I made a double batch because there was enough tangzhong to do so and because I wanted to test how the bread 'kept'. Also, I cut back on the amt. of sugar when I made the bread. The tangzhong definitely helps in keeping the bread fresh longer. Mine is still relatively soft over 24 hrs. after baking which impresses me enough to try adapting this technique to some of my other bread recipes. My loaves had a very nice crispy crust fresh out of the oven. Note that I'm baking in a toaster oven and the top of the loaves were very close to the top of the oven. Maybe it's just me (or the flour I used--Pillsbury Bread flour, but I thought the bread was lacking a bit in flavor. OR, since the recipe doesn't call for any salt & I didn't add any, perhaps that's part of the problem...salt helps to rein in the action of yeast and I noticed that the dough was really spunky and rose quite fast. No doubt, retarding the rise would help a lot to develop flavor. Nice crumb but the bread has a little different 'mouth feel'. Kinda' weird but not necessarily disagreeable. Agree that it would make great rolls which is what I'll likely do with the recipe next time, along w/ a bit of salt & at least an overnight ferment in the refrigerator to help develop more flavor. All in all, the recipe is worth trying. Thank you for sharing it with us, Pat.

Teresa, this bread is so good even after making major screw ups. Decided to try it in the bread machine on dough cycle with baking in the oven. Just as I was preparing to drain the fruit and add it, I found out a person I'd contacted about getting some fertile chicken eggs from to set under my broody hen had six for me. Out of show quality roosters and for free. And he said come and get them now. The bell rang for the addition of the drained fruit and nuts. I knew I hadn't drained the fruit enough, but I was in a hurry. Took off and halfway to my destination realized the dough cycle would be over a good while before I'd get back home. Sorry, but I really wanted those special eggs. The guy showed me all his show birds and got a lot of info from him. By the time I got back home I think the dough cycle had been done for two hours. I had a very wet dough that had risen in the pan then collapsed. Oh well, try to save it. Dumped it out on a liberally floured surface and kneaded in more flour, put it in the pans and let it rise. It did rise a little over the top of the pans.Tried my best and stuck it in the oven. It came out at 25 minutes completely done and beautiful except I didn't get the fruit and nuts distributed well. I've already eaten nearly half a loaf. Love it! Next time I think I'll add more cinnamon, follow the recipe on draining the fruit and not running out in the middle of it to get fertile eggs. Madonna

When it comes to bread recipes (machine or manual), the flour measurements are just a good guess (and sometimes they're not even "good"). Gluten amounts in flour will vary from bag to bag and brand to brand; and gluten is a main determinate for proper hydration. If your flour is stored in the bag in a humid kitchen, then there will be more moisture in the flour than someone who stores flour in an air-tight container in the dry environment of the freezer/refrigerator - as a secondary source for some hydration. If you change the type of flour called for in the recipe - from all-purpose to high-gluten bread flour (or vise versa) - or you substitute part of the high-gluten flour for a low-gluten flour (rye, spelt, kamut, barley, oat, etc.) - you'll also need to alter the hydration. As others shared, you MUST check and adjust the hydration as needed. Start checking it about 5 minutes into the mixing/kneading. You want the dough to be formed into a soft, sticky ball. A solid ball is going to be too dry. When you touch the dough ball with your finger, a tiny bit should stick to your finger. A dry or stiff dough ball will result in dry bread just like making bread by hand. You can also switch from sugar to honey and you may find you have a crumb that is more moist. I'm another who never bakes in the Zo - it's just my main tool for mixing and kneading. I won't even let the dough rise in the machine - I'd rather control that in a dough rising bucket. Sometimes I want a long slow cool rise, which you can never get in a bread machine. I use freshly-milled flour, so allowing a timed rise in the bread machine tends to over-proof the dough. Freshly-milled flour doesn't have the extensibility commercial white flour has. Bread machines were designed to use commercial flour in them, and I never use commercial flour. I also bake breads to temperature - checked with an instant read thermometer. -Grainlady

Good article, Writersblock! Thank-you for posting it! There wasn't anything in it that I hadn't already been informed of by other articles posted in this forum, but it's very well written and a great overview. One caveat: I've found that vital wheat gluten improves my home milled, whole grain sourdough because there's a delicate interplay between the protein content, starches, and yeasts, that can exhaust the dough before it's fully baked. Either VWG or commercial yeast will continue to be a crutch in my baking, and I'm okay with that. I'm not put off by what pure protein looks like raw, which is made much of in the article. I'm cool with saitan, too (no, I'm not making my own, but it's great grilled in a sandwich with lots of veggies). Of course you can make weird crap out of pure protein. That doesn't prove anything! Like in middle school when the kids all whisper that the hot sauce at Taco Bell is so vicious you can shine pennies with it. It's not. It's just inefficient. There's a lot of vinegar in the hot sauce. Pure vinegar shines pennies even better! Since most of the article is about poking holes in myths, I find this particularly ludicrous. I kept waiting to be told why VWG is bad, other than silly games, and it never came out. What they proved is that you need digestive enzymes to transform protein. Duh.