Baking – is it okay to use shredded zucchini that smells a little sour for baking

1. Turn the oven down by about 25-50F. Quite often, ovens just blast the heck out of baked good, especially smaller apartment ovens. Larger, more expensive ovens tend to be better calibrated and will produce the proper 350F temperature usually required for banana bread. A cheap oven, which is still fine for banana bread, will overshoot the temperature and kill your banana bread. Turn the oven down a bit, and if necessary cook for longer. I have even turned my oven cooler AND cooked it for 15 minutes less time than the recipe required.

2. Check at 2/3 time. Don't let the bread run through the entire cooking time before checking it. Always check early. For some recipes, I take the banana bread out at 2/3 recommended time!

3. Don't over-beat the mixture. Despite being called banana "bread" it isn't a bread, it is a cake insomuch as it is made from a batter, not a long-kneaded dough. If you start mixing and it seems already too dry - STOP - and add a few tablespoons of milk to loosen the mixture up. If it's too dry in the initial stages, it will certainly be dry later, but a dry mixture also causes you to push harder, thereby causing the gluten to harden.

4. Don't cut down on butter/fat. This is really what prevents it drying out. Use creme fraiche, more butter, a bit less flour...

In my experience, the lighter the expected loaf, the more effective the windowpane test is.

The windowpane test will work best with high protein breads made out of very fine, or refined, flour with no gluten-interfering additives. This means "artisan" style loaves made out of bread flour, water, salt, and yeast. The gluten in these loaves is very well developed and they rely on this to create very light, open loaves.

If French bread is on one side of the glutinous spectrum, then a dense sourdough rye would be on the other. It would be very difficult to get a windowpane test to work with rye, because there is little gluten. It makes a very dense loaf.

Of course, your bread is going to be somewhere in the middle. 60% is a good ratio for standard sandwich types of bread. Any ingredients that will interfere with gluten development will make the windowpane test difficult. Coarse wheat flour will have less gluten and will cut the existing gluten; added fat will inhibit some gluten formation.

Either way, I wouldn't go by time. You want your dough to pull away from the side of the bowl and be "smooth and elastic". It should be less sticky and should spring back when manipulated. With a little practice it is easy to recognize this state while it is being kneaded and timing is no longer necessary.

Note

If the texture of your bread pleases you then the test isn't so important. If you would like to pass the windowpane test and make your loaves lighter and less crumbly there are a couple things that help:

1. If the recipe calls for fat, reduce it or leave it out
   Fat gives tenderness and flavor. I often reduce it, but leaving it out may leave a flavorless loaf.
2. Use higher protein wheat flour
   Bread should be made with hard red or white wheat. Soft wheat flour is used in Southern cooking that doesn't require as much gluten, such as biscuits.
3. Use finer wheat flour
   The finer the grind on your wheat flour, the less it will cut gluten strands.
4. Add gluten
   You can purchase essential wheat gluten. It is very helpful, especially with breads high in wheat flour.
5. Add acid
   A small amount of acid helps with gluten formation. You can grind up a vitamin C tablet (ascorbic acid) or add a little citric acid. Sometimes I will use leftover orange juice, but remember to take into account the liquid and flavor that it will add.