China Shopping Tip: Vital Wheat Gluten

I recently posted the whole wheat loaf bread I've been making. I found that trying to include as much whole wheat flour as I could also meant having to add some wheat gluten to the dough. According to the label on Bob's Red Mill brand, "Vital wheat gluten is made from the natural protein found in the endosperm of the wheat berry...added to bread dough, it helps retain the gas and steam from baking and gives more volume to the baked bread. It can be especially helpful for baking breads made with coarse, whole grain flours and cereals." For those of you in China, there are sellers that have a local version of it for sale on Taobao. Its called 谷阮粉. It runs about Y6 for 500g. I'd highly recommend just using the local one. I am currently in the US and I went to Target today for some groceries. The Bob's Red Mill brand vital wheat gluten was over $7 for about 600g. Crazy! I have been trying to increase the whole wheat content of many of my yeast breads. I've found that adding a couple teaspoons of the gluten per cup of flour really helps with them not being too dense. Happy whole grain baking!