Homemade bread high in calories?

I've recently dived into making my own bread and after playing around with measurements I've come up with the perfect loaf for my family I use Unbleached/unbromated white bread flour and Vital Wheat Gluten w/Vitamin C-not sure if that's typical. This is my base bread recipe for any loaf I make, including Raisin Bread I'm sure there are more calories in a loaf of fresh baked bread but I'd rather that then all the additives and preservatives, I counted over 15 ingredients to make a loaf of commercial bread, my loaf of home made bread has 8 and it tastes much better! I don't use oil, I use water and real butter.

You shouldn't need gluten added if you are using white flour.

The purpose behind added gluten in things like whole wheat, is whole wheat flour is very sharp. It grinds more coarsely, and leaves jagged bits. This literally deflates the bread, as it's harder for it to hold the bubbles from the yeast outgassing, so you get brick bread rather than a nice, high loft bread. Vital wheat gluten adds elasticity (and resistance to those bubbles bursting) to a dough.

My french is flour, water, olive oil, eggs, sugar, salt, yeast. That's it, and it's an awesome bread, and with an eggwash and some steam in the oven, can compete with any crusty baguette sold at an "artisan" shop.

I guess I need to run my recipes through the nutrition calculator,too! Fresh ground grains,btw, have more nutrients, especially the b-vitamins, which are easily destroyed. And, they are so much sweeter than store-bought whole grain flour because the oils haven't had a chance to start spoiling.

Dough enhancers help bread rise better. You can buy a commercial product called a dough conditioner or dough enhancer. Basically there are flours that need more help than other. Rye bread (for example) takes forever to rise.


1/2 teaspoon lecithin granules (added to the liquid ingredients).
3 Tbs. vital wheat gluten
A pinch of citric acid
A dash of ground ginger

The whats and whys are as follows:

Lecithin: Lecithin is a natural chemical found in both plants and animals that makes up cell membranes. Unlike most emulsifiers lecithin is naturally metabolized and has a number of recognized positive health benefits. Why use Lecithin? There are too many to mention, but lecithin is a great binding agent, aids in the emulsification of the fats in the bread which, in turn, makes a more consistent crumb as well as helps the bread remains softer by retaining more moisture.

A little bit of lecithin goes a long way in making a great loaf of bread; some places recommends 1 1/2 tsp. per loaf but we have found as little as a 1/2 teas. works well although your mileage may vary depending on your ingredients. Lecithin helps make your loaf lighter and stay fresher and is one of the two things I have found that can help give homemade bread a "store" texture without compromising the quality or nutrition of the loaf.

Gluten: Gluten is a protein naturally found in wheat and is responsible for the elastic structure in bread that makes bread, well, bread! The general idea is that the gluten in bread forms long strands in your bread. The fats you adds to the bread help these gluten strands slide and stretch better (thus fluffier bread).

Most flour has insufficient gluten so adding some gluten helps; even many "bread flours" (from high protein wheats like hard red spring wheat) can use a little help from some extra gluten--especially whole wheat varieties as the extra texture of the bran is a hindrance to forming an elastic loaf (ditto loafs with some coarser grains added in for texture). Non-wheat breads made from soy flour, oat flour, etc. don't have gluten so adding some will help there as well.

Gluten is natural as it is already in the wheat, but adding a small amount can compensate for low-protein flour as well as help a whole wheat bread gain the elastic texture that is typically associated with breads made from bleached non-whole wheat flours.

Recipes and recommendations vary a lot on how much you should add so you may need to experiment. Gluten is sold as vital wheat gluten, gluten flour, etc and you will need to be mindful of how much protein is present as it can vary from 40%-80% (most in the low 70% range).

Citric Acid: A simple acid found in citrus fruits, the benefit of using citric acid (or ascorbic acid, aka vitamin C) is that it helps create a more acidic environment for the yeast and helps reduce oxidization.

DON'T USE TOO MUCH!

BTW, on the ascorbic acid, make sure you get pure powder and not something with a lot of fillers and binders. Also, you don't need much (1/32nd to 1/16th of a teaspoon) for your bread. MORE IS NOT BETTER! A little really does work--just check out the "bread machine yeast" at the store as it typically has ascorbic acid, and not very much at that. Yet a little bit will make for some happy yeast.

Ginger: Yep, the good ol' powdered ginger in your cupboard, is a nice dough enhancer. It is a mild preservative (like lecithin) but the big perk is that yeast love ginger. It gives them a nice kick start and can be thought of as yeast snack food. And while a dash won't be enough to actually taste, it does help make a lighter, fluffier loaf of bread.


