It’s easy to make a lighter and airy bread loaf. All you need is the right balance of ingredients— which you can get with our easy bread mixes, dough conditioner, and enough time for the dough to rise.
Time and time again, we’ve been told that our customers love the flavor that our bread mixes bring. We love our customers and know that you deserve the best, so we give you only the best mixes made with fresh ingredients and dough conditioner to give you an even fluffier bread loaf.
But sometimes, it might be difficult to get the bread as light and airy as you want it when baking a bread mix in the oven instead of a bread machine. We promise that doesn’t have to be the case. This article will help you to make your bread lighter and fluffier every time.
“How Can I Make the Bread Mixes Lighter but Maintain the Flavor?”
We received an email this week:
I have purchased several of your bread mixes and love the flavor of the breads, but they are all heavy – not light and fluffy.” She was baking them in her oven. “Is there anything that I can do to make the bread mixes lighter but maintain the wonderful flavor?
Making Your Bread Lighter and Fluffier
Here’s our answer (The same principles apply to baking from scratch):
How light the bread is is a function of how much gas is in the dough. It’s the carbon dioxide that creates all the little bubbles that make the bread lighter and fluffier. Gas is created with the growth of the yeast. The more the yeast grows, the more gas will be in the dough.
Yeast is very sensitive to temperature. If you were to chill the dough in the refrigerator and take it from the refrigerator to let it rise, it might take four hours to become puffy. If you never refrigerated but placed that same dough in a warm spot, it might be puffy in 40 minutes.
Our absolute favorite way to get a better rise out of our dough and create enough gas to make the bread light and fluffy is using proofing bags. They create a controlled environment for the dough to rise in and traps in the perfect temperature and moisture to ensure a perfect rise every time.
But that’s the key to making your bread lighter: letting the dough get puffy before it goes in the oven. It should be soft and full of gas. If you wait a little too long and the dough starts to blister, just poke the blisters with a toothpick and hurry it to the oven. Let it get puffy and you’ll have very light and airy bread.
Make Lighter and Fluffier Bread with Dough Conditioner
You can also amplify the fluffiness of the bread by using a dough conditioner. (Note: All of our bread mixes already include dough conditioner.)
All it takes is half a teaspoon of dough conditioner per loaf, and you’ll get lighter and fluffier bread. The conditioner helps to elongate the strands of gluten, making more room to develop the gas that helps the dough to rise. It also adds acidity to the dough, making a more suitable environment for the yeast to grow.
By the time the dough conditioner is through and the bread is baked, you’ll be sure to have loaves an entire inch taller than your normal bread loaf, making it all the more light and fluffy.
Additional Resources
- How Long Should My Bread Rise? Learn how to tell when your bread is ready to go into the oven.
- Look at all the bread you can make with a bread machine and 10 minutes a day! Learn how to make bread with just ten minutes of your time and a push of a button.
