After some trial and error I finally cracked the recipe for a soft white loaf using only EF FiberFlour. The answer was to add gluten, so trial and error ended up with 12% to 13% of the weight of the flour, with 80% hydration. I was aiming to make a version of shokupan (Japanese milk bread) which I bake a couple of times a week, but the lack of starch in FF means the yudane or tangzhong (a percentage of the flour gelatinised with boiling water to extend softness) doesn't gel. I did give it a go, though, just out of curiosity, but the loaf remained moist and soft even without the yudane – not as fluffy as some shokupan, which is often very springy, but good enough for me. It has the same crumb texture as a bakery's regular white sandwich loaf, but it's as flexible as a slice of shokupan.
So this is it:
400g EF FiberFlour
50g gluten powder
360g warmed milk
15g butter
7g salt
7g baking powder (I might omit this next time and see what happens)
15g yeast
1 egg
I did the initial kneading in a bread machine (my finger joints aren't what they used to be) and finished it off by hand. No second proofing: just shape and leave to rise for an hour. I also used the bread machine to bake it, but as I don't use the programmed loaf settings and just treat the machine as a dough mixer and mini oven, I don't know how this would work with a rapid or regular white loaf programme. Anyway, the dough rose to the top of the pan, which was indicative of the kind of crumb I was going to get. I think the temperature of the bread machine (Tower Pain et Delices) is about 350F/ 175C, and I baked it for 40 minutes, so if I were using an oven I'd probably stick with that.
As bread machines make ugly loaves, I might bite the bullet, clear out all the baking kit from my big oven, and do a proper job in a Pullman loaf tin.
I updated this a while ago but the system doesn't appear to have accepted it. In brief: I tinkered a bit more and got a better loaf – for my taste, anyway – at 350g of flour to 50g of gluten powder, with 290g - 295g milk and two tablespoons of dried skimmed milk. (Frequently used in Asian milk breads for a more tender crumb.) All other ingredients remain the same.
The extra milk takes it over 80% hydration, but that's to allow for the dried milk, which is optional, and there's a bit of leeway with all measurements anyway. If you skip the dried milk, stick with 280g of liquid milk. I let the dough prove for the full cycle in the bread machine after kneading this time, then punched it down and reshaped it for a second proving for another hour to 90 minutes at room temperature, because my machine doesn't have a proving-only option. When fully risen, the loaf is the same size as the 400g one, and I can slice it as thinly as I want without it falling apart.
If you want thin slices for fancy sandwiches, I'd recommend a slice cutting guide that holds the loaf snugly and has plenty of depth, At normal loaf height, it's a bit too soft to slice evenly without side support that goes all the way to the top. It also has a tendency to burn like brioche when toasted, especially when cut thinly, so very thick doorsteps are the way to go for toast, Japanese-style. I also tested thin slices in a single-slice camping toaster, the clamshell type that you place directly on a heat source, i.e. with the slice folded in half around the filling and crimped shut by the device, and it needed careful watching because it burned far faster than a regular thin/ medium sliced white bread. But it was worth the effort!