Contrary to popular belief, sugar isn’t just used to make food and beverages sweet. Although sugar does sweeten food, it serves a variety of purposes in breadmaking beyond just flavor. What does sugar do to bread? Why is there sugar in bread? Is sugar necessary in a bread recipe? I did the same questions for myself, and this is what I learned:
Numerous bread varieties contain sugar because it has uses besides just providing sweetness. Let’s take a look at each one:
Since yeast cells are living things, they require food to sustain their metabolism. A disaccharide called sugar, also known by its scientific name sucrose, is created by joining two hexose sugars, fructose and glucose.
Enzymes that yeast produces allow sucrose’s bonds to be broken down and the hexoses to be separated. They will then enter glycolysis, where they are simplified further.
Then, either through the Krebs cycle, they will produce carbon dioxide and water, or through alcoholic fermentation, they will produce carbon dioxide and ethanol.
Enzymes convert starches (chains of sugars) into the straightforward hexose sugars required by yeast.
Table sugar is added to bread dough to help the yeast work more quickly because it is quickly broken down into the simple sugars sucrose and fructose.
The availability of simple hexose sugars causes a quick release of carbon dioxide gas, which causes bread dough to rise more quickly.
But when there is not enough sugar or oxygen, the yeast starves and begins to respire anaerobically.
For standard yeast bread, anaerobic respiration leads to alcoholic fermentation. Half of the sugars that the yeast breaks down will ferment and turn into ethanol (alcohol) rather than just CO2.
The majority of the ethanol produced during baking evaporates, leaving a lovely aroma of burning and undistilled alcohol to flavor the bread.
Sugar will feed the yeast in the recipe, and when the yeast and oxygen combine to form a dough, the dough will rise quickly and produce a lighter-tasting bread.
A lot of sugar can be produced by mixing table sugar with sugars made from the breakdown of moistened flour.
Although not all sugars taste sweet, any extra sugars that the yeast doesn’t use could give the bread sweet flavors.
A dough with a lot of sugar forms robust bonds with water molecules. Osmotic stress is the result of the bonds preventing the gluten and yeast from accessing water. Because of the tight gluten bonds created as a result, the dough’s ability to stretch is diminished.
Because the dough is less flexible as a result of the sugar, the bread has a softer crumb.
A tiny bit of sugar will produce a tightly packed breadcrumb that’s perfect for rolls and dinner bread.
Cakes, brioche, and other pastries have light, fluffy textures because they contain a lot of sugar in the dough.
Additionally, it reduces the rate at which water can escape by securing the moisture within the crumb structure.
Well, this browning is mainly due to Maillard’s reactions. When proteins are heated in the oven, these enzymatic reactions take place.
Bread with sugar added accelerates caramelization and Maillard reactions, which gives the crust more color and a sweeter flavor. A smoky aroma is also left to perfume the loaf.
You should be cautious not to add too little or too much sugar during the proofing period because it can accelerate the rise time.
Making significant deviations from a recipe can harm your dough. I only use a tiny bit in my beginner’s bread recipe, just enough to give it a little extra food without making it violently produce gas!
What Does Sugar Do To Bread?
Most simple bread recipes call for sugar, but many people don’t fully comprehend why, so they might add it for the wrong reasons. To help you understand why you are adding sugar, let’s take a closer look at what sugar does.
Sugar is frequently added to bread to simply shorten the time it needs to rise, according to most people.
Because sugar is an “easy” food source for the yeast, they can feed much more easily and produce carbon dioxide. By adding sugar directly to the dough, the yeast will have easier access to the sugar than it would otherwise have to through the starches in the flour.
They can consume the sugar so quickly that they produce gas more quickly, hastening the rise.
Do be careful with this though. Too much sugar can be detrimental because it actually slows down the fermentation. Due to the fact that sugar and flour are both hygroscopic, too much of either can draw water out of the yeast cells, damaging and killing them, or restrict the yeast’s ability to move freely throughout the dough, preventing them from accessing more food and producing gas.
There is no denying that sugar improves food flavors. The majority of the food industry adds sugar to products, whether they are mass-produced or simply added by restaurants to make their food taste better.
You can almost always be sure that some sugar has been added to a mass-produced product unless it specifically states that there isn’t any added sugar. Similarly, many restaurants probably add sugar to some of their menu items.
Many commercially produced loaves of bread and homemade loaves alike contain sugar simply because it enhances their flavor. Adding sugar is a simple way to improve (and increase the addictiveness of) quick bread, despite the fact that bread can arguably be made to taste even better with enough fermentation time.
Anything that turns golden brown (or overbrowned) does so because of the sugars in that particular food. Similar to what you get on the outside of a seared steak, that dark crust you get on a beautifully baked loaf of bread. Let me explain.
The browning occurs due to something called the Maillard reaction. Simply put, this reaction occurs when heat caramelizes the bread’s sugars, giving them a more appetizing and savory darker brown hue. Without sugar, the bread simply wouldn’t brown properly. This reaction is what makes anything caramelize, like a steak.
If you’ve ever attempted to bake bread that has been overproofed, you may have noticed that it doesn’t brown very well or even at all. This is due to the yeast using up all of the sugar in the dough, which prevents the Maillard reaction from happening.
Adding extra sugar will allow it to caramelize more/faster. Although this is great for smaller baked goods that are baked at a low temperature, too much sugar in bread will cause it to overbrown or burn if it is baked for an extended period of time or in a high heat environment.
Sugar might be able to help you if you’re looking for that soft bread like you get at the grocery store.
Sugar draws moisture away from the flour because it is hygroscopic, which can prevent the development of gluten. While not ideal for bread that needs a lot of gluten (typically chewier bread, like a good sourdough loaf), it can be excellent for bread that you want to have a soft, delicate texture to.
For some types of bread, less gluten development means that the bread will crumble more easily.
It’s all about finding a good balance because you still need enough gluten development for the dough to expand and rise properly.
We are all familiar with the struggle of preventing stale bread. Since some types of bread can lose a lot of moisture, it is not ideal for freshly baked bread to become stale or dry within a couple of days.
Fortunately, sugar retains water better than flour alone, so it can prolong the freshness of your bread.
Naturally, everything depends on how much sugar is added to the bread. If you only use a tablespoon, you probably won’t notice much of a difference.
Do You Need To Add Sugar To Bread?
No, you don’t need to add sugar to bread is the quick and simple response to this question, but that’s not a satisfactory response.
You see, a lot of bread can taste great without any additional sugar, if not even better than the majority of other bread, especially the supermarket variety. There are, however, numerous bread varieties that require sugar to be what they are.
Therefore, in order to truly answer the question, lean or savory bread can taste great without sugar. In fact, it’s best to let this kind of bread ferment for a long time so that the flavor can develop naturally. Sweet bread does require sugar (surprise, surprise), but this is primarily done to give the bread a sweet flavor. It wouldn’t be the same without it.
Is there a lot of sugar in bread?
The amount of sugar in each type of bread varies. Most sliced bread contains about 2-4% of sugar content.
The majority of the sugar in bread is typically a naturally occurring sugar.
Raw flour contains naturally occurring sugars, with approximately 1. 4-2. 1g for every 100g of flour.
The amount of sugar that is immediately absorbed when digested increases as more starch is converted into simpler sugars.
Grains are used to make flour, which is primarily made up of starch, protein, dietary fiber, and minerals. The type of grain and the growing environment affect how much sugar is present in raw flour.
Nowadays, sugar is a fairly common ingredient in bread. Given all the advantages of adding sugar, it is easy to understand why it is used in commercial production.
However, the extra calories and accelerated production are bad for us.