Recipe Thursday: Bread add-ins

If you remember, last week, I posted a recipe for wheat bread that includes dry milk. Most recipes don't include dry milk. But, dry milk (aka instant or non-instant milk powder) is nutrient rich, and a great way to increase the nutritional value of food. It also is great to have on hand when baking in case the milk in the fridge has gone sour! I have made mac'n'cheese with dry milk! (I've also made the boxed stuff with leftover marinara instead of milk - it is tasty!)

But back to bread. My first forays into baking bread were with the White Bread Plus recipe, found in some editions of Joy of Cooking. I wanted to try new things, but I was a very novice baker, and nervous about switching things up too much. In my book, on the same page as White Bread Plus was the Cornell Triple Rich Flour Formula.

Yup, the Cornell Triple Rich Flour Formula. Try saying that five times fast.

Basically, before you measure each cup of flour in a given recipe, you put:
1 tablespoon of soy flour
1 tablespoon of dry milk
1 teaspoon of wheat germ

in the bottom of the cup, then add your normal flour.

This adds a nutritional punch to your final product, and is a great way fortify white bread.

Like I said, it has been a while since I've made white bread, or used this recipe. I do remember that the look, feel and taste of the loaves with the CTRFF and those without were basically the same. You could some of the wheat germ, but it just gave a slightly grain-filled look to the bread. Similar to using Hodgson Mill flour instead of the Kroger wheat flour.

Here are some interesting links about CTRFF:
The history of the creator of Cornell Triple Rich bread
A Q & A from a 1980 edition of the Eugene Register-Guard about the benefits of using CTRFF with today's flour. (really, the whole page is interesting, including an article about home-baked bread being tastier than store bought, and a shower versus bath column)
A blogger's (anecdotal and unscientific) taste test!

Cornell Triple Rich Flour Formula and White Bread Plus in Joy of Cooking (pages 602 and 603) [this version of the bread recipe was written for a baker using a mixer - the process is a little different in my book, sans mixer]

Yup, I'm a little nutty.

What sort of things to you add to meals, breads and other foods to make them better?