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bagpuss

Joined: 09 Dec 2004
Posts: 10507
Location: cambridge

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 11:11 am Post subject:

tawny owl wrote:

Well, I think that's the point, isn't it? On its own, it would be fine, but it's not on its own, and worse still, most of the sugar we ingest is hidden.

I guess my point there was anyone who is concerned enough about their diet to be regularly making their own bread and thinking about whether putting sugar in it is the right thing to do probably isn't consuming large quanities of processed food with no regard for their sugar content

Thinking about our diet and being aware of what goes into processed foods if you do consume them is a good thing and more people should do it but if you are so worried about the amount of sugar you consume you are debating whether a tsp or so of sugar in a bread recipe is a good idea I personally think you are taking it too far. A balanced diet is important which not only means eating lots of fruit and veg and oily fish etc but also eating fat and sugar in their more processed forms on occassion

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 11:14 am Post subject:

I don't generally put sugar in bread, nor milk/milk powder, as I find that white flour is pretty sweet anyway and with the activated yeast and a longish programme perhaps started with warmish water, I get a good rise without sugar. I think I can taste the sugar when I do use it.

I put honey or malt extract in to wholemeal bread, because I find that without it it tends to be heavier, although this is quite sweet anyway.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:01 pm Post subject:

Bugs wrote:

The bread machine you (and I) have is better at bread that doesn't have sugar in it than the other models I've had. Takes longer to bake, so I guess that isn't surprising.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:28 pm Post subject:

My understanding was that breadmaking machines were about speed, and needed a consistant recipe to produce consistant results from the automated cycle.

Allowing the yeast to generate CO2 quickly (preferentially) from the added sugar would guarantee a 'rise' despite the vagaries of flour, which may hardly break down at all.

The sucrose sugar (glucose + fructose) decomposition, as well as CO2, gives ethanol (booze) which is then boiled off during baking.
I have supposed that the products of yeast digestion of the more complex sugars in the flour (maltose, amylose?) would produce compounds which, on cooking, actually produce a depth of varied flavour, rather than simple congealed starch.
Milk introduces galactose...

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:36 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

Bread yeasts, although they're the same species as wine and beer yeasts, don't go entirely anaerobic very quickly; they produce less alcohol than you might expect, for the amount of gas they kick out. Try using a wine yeast for making bread and a bread yeast for wine.

It's worth thinking about the ecology of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, our common yeast. Wild yeast lives most productively on fruits; the blook on grapes and plums, the yeast that makes elderberries ferment quickly, that's the stuff. It is well adapted at turning fructose, glucose and sucrose into small amounts of alcohol, and cometabolising other compounds in the fruit to produce other aromatics that attract animals to eat the fruit. That's the basis of symbiosis between the yeast and the plants.

It isn't well adapted to degrading polysaccharides; the fruit itself secretes pectinases that soften the fruit sufficiently to allow the yeast to take over if the fruit isn't eaten before it falls from the plant. Yeast doesn't degrade starch very well (little of that in fruit), it struggles even more with pectin (hence starch and pectin hazes in home brew). So it really is relying on free sugar to get it going. Now there's ALWAYS some free sugar, especially in malted grain flour of course. But the quality of the rise you get depends not only on free sugar; a good gluten content is needed, and if you've got too many whole or chaffy grains you'll end up cutting down on rising by breaking up the gluten chains.

Milk does indeed introduce other sugars (lactose etc.), and vitamin c does help in keeping a good rise; off the top of my head I can't tell you why, I need to ponder that one.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:37 pm Post subject:
Bread making machines certainly take longer to prove wholemeal bread, but it's still a lot quicker than the time honoured method. IIRC they don't 'knock back' either, but they use external heat in the proving equation as well.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:40 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

My understanding was that breadmaking machines were about speed

More convenience than speed. We cook a lot, daily, I can, have and do make bread, but I find it a lot of fuss (messy hands, washing up, finding a warm place in our sparsely heated house without an airing cupboard). Some machines sell themselves on a 50 minute loaf but they are generally not thought to be great - we mostly use the normal white bread setting, 4 hours, put on when I get in from work; the pizza setting, 45 minutes; and the dough setting for sweet stuff and baguettes/rolls at the weekend.

