Density versus fluffiness of pumpkin bread

[jaybee65]

I made my very first ever attempt at baking something last night: pumpkin walnut bread. In the process, I discovered many things: Flour is messy! Walnuts work better in bread when you remember to crush them, rather than dumping them into the mix whole! Drinking alcohol as you struggle to measure ingredients precisely is probably not a good idea, but *does* make it less aggravating!

I followed the recipe (found online here) as carefully as I could, and the bread turned out pretty well for a first attempt. However, the texture is a lot fluffier and less dense than I was expecting -- it's rather cake-like, in fact. Is this likely to be due to the kind of flour I used? (The recipe called for All-Purpose flour.) Is there another type of flour that might produce something denser? Or is it something other than the flour that influences this? Any suggestions gratefully received!

Comments

[jaybee65]

It's the gluten that glues the bread together, so the stronger the flour, the more gluten it's got, the less fluffy the bread should, theoretically, be.

That makes a lot of sense! I may try a different flour, or maybe a mixture of all purpose and something else.

Yeast cooking is something I will leave until later...the idea of kneading, etc., is a bit daunting to tackle before I master simpler things.

[matgb]

Actually, yeast based stuff was amongst the first thing I got into; we were very skint, and decent bread was a luxury, but I really wanted some, so taught myself.

Apparently I "must have a knack for it" as lots of people tell me it's difficult, but I've not found it so.

As long as you make sure the dough is wet enough, but leave it to settle and soak in the water for a few minutes before starting kneading, it's fairly easy, and if you start with basic recipes, the worst that happens if you mess up is uneven texture, which doesn't hurt it much at all really.