What is Bread Improver??? How does it Work??

Bread improvers were originally designed to remove the need for the baker to allow the dough to ferment for hours before production could commence, this is called bulk fermentation, at the end of this you have a well developed dough. Old stories tell of bakers falling asleep on top of a lidded tub and only waking when the rising dough pushed them off!! this is when they knew the dough was ready for moulding, proofing and baking!!

The majority of bakeries today use bread improvers to remove the need for this long winded process, without bulk fermentation or improvers the bread cannot hold the gas created by the yeast very well and end up quite dense and heavy. You can also create the style of loaf that you want by selecting the right improver (my farmhouse one contains sourdough powder for an old fashioned taste).

Improvers do not accelerate the fermentation process since they cannot normally speed-up gas production by the yeast. They do, however, bring about more rapid dough development so that at the end of mixing the dough has similar gas retention properties to those you would see from bulk fermentation.

When we make bread at home we usually use a mixer or a bread maker, therefore we need bread improver to create a well developed dough in the time we have.

Some are very concentrated, others contain extras to give a customised loaf  for a particular style of bread (like malted wholemeal, soft roll style, fruit bun style) they require different amounts of these extras to give the required result hence my different pack sizes and prices.

Amongst other things they contain some simple ingredients such as sugar, milk powder, vitamin C, mine do not contain preservatives or any nasty chemicals. One very active and important ingredient that always tends to frighten people is enzymes, an internet search brought up the result below;

 Enzyme- A natural protein. "An enzyme is a protein that is present in all living things, where a substance has to be transformed into another nature uses enzymes to speed up the process, for instance when breaking down foods in the stomach."

So why not give it a try, nearly everyone reports superb results and very happy with comments like "saved my breadmaker from the bin"!! etc

Remember I like satisfied customers and I'm here to answer questions etc no matter how trivial you may think they are.

Thanks

Emma x