder Bread. For all it’s useless nutrition, air-filled slices, it’s texture is heaven. And that’s what does it, the air in the bread gives it that chewy, yummy texture that I crave. No, I don’t eat Wonder Bread any more, my *white* bread choices run to Orowheat potato or buttermilk bread (more substance with good texture). That’s what has kept me from just eating the top of the warm bread and leaving the rest of it for the family. Now, It’s like, “MINE, MINE, MINE, make your own bread”. What more can I say, Gluten has made a glutton out of me.
Gluten can be purchased from Bob’s Red Mill in a small bag. If you take out 1/2 of cup of flour from your recipies and add in 1/3 cup gluten you’ll create more stickiness in your loaf, causing more air to be trapped during the proofing and rise thus a chewier and more store like bread. The up side of this is you will have more protein in your bread, more spring in your slices and more nooks and crannies to hold the melted butter when you toast it. I’ve also noticed with gluten, the bread doesn’t seem to want to crumble when you want to make a sandwich out of it.
