Is there any such thing sold over here? It is in my bread recipe. Try to bake some for Christmas. Thank you.
Yes, there is. You should be able to get it at a DIY baking store. You need to ask for 麵包改良劑. Perhaps someone can help you with a pronounciation guide for that. My Pinyin isn’t very good and I don’t know how to make those tone marks on my computer. At any rate you should find it repackaged into small tubs for the home baker. It is rather inexpensive, if I remember correctly. Certainly not more than NT$100. They will probably have at least two or three: one for bread, one for the steamed buns and one called S 500.
Just out of curiosity, what is your recipe? I am sure you could get away without using a dough enhancer. I wouldn’t sweat if you can’t find it. You could also consider an alternative. Vitamin C is a dough enhancer and makes up a large portion of the commercially available product. Only a very small amount is needed. Powdered ginger, soy flour, lethicin and diastatic malt are also considered to be dough conditioners. Lethicin is naturally available in eggs and the others (apart from diastatic malt) are readily available on supermarket shelves.
Post your recipe and maybe we could offer some advice.
This sounds like a good recipe. Although I would swap the gelatine for agar agar.
http://chickensintheroad.com/cooking/how-to-make-homemade-dough-enhancer/
DIY baking store. Where can I find one of those in Taipei? What are they called in Chinese?
That looks like a very good recipe for a general dough enhancer. It seems to have most of the commonly known ingredients. I know some of the commercial ones contain enzymes and deactivated yeast, too. I don’t pretend to know a lot about this subject, but I do know that it is quite an exact science and bakers will use different improvers to produce different results for different breads. For example, some enhancers improve extensibility of the dough, others give a higher rise and yet others improve shelf life. You might only want to enhance one quality in the dough, so instead of blasting the target with a whole host of them, you would just add one. It is worth noting that, sometimes, enhancers are added during the milling process. Diastatic malt is an example.
They go under a variety of names, but 烘焙食品材料行 is a general descriptive term for such a store. I have seen Dragonbones post a link for such a store in Taipei. Perhaps he can help out here. I know of several in Kaohsiung.
Hi, the store list is here. [forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … 8#p1127688](DIY baking supply / supplies
Most home bread recipes don’t call for artificial dough additives (“dough enhancers”), and I don’t use 'em (nor do I see any need to), so I would just leave it out, personally.
I have read that generally, enhancers are used in order to get the qualities you find in supermarket bread – very light, fluffy and tender crumb (bread interior) that doesn’t dry out as quickly, with a very tender crust – when producing on an industrial scale. But for me the whole purpose of baking at home is to get what you find in a homemade or artisan bread, a heartier, slightly denser bread with some bite, and more flavor. If you want the interior to be tender and not dry quickly, something like sandwich loaf, just add an egg and a bit of oil or butter and some scalded milk, instead of chemicals.
Also, some of the ingredients in dough enhancer are supposedly actually worse for the bread if you use them in the wrong amount, and some of them supposedly result in a blander taste. I don’t know, personally, as I’ve not used them and would have to run some side-by-side experiments to see if this is true.