It's great that so many of us are baking bread. Few things smell better than bread baking and it's hard to beat the taste of homemade. Supplies of flour, yeast, etc., have been fickle at our HyVee and I have no intention of going there every day to see what arrived on the truck.
Fortunately, I've been stocking up on bread flour since early February and have about 25 lbs. of various brands (King Arthur; Pillsbury; Gold Medal) and about 15 pounds of HyVee's store brand of all-purpose flour.
In a stroke of dumb luck, I ordered yeast from Sam's Club back in December, so there are two 1-lb. bags of Fleischmann's Instant Yeast in the pantry.
I've been making white sandwich loaves, hamburger/sandwich buns and dinner rolls. I use a classic Cuisinart food processor to knead the dough which takes all of 90 seconds. Heavier doughs--cinnamon rolls and rye loaves, for instance--are kneaded by the KitchenAid mixer.
Now for the slightly controversial part: I use dough conditioner (from Prepared Pantry) in all bread/roll recipes--1/2 teaspoon per 3 cups of flour. Pizza dough gets Pizza Dough Relaxer, which makes stretching the dough far easier and produces a crust with a pizzeria-like texture--3/4 teaspoon per cup of flour.
While both dough conditioner and dough relaxer add some chemicals to the mix, I find both advantageous. Sandwich loaves and buns/rolls have a great texture and stay moist and fresh longer. Pizza dough is easier to work with and has what I think is an improved texture.
I know that the whole point for many home bakers is avoiding additives altogether...but I can't argue with the results.
Eddie--you mentioned in a post in the As The Tub Turns forum that you're dosing out yeast parsimoniously. Up to this point, I've always been fairly heavy-handed with yeast, but now that it can be scarce, I've also reduced it to a teaspoon per 3 cups of flour (a standard loaf). Seems to work just fine, although it can take a little longer to rise. If I have anything at this point, it's time, LOL. That was a great suggestion and I wanted to echo it in this thread.
