April 25, 2022 - 4:08am
Whipping egg whites for enriched sweet bread
I've seen a few recipes that call for egg whites to be whipped with sugar before adding to kulich - something akin to a Russian panettone, but made for Easter.
Does it make any sense? It's bread, not cake. Lightness of the crumb is achieved with fermentation, not trapping air in eggs. Would it still make it even lighter?
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It usually helps when you have to mix an enormous amount of highly enriched, difficult to knead sticky dough by hand.
Normally, you would dissolve sugar (and salt) in liquid before adding it to the dough. Remember that sugar (and salt) in Russia, Ukraine and other post Soviet countries was not finely granulated (fine and superfine grades as in the West), their crystals were rather large, so the rule was to dissolve them.
But in kulich/paska there is very little liquid, and a lot of eggs and butter, so sugar is dissolved in egg whites and air bubbles are introduced this way, by mixing in foam, instead of by kneading the dough thoroughly by hand for an hour non stop
Air bubbles that are trapped in the bread dough due to kneading or adding foams are nuclei for the future pores in bread, further expanded due to fermentation. This method improves porosity, makes it even, gives fine even pores in the crumb, similar to the effect of intensive kneading to full gluten development which is the rule for kulich.
Thanks a lot for the explanation mariana, as usual very clear and comprehensive!
So does it mean that when making dough with a mixer and using modern sugar, this is not necessary?
Yes and no, Ilya. How many people own a mixer capable of making and intensely kneading a bucketful of dough once a year? The number of kulichis baked should feed the family for a week!
Only testing it in practice will help. Most city dwellers these days simply make several batches of kulich dough in a row in their bread machine, it kneads long enough to assure that the crumb is even, without giant holes. Whipping egg whites is not necesary. Those who own less powerful mixers, like KA, stil whip their egg whites with sugar in the mixer and then knead their kulich dough only to homogeneity to avoid mixer overload.
The goal is to avoid pannetone-like crumb which looks and feels alien in kulich, as bread defect (as bread made from lazy, underkneaded dough which is of course an offence, kulich is sacred). It should be more like pandoro crumb, fine and even. And pandoro dough is mixed for one hour in a mixer!
I see, I was not thinking of making a huge batch! Interesting comments about the crumb. I just baked some today using Rus Brot recipe with CLAS (and also it appears less enriched than a lot of other recipes), will see what kind of crumb I got. I kneaded with a small hand-held mixer with spiral attachments, it seemed to develop the gluten pretty well... But I only used 500g flour total, an I wouldn't want to deal with bucket-sized batches!
I am sure it will be alright, Ilya. I hope you will like it. I haven't baked this Tea Bread myself, let alone with CLAS, so I envy you! but Boris Vallejo from Spain did. His Tea Loaf looks like so
Source
That looks really nice! Yippee also baked (a lot!) of them: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66449/20201122-rus-brots-panettone-clas
Unfortunately I didn't have any proper molds (and didn't feel like buying a nearly single-purpose tall round metal pan), so we tried our hand at making them ourselves from baking paper, but that was only partially successful :) They smell great, but shape could be better. And I think related to that, the sides didn't brown so nicely and didn't support the loaves so well, so they sank a little :( I made one in a normal rectangular bread pan (because one of the forms collapsed completely during final proof and I scraped the dough into the pan and proofed it again), that browned much better and didn't have any sinking, so I blame the paper. Should have baked them longer. I'll post the pictures and taste review tomorrow, after we cut into them.
Traditionally, proper kulich is baked free form, Ilya, no molds, as a round loaf.
To this day it is baked like that in most households. The dough is dry to touch, medium consistency.
Cylindrical paper molds, as is cylindrical form overall, is a later innovation, but still the dough is sturdy enough, to stand tall unsupported when it proofs and bakes, unlike pannetone which is so soft, it has to hang inverted while cooling and its crumb setting.
If it's your first time, then I am sure you will be happy anyways.
Just had some tea bread with morning coffee, delicious! It is indeed less sweet and rich than kulich, so could be eaten more often than once a year :D I made it a little more eggy than the recipe (hate fractional egg counts, so rounded up), and also added some cardamom and increased the candied peel amount.
I didn't realize kulich used to be on the flat side. The dough must have been much stiffer than used now! I've watched a bunch of video with recipes, always the dough is quite soft... I think I'll order some paper molds online and will practice with the tea bread throughout the year (my girlfriend loved it a lot, said we should open a shop and sell them!), and maybe for Christmas or next year I'll try some super rich recipe.
This looks like panettone Ilya, must be delicious. There are so many enriched breads around the world to discover.
Benny
Thanks Benny - indeed the idea is similar to panettone, although the level of enrichment is lower and the process is different (in this CY-leavened version with CLAS much easier for sure!).