Bread – use unbleached flour in quickbread

Good Answer Hobodave....tacking onto that:

Most southern U.S. brands (White Lily, Martha White) of all-purpose flour are bleached because southerners tend to make more quick breads (biscuits, cornbread, hoecakes, pancakes, as well as cakes, pie crusts, cobblers) where tenderness is desired. White Lily has just started producing unbleached all-purpose flour as well.

Brands from the Northeast (King Arthur) and midwest are usually unbleached because those regions tend to make more yeast breads and the additional gluten forming capability of unbleached flour produces better results.

National U.S. brands (Pillsbury/Gold Medal) often produce both types or stick with unbleached.

Cake flour is always bleached (usually chlorine gas).

More information on differences in types of flour can be found in my article titled "Flour Power"

Damn, that looks good. I've never made this particular type of bread before, but here are some things that I do know which might help:

Butter is (roughly) 10% water and 90% fat, while lard is 100% fat. So if you substitute one for the other, you should adjust the amount of water in the recipe accordingly. The flavor will be a little different, but I bet either one would work.

I would not assume AP flour. In fact, I'd assume high-gluten bread flour. The gluten is what creates those fibers. It's the fat that keeps it tender.

This looks very similar to a brioche, so you might want to look at brioche recipes to learn some of the principles. One thing that most of them will tell you is to to knead the dough to develop the gluten fibers, and then add the butter. This I think is the key. I know that fat can keep gluten molecules from sticking together into strands, so if you add the fat later, you should wind up with strands of gluten surrounded by fat.