Lecithin, Gluten, Ascorbic/Citric Acid, and Ginger. That is all I added to the loaf of bread and it changed the original recipe that has a grainier, crumbly crumb to a loaf that is lighter and fluffier and retained more moisture. They are all natural ingredients and I didn't need to touch any unpronounceable chemicals and "stuff" you cannot even purchase at a store to begin with. (We purchased the lecithin, vital wheat gluten, and citric acid at a bulk food store).

How about using Splenda instead of sugar!

Not sure this will work. That small amount of sugar is helping to feed the yeast, and I don't know if yeast can feed on Splenda.

Try weighing the loaves and comparing that way.. like 100g of Nature's Own has X calories while 100g of homemade as Y calories. Might not be that different.

QFT

You do not need sugar or oil in homemade bread. This is my go-to recipe, and very versatile.

http://www.simplysogood.com/2010/03/crusty-bread.html

Crusty Bread

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon Instant or Rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 cups water

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast. Add water and mix until a shaggy mixture forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12 - 18 hours. Overnight works great. Heat oven to 450 degrees. When the oven has reached 450 degrees place a cast iron pot with a lid in the oven and heat the pot for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pour dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let set while the pot is heating. Remove hot pot from the oven and drop in the dough. Cover and return to oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove bread from oven and place on a cooling rack to cool.

eta: I get about 8 slices out of this, and with the flour I use (Gold Medal unbleached), it's 150 cals/slice. Not sure what Nature's Own is, but I'd take this healthier bread over one with chemicals or whatnot any day.

RedheadHen wrote: »

WOW!! Thanks SO much for ALL your input everyone!

My bread is WAY more dense than that loaf of Nature's Own and personally ... it tastes SO much better! Haha! I love the idea of cutting it with an electric knife! I am gonna do that to the loaf I have left and see how many slices I get. My slices using my bread knife were uneven and that drives me bonkers! Haha! I will try to half the sugar and use honey. Never thought of that! I know my bread is 181 per slice and that's for 2 loaves or 20 servings. I have 2 tbs of honey in there now, but could see cutting down on the sugar! Now it does go down if I bump it up to 24 slices - to 150 a slice. I can even see that cutting the sugar in 1/2 and using 2 tbs of honey would change it too! Yay!

I guess I will keep baking my bread! It is good and I like how everyone in the house wants to eat it over store bought! I have NO problems working it into my day. Just some extra jumping jacks and jogging in place for a little while will solve that issue! ;o)

Thank you all for your input and suggestions! I do feel much better about my homemade bread now!

Hi, I just found this old post through duckduckgo as I was searching for info about calories count for home baked bread.
It seems to me nobody's taking account for fermentation: yeast and sourdough eat the sugars of the flour and relise co2 (that makes bread rise) and other stuff (proteins etc) so the nutrients and calories of a fermented food are probably not the sum of the nutrients and calories of the ingridients...
So the question would be: how does fermentation affects the nutrients in the ingridients?

store bought breads are also thinner slices than what I can do with home made without it falling apart on me. could also be the issue if if hasn't been mentioned.

its been awhile since I made bread. i don't eat much of it but hubby might appreciate it. maybe today I will since I'm not going anywhere/doing anything lol

I always calculate mine to the gram weight if you want to add me to see what it comes out as

We bought a bread maker as store bought bread is just too sweet.
I have a zojirushi and make 1lb sugar free loaves. 260g flour 180ml water, milk powder, butter 12 g and 3g yeast.
Comes out great everytime. More recipes on their website.
Also make 50/50 wholemeal and white sugar free loaves. Need to add 15g of vital wheat gluten flour , and again, great loaf.
No idea on calorie count but has to relatively good.

RedheadHen wrote: »

Well I guess I want to know how Nature's Own is making bread. What are they subbing for flour. I mean I can see the calories will be high since flour is around 100 cals per 1/4 cup. My recipe called for 6 cups! That's like 2,400 calories in just flour alone! ACK!

I will not cut out bread from my diet. My choice there. I have always stuck to the idea that I will not cut out a food or a food group to loose weight. I will increase my exercise though to have those high calorie treats. Haha!

It's just disappointing to me that making my own bread may save me money but cost me calories. /

Any bakers out there that could suggest ways to lower the calories in a bread recipe?

You should compare calories per gram (or per 10 g or 100 g), not calories per slice. Nature's Own is significantly "airier" than my homemade whole wheat bread, as well as a shorter, narrower loaf, so even if I manage to slice it as thin (which I usually don't) my slices will be higher calorie.

But if you're only getting 20 slices total out of 2 loaves made with 6 cups of flour, you're cutting your slices even thicker than I do. I generally get 12 to 14 slices per loaf.

Again, compare by weight, not slice.


ETA:
DANG -- just realized I got suckered into a zombie thread.