Sugars

Sugars                

There is a huge difference if we are looking to fermented or non-fermented foods here. If we take sugar(s) in yeasted foods they dominantly have the function to facilitate the speed of the fermentation process: up to 4 Baker’s%  this will ‘fly’, then we see a drop in the fermentation speed due to an increase in ‘osmotic’ pressure. The higher sugar amount will now also start to sweeten our bread, but interferes with our intent to form a glutennetwork for a consistent breadstructure. As a result, our bread also becomes softer and will appear ‘fresh’ for a longer period of time. The sweeter doughs are also more sensitive to higher temperatures as the high amount of sugar poses already a hugh stressor for the yeast. Formulations with 15 Baker’s% or more tend also to be lower than lean or a minimal addition of sugar in the bread?

In non-fermented foods sugar can go into different ways: pastries, cookies and biscuit have a limitation on how much sugar they can handle without compensating for other ingredients such as liquids and fat. A rotary moulded dough that is (too) high in sugar will start to stick to the mold, having issues to release complete and will spread more during baking. The same dough reduced in sugar, might either become crumbly or requires more mixing intensity to have a proper consistency with the risk of gluten formation.. which might result in a sweet cracker.

Looking at cakes we see that an increase of about 25% results in a coarser structure, somewhat less uniform, but more volume and tenderness. A reduction of 25% will give a finer pore structure, but less volume and tenderness. Of course, the processing in cakes, that is specific gravity or density has similar effects. If sugars exceed 120 Baker’s% the baking process is strongly influenced, with a risk of underbaking. 

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