The ingredients added to breads determine their final texture and moisture level. Replace drying ingredients with those that encourage higher moisture levels. The choice of liquid, sugar and fats used in a recipe will help to add moistness to bread recipes.
Replace the white sugar in your recipe with an equal amount of brown sugar, or 3/4 the amount of honey. Both of these keep the bread moist after baking by attracting moisture from the atmosphere.
Use milk for the liquid in the recipe.
Add 1 tbsp. vegetable oil to the other wet ingredients in the recipe.
Mix quick bread or batter breads only enough to moisten the dry ingredients, leaving behind lumps. This prevents the formation of excess gluten. While gluten is good for yeast breads, too much gluten creates chewy or tough quick breads.
Place a small baking pan half-full of boiling water on the bottom rack or floor of the oven during baking to generate steam. This will keep the loaf moist as it bakes.
References
- "Cookwise"; Shirley O. Corriher; 1998
- "The Science of Good Food"; David Joachim, et al.; 2008
- "Good Eats 2: The Middle Years"; Alton Brown; 2010