Making bread with less salt

12 years ago

Interesting, from Science Daily, today.

Want to make bread taste pleasantly salty without adding more salt? Change the bread's texture so it is less dense, say scientists. They report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that simply making the pores, or holes, larger can make people perceive bread as having saltier taste. The process could become a new strategy for reducing salt intake, which is a risk factor for high blood pressure and heart disease.

Researchers have tried different methods, such as using salt substitutes, but only to limited effect. Studies on cheese and gels has shown that changing texture can make a product taste salty even if salt content is reduced, so Koehler's team decided to see if this would work with bread.

To alter the texture of bread for the study, they baked bread using different proofing times. Proofing is when a baker lets the dough rise. Longer proofing times lead to softer breads with larger pores. The subjects in the study rated the fluffier bread with the longest proofing time as noticeably more salty, even though each bite actually contained less salt. "Appropriate modification of crumb texture thus leads to enhanced saltiness, suggesting a new strategy for salt reduction in bread," say the researchers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link

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Comments (4)

jakkom
12 years ago
My niece has a husband who hates salt. So she started experimenting with her bread dough, and found that using a sourdoug starter worked great without using salt!

That link you posted is very interesting, that texture affects perceived saltiness. I wonder if that's why I don't care for the current Modernist "foams" - I do perceive them as fairly salty, and although I'm not against salt the way my nephew-in-law is, I don't use a whole lot of it in my everyday cooking.
grainlady_ks
12 years ago
Ironically enough jkom51, my friend, who was in her early 90's at the time, also eliminated salt from her naturally-leavened bread and got good results. In fact, there is generally a lot less salt used in naturally-leavened breads to begin with. So now we know some of the science and another benefit from longer proofing of naturally-leavened breads over the faster method using baker's yeast.

Interesting.... Thanks for sharing the information and link momj47. Something else to add to my "Book of Odd Knowledge"

-Grainlady
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Jasdip
12 years ago
How do you retard the level of rising? My bread rises in about 1 1/2 hours at room temperature. The second rise when they're formed in the bread pans take longer.

Would I have to put them in the frig to make them a longer rise?

I never use the amount of salt stated in the recipe. I can taste salt in bread, and I'd like to eliminate completely but I don't want to affect the rising. I'm not even sure what salt does.

This post was edited by jasdip on Fri, Nov 22, 13 at 14:34
grainlady_ks
12 years ago
Just as you thought. To "retard" bread dough you sit it in the refrigerator. Make sure it's tightly covered with plastic wrap (or you can place it in a large zip-lock bag) so it doesn't dry out. Naturally-leavened breads take much longer to proof than bread made with baker's yeast. It's an all-day process which starts the night before when you feed the starter.

Chilling dough "retards" the action of the yeast (and that's why it's called "retarding" the dough). Retarding the dough also influences the texture by opening it a little more and it also creates more flavor. The down side to retarding the dough is that it reduces the volume. You can compensate for this by dissolving 1/2 t. of yeast in a few tablespoons of warm water and knead this into the dough before shaping.

There are recipes specifically for refrigerator dough recipes and they usually have mashed potatoes (or other mashed vegetables) in them (or instant mashed potatoes can be substituted). The potatoes add moisture and keep the dough from drying out in the dry confines of our frost-free refrigerators. These recipes often have more yeast in them than a standard recipe.

Betty Crocker Refrigerator Dough is a good classic recipe that contains mashed potatoes, and the dough could be left in the refrigerator for up to 5-days. So on day one you could make the dough, and each day thereafter you could bake something different - dinner rolls, hamburger or hot dog buns, braided dinner rolls, Parker House Rolls, Crescent Rolls...

-Grainlady

Making bread with less salt

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jakkom

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