Thank you so much for your kind words. Fresh yeast is indeed different from "Active yeast" and "Instant yeast". You will find more info here - http://www.foodsubs.com/LeavenYeast.html. The Whole wheat pastry flour has a higher starch and lower gluten content than regular Whole wheat flour. This helps to give more tender result to the baked product. I am not sure if this is available in Mumbai. To see ideal substitute see this table - http://chefinyou.com/2009/07/substitutes-in-baking-101/. Glossary is a huge process...will try to do it when time permits for sure :) Thanks for the suggestion.

I am not sure if it will. It might but I have never done that way.

The reason for the bottom being hard was the heat of the oven. May be your bread got cooked a little faster and quicker. Next time you can place it in a double sheet pan so that the heat can penetrate slowly or you can lower the heat a bit and bake longer. The addition of wheat gluten is only develop that texture and stretchiness along with additional protein boost. It does not harm the recipe as such with its omission. Hope this helps :) --DK

Thats the spirit! I am sure next time it would come out perfect :) Adding gluten to this bread (if available) will make it less dense. And yes - def. try the chocolate bread! It is out of this world. Send me your pictures if possible :) Wud love to see how it came out for you. Thank you so much for the feedback :) --DK

HI Renu, the time taken to double varies from place to place depending on the weather you enjoy. The more humid the weather shorter the time. We have a moderate climate - not too cold, not too hot and it takes about 1 hour - 1 hr 30 minutes to double. If you are not too sure, then try keeping the dough in a warm oven (preheat at its minimum setting for 1-2 minutes, switch off making sure that the oven is only slightly warm ). You can alternatively switch on the Oven lights to give heat. One more point to note - when baking the wholegrain dough does not rise as much as say with bread flour/ all purpose flour but it does rise decently enough to know that the dough is ready. Hopefully this helps -DK

Hi Subhashini, Thank you so much :) I dont own a convection oven hence am not sure. But from what I have read, this might help you - I dont know your setting but the general rule while cooking in an convection setting for baking would be place the food on topmost rack or elevate the food with a rack. This is to allow the hot air to circulate under the pan. If you have the combination setting (microwave+convection), then it would work best (at least from what I have read) since using them both helps the food to cook uniformly yet quickly. But whatever you cook, make sure to keep checking regularly since yours might cook faster than mentioned time in my post and might either burn/become dry . Hope this helps --DK :)

Hi Aarti, Vital Gluten is the natural protein found in wheat. Usually when baking with wheat flour, you will find that it does not rise as well as baking with all purpose flour. This is due to wheat flour having less gluten. So adding this helps to give it a lighter texture to a bread. This is not a must in a recipe and you can skip it if you dont get in your area. The bread will be lightly dense but it does not affect the taste. As for the cake, it mostly depends on the recipe you are following. Using Cake flour helps to make softer and fluffier cakes. Otherwise beating eggs and folding them into the cake mixture also helps. What the beating does is that it creates air packets making the cake softer and fluffier. Hope this helps -DK

Hi Diane - I dont own a bread machine, hence am not really sure about baking one in these. But I am sure this can be made easily in one. I read somewhere that for all the wheat breads, machines which have a special cycle for "Wheat/wholegrain" work the best. I hope this was useful --DK

Hey Pavani- I store in multiple ways not any precise way every time. If I know its going to last me for a week or so - I store it in a breadbox http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tfGC7tOlrdk/R05laZ9nLeI/AAAAAAAABso/eWxvrLjIKzI/s400/MoMA-bread-box.jpg Otherwise I also reuse store bought bread covers. I also use brown paper bags to store my breads. If its going to get over say 1-2 days - I sometimes use zip lock plastic bags too - Mostly I store in my fridge - it stays fresh - otherwise here the weather makes it moldy pretty fast for me. Hope this helps