I tried this today, I'm not sure if I over-proofed it (I still had an hour left in final proof when I put it in the oven) or if it just was too moist, but it collapsed a bit during baking, so it has kind of a flat top. I'm waiting for it to fully cool before I cut it, but it smells good. I"m curious to see how open the crumb is.
I used freshly ground whole meal flour, which I think is a bit moister than bagged flour, so I should probably have cut the 2nd water back a bit, the dough was really sticky, though it was very elastic, as the recipe said it should be. It was kind of hard to shape because it was so moist and sticky. It rose pretty much as the recipe said it would, too.
I made it in my 14 cup food processor, and the dough was sticky enough that I don't think it would have worked in a mixer, even if I cut back on the water a little.
I'm making honey wheat bread today and also the 100% whole wheat bread that was discussed in a recent thread.
As I recall, the explanation is that the carbon dioxide released by the yeast (or other forms of leavening) makes existing bubbles grow, but the reason it doesn't form a lot of new ones has to do with the surface tension that air bubbles need to exist, because the molecules of carbon dioxide released by the leavening are too small to easily combine into a new bubble. They can be absorbed into existing bubbles, though.
Chemical leavening may produce more new bubbles than yeast.
If you've ever been to a commercial bread factory (I hesitate to call them bakeries), they use aerating nozzles to inject gas bubbles into the dough, although in many cases it's closer to a batter. That's how they get the loaves so airy.
It has been a while since I made English muffins, but I seem to recall that if I let them rise longer, I got more holes.
I remember reading in one book on bread baking chemistry that the holes have to be formed during kneading, because they'll grow during rising but no new ones will be formed then.
We had fish with broccoli and five bean salad.
When I've made them, I've used Peter Reinhart's recipe in BBA, and they rose fine with lots of holes. Some English Muffin recipes are more like a pancake batter, and a ring is a must, others are more like a dough, his recipe is the latter though I use muffin rings anyway because it makes them rise up instead of out.
My wife actually prefers the Thomas multi-grain light English Muffins to home-made ones, in large part because they last longer. We've also tried the Wolferman's ones, they're way too big.
I think I paid around $18 for a pint of oysters back in December, which struck me as much higher than a year ago, I don't know if oysters are scarcer than normal or if this is just part of the inflation that the government claims isn't happening.
The canned cat food that we normally buy went from 50 cents a can to 55 cents and then to 60 cents over the past few weeks.
We had stuffed red peppers.
We had pizza bread for supper.
I made 3 loaves of Vienna bread today.
Ground beef stroganoff
Spaghetti here tonight.
I think if you had put the tube of frosting in warm water for a few minutes, it would have been easier to squeeze out.
Some people with Northern European ancestry have a gene that causes cilantro to taste like soap. My wife has that gene, I do not, but I'm not that fond of it in general.
Came out a bit sweeter than I expected, my wife thinks I should have added some pickle juice. My home-brew potatoes au gratin came out a bit watery, but edible.
