Dairy Whey added to preferment Lehmann dough for better browning of the crust January 25, 2011

The preferment Lehmann dough ball with the added dairy whey was baked today into a pizza. The pizza did brown better with the dairy whey added.  The crumb was even moister with dairy whey added.  This dough ball did open easily.

This pizza did have much better browning than my other preferment Lehmann doughs without the added dairy whey.  The taste of the crumb was even better.

Peter posted this post on what dairy whey does in dough.

Norma,

We have been paying the most attention recently to the browning issue because that was the issue that was yelling at us the loudest. However, in addition to helping with crust coloration, dairy whey also affects the texture/structure and flavor of the baked goods in which it is used, and apparently has attributes like hygroscopicity (it attracts water from its surroundings) that helps retain moisture in the dough (and helps retard staling). I observed many of these other effects when I did my dairy whey experiments some time ago but I wasn't sure how pronounced they would be in a dough such as yours using a poolish preferment. However, I found a good, comprehensive discussion of the effects of dairy whey in baked goods in an article at

http://www.usdec.org/files/Publications/1BAKERY.pdf


If you read that article, even casually without trying to understand all of the science, I think you will have a much better idea as to the role that dairy whey plays in baked goods.

Peter

Norma