I’d been making my own whole wheat bread for years before I learned about dough enhancer. What IS dough enhancer? It’s a natural product used to make a lighter, fluffier, and delicious bread product.

Commercially, most breads are made with dough enhancer, and for good reasons. Their end goal (especially for their 100% whole wheat breads) is that light and fluffy bread we all adore. Dough enhancer delivers. And it will deliver for you too—especially if your objective is that same light and fluffy whole wheat bread loaf. Without it, whole wheat bread tends to be heavy and coarse.

Store-bought dough enhancers have basically four key ingredients: gluten, acid, starch, and sugar (of course they are called other things but that is what they are). These four ingredients play key roles in developing a better bread texture. They do this by developing and strengthening the bubbles that make bread rise.

GLUTEN. It’s the natural protein found in wheat. You can think of it as the elastic in a balloon.

ACID. This strengthens the balloon so it doesn’t pop too early (if it pops too early your bread falls; very bad and very sad.)

STARCH. It adds an extra layer to your balloon so it won’t break or pop (think of it like the additive that’s added to helium balloons so they last longer). This is especially important when baking with whole wheat flour because its coarse texture can pop or weaken the gluten.

SUGAR. This is what the yeast eats, what causes it to grow. Yeast + sugar creates air bubbles that cause the dough to rise (think of air filling the balloon).

All good stuff to know. So I bought a dough enhancer and was I glad. It took my whole wheat bread to drool-worthy status. In fact, the bread was so good that my daughter even started selling it to earn money for a school trip!

So dough enhancers are good news. But the even better news is, you don’t have to buy a commercial dough enhancer to get the same results. You can make your own natural dough enhancer, and 3 out of the 4 things needed are likely already around your house. All you need is gluten (this is the one ingredient you may need to buy), WHITE vinegar for your acid, potato flakes or instant mashed potatoes (NOT GEMS) for the starch, and sugar (which your bread recipe will already call for).

Here's what you do:

GLUTEN: use 1/2 to 1 tablespoon per cup of flour (this means before you measure a cup of flour place the gluten in the bottom of your cup and then measure flour as usual). There are a few brands to choose from. King Arthur Flour and Bob’s Red Mill are both readily accessible and good choices.

WHITE VINEGAR: use the same amount of vinegar that you are using for yeast (i.e. 1 teaspoon yeast to 1 teaspoon vinegar).

POTATO FLAKES: use 1/8 to 1/4 cup per loaf of bread; experiment to see what works best in your recipe. (Don’t substitute potato pearls for the flakes; they don’t dissolve as easily and are artificially flavored which you will be able to taste in your bread.)

Finally, I’ll close with a favorite whole wheat bread recipe you might want to try. I call it No-Fail because it’s that easy.

Add Recipe to Cook'n