Is vital wheat gluten "cheating"?

When it comes to baking loaves, I tend to be a bit of a purist:  whole grains, water, salt, love.

But as anyone who has tried baking with 100% whole grains knows, hockey pucks (or yummy-scented doorstoppers...your choice) are not uncommon.  The best way I've found to help with this is by adding vital wheat gluten (about 2-3% of the rest of the flour weight), but is that "cheating"?  (And yes, this has caused me a little inner turmoil...I'm asking for real!)

I don't think it's cheating. We use it in breadmaker breads. It adds a lovely texture to homemade bread, which is better quality and much more economical. There are other, slow methods to achieve some of the same effect, but they are time consuming. I think gluten gets more unfavourable press than is warranted. It's not really an issue for most people. My 2c.

Thanks!  I agree about the bad press.  There are certainly some folks for whom it's an issue (I'm related to one), but I have zero qualms about eating it.

As for other methods, I've tried vinegar, a really long autolyse (as in 12+ hours), etc.  I even tried sifting out the bran and then reincorporating it later during shaping.  Some work better than others (I really don't recommend the sifting approach!), but yeah, gluten has always been the "magic" ingredient needed.

I love adding vital wheat gluten, I use it in a no knead dough, in 1/6 sized hotel pans.
The expansion is significant, not as crazy good as high gluten white flour, but still great.
The dough hits the preheated pans , it gets oven spring, when it hits the sides, it's forced to expand upwards.
Whole wheat and dark rye both come out great.

I can't say I've had much of an issue getting wholegrain wheat to rise. Wholegrain rye isn't meant to rise much and you don't eat it like a sliced white bread


That is as "fluffy" as rye will get, but it's still delicious and eaten here for at least 1 meal a day and often for 2.

As to cheating, no it's just a different recipe I wouldn't call it wholegrain bread afterwards but I would still happily eat it.

That's a mighty fine lookin' rye!  

The wheat you are using makes a difference. We recently lost a supplier of whole wheat and the replacement does not rise as well.

Also, the recipe I use in my bread machine calls for it, and it certainly gives it a better texture. That said, I'm only using 75% whole wheat with 25% unbleached and about a tablespoon of wheat germ added as well.

My bread machine recipe calls for an egg. Adding a duck egg instead of a chicken egg makes a noticeable difference also. Duck eggs are awesome in baking!

That said, I make a no-knead bread with my 5 year-old and still happy rye sourdough babies and in that recipe I use no gluten nor any egg. However, it calls for much more unbleached flour and I haven't been gutsy enough to try it at a higher percentage of whole wheat flour. It's not an everyday thing, so I'm "cheating" too, just in a different way!

Huh...that's a good point about the wheat.  Funny you should mention that, HEB (local grocery store chain) around here seems to be suddenly and entirely out of whole wheat flour.  Had to go with a different store, and I'm wondering now if that wheat will fare similarly.

I haven't used eggs in baking in quite a while (we went plant-based a few years back, so it's flax for us).  What effect were you noticing when using/switching egg types?  Was it about the texture of the crumb, the structure, the color, other?

Don't be scared of the whole wheat with no-knead.  It's actually very much like what I do for sourdough (though I've been adding a little rye and barley to tweak the flavor).  A loooooong autolyse (30+ minutes, preferably measured in hours) is your friend for sure, but aside from that it's just the usual wet-handed stretch-and-fold goodness.  With 70% hydration (80% if I added WVG) it works well.

I think I've started taking that kind of mentality...there's more than one way to bake a loaf, and this is just the way I like to do it. :)

Unless you are selling to others without disclosing it, I wouldn't worry about it. I like it in some of my breads, others don't need it. I guess I've never understood this kind of concept of cheating. Who are you cheating? Yourself? Seems odd, but that's just me.

Brian Guetzlaff wrote:I haven't used eggs in baking in quite a while (we went plant-based a few years back, so it's flax for us).  What effect were you noticing when using/switching egg types?  Was it about the texture of the crumb, the structure, the color, other?

The bread rises higher - instead of finishing just level with the bread pan, it would be 3/4" higher. I'd say the bread was "lighter" - maybe the air gaps are larger, but not big holes, just plenty of small holes. We normally use the bread machine bread for toast and sandwiches, so I'm not wanting big air spaces.
And wrote:

Don't be scared of the whole wheat with no-knead.  It's actually very much like what I do for sourdough (though I've been adding a little rye and barley to tweak the flavor).  A loooooong autolyse (30+ minutes, preferably measured in hours) is your friend for sure, but aside from that it's just the usual wet-handed stretch-and-fold goodness.

You sound way more professional about it than I do. I put the dry ingredients in a greased bowl, measure 1 cup of my rye sourdough babies into a two cup measure and top it up with warm water, stir it into the dry ingredients just folding over, rather than stretching, and adding a bit more water if it feels too stiff or there's flour left at the bottom. I stick a plate over the bowl as a lid and let it sit over night to rise. If the house is cold, I heat up my hot rice packs and set them under and around the bowl with a towel to hold the heat in. Next morning, I heat the cast iron casserole in the oven as it heats up for about 1/2 hour, and use a spatula to push the dough into the casserole, put the lid on and bake. In this case I don't care if the holes are a bit bigger as it's normally the sort of thing I serve with a soup or stew. My friends will even eat it, and they're fussy, so that says to me, it's OK!

I can't seem to keep up with a a sourdough colony, I would probably have better rise if that's what I used.
That photo is of true rye, quite beautiful!
I've been am aiming for  the Americanized version,  noted for using coffee or coco to darken it, and while it is dense, it still is more like wheat bread than not.
I haven't made it in quite some time so the  details are fuzzy, but the gluten allowed me to use a lot less wheat flour and more rye flour.

William Bronson wrote:I haven't made it in quite some time so the  details are fuzzy, but the gluten allowed me to use a lot less wheat flour and more rye flour.

My recollection is that rye flour is lower in gluten, which is why it tends to make a denser bread. Years ago I read about all the steps that *real* rye bread goes through and decided Hubby could buy it if he wants it! I'm not completely convinced that much of what is sold as rye has that high a percentage of rye flour in it.

The sourdough rye I make has whatever quantity of rye is in the cup of starter which only gets fed rye so that's about 1/2 cup and then I add another 1/4 cup to my dry ingredients when I make it up. So that's about 3/4 cup rye to 3 1/2 cups other flours.

And wrote:

I can't seem to keep up with a sourdough colony, I would probably have better rise if that's what I used.

Somewhere along the way, I not only started storing it in the fridge to slow it down, but when I feed it, I only add 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water - and we're on a well, so there's no issue of chlorine.  I got a thrift shop set of measuring cups, and the 1/4 cup lives in the rye flour bin so that also helps. That's enabled me to keep the current one alive for at least 5 years.

I've been able to find "dark rye" flour at the store, but it still doesn't get quite as dark in bread form as other rye breads seen online.  Meh...the taste is pretty darn good, and that lingers longer than the visual.  :)