When I do have to use the quick setting (just under 2 hours for a white loaf) it is definitely denser without the sugar.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:48 pm Post subject:
Bugs, why do you make bread in the evenings rather than letting it go on the timer setting overnight?

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:51 pm Post subject:

Bugs wrote:

dougal wrote:

My understanding was that breadmaking machines were about speed

More convenience than speed.

Yeah, yeah. Understood.
My point was that the machines are trying to simplify the process, in order to automate it (no intermediate bowl-washing; mix, rise and bake in the same one). And to get that to work, acceptably, in a 'conveniently' short time, they "cheat" wherever possible! (Sugar, milk powder...) No blame attached, but the process doesn't seem to produce results comparable to "manual" bread - which is why I don't have one, and I'm going by the results that others have (proudly) presented me with... (that might sound like I'm angling for an invite to tea!

)

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 1:03 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

No blame attached, but the process doesn't seem to produce results comparable to "manual" bread - which is why I don't have one, and I'm going by the results that others have (proudly) presented me with... (that might sound like I'm angling for an invite to tea!

)

That was actually my point - you get better bread without sugar! It's much more like handmade, and easily comparable to the bakers (without having to go and fetch it!) Apparently becuase breadmakers are american, and americans like their bread a bit cakey. We like it light and fluffy, which you get with less sugar (providing your flour is up to it)

I prefer bread without sugar, because it makes better textured bread, and am secretly reducing sugar in cakes because I don't have a sweet tooth. Health benefits are only a serendipitous side effect!

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 1:05 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

Bugs, why do you make bread in the evenings rather than letting it go on the timer setting overnight?

Bedroom door doesn't close properly...bedroom is two steps away from kitchen...kitchen door doesn't close properly either...would definitely get woken up by the whirring and beeping

Quote:

that might sound like I'm angling for an invite to tea!

Dougal I would happily swap you a breadmaker loaf for a couple of slices of your sourdough - if there's an SE meet up we both make it to, I promise I will bring along some of my best efforts for you to try

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 1:16 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

dougal wrote:

I have supposed that the products of yeast digestion of the more complex sugars in the flour (maltose, amylose?) would produce compounds which, on cooking, actually produce a depth of varied flavour, rather than simple cooked starch.

Bread yeasts, although they're the same species as wine and beer yeasts, don't go entirely anaerobic very quickly; ... Try using a wine yeast for making bread and a bread yeast for wine.

It's worth thinking about the ecology of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, our common yeast. Wild yeast lives most productively on fruits; the blook on grapes and plums, the yeast that makes elderberries ferment quickly, that's the stuff. ... cometabolising other compounds in the fruit to produce other aromatics ...

Its this diversity that interests me.
One hears of bakers using specific ("ripe") fruits in their sourdough starters - to catch specific strains of yeast. So as to produce particular "side reactions", and a more complex, satisfying flavour in the bread.

Quote:

It isn't well adapted to degrading polysaccharides; ...

And I had gathered that malted flour was a good source of the amylase that would do that specific job.

Quote:

So it really is relying on free sugar to get it going. Now there's ALWAYS some free sugar, especially in malted grain flour of course.

But that would more likely be maltose than glucose/fructose?

Quote:

But the quality of the rise you get depends not only on free sugar; a good gluten content is needed, and if you've got too many whole or chaffy grains you'll end up cutting down on rising by breaking up the gluten chains.

Yes agreed, you not only need to generate the CO2 gas (and steam during the "spring") but you need the gluten network to provide the tensile strength and elastic extensibility to retain the gas, in expanded bubbles, during the rising and cooking of the loaf.
My point was that the added (sucrose) sugar provided a dependable source of plenty CO2 for the compromised conditions inside an automated breadmaker.
I tend to add things like porridge oats and pumpkin seeds after kneading and bulk fermentation, and to try to do it 'lightly', a bit like folding in a soufflé.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 1:30 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

I can see that working. There's also an old Chinese bread that used fermenting crab apples for a source of sourdough.

Quote:

And I had gathered that malted flour was a good source of the amylase that would do that specific job.

It is. That's why often malted four can be a good one that doesn't need sugar in it... But as there are more bits in it, you're often as well adding some sugar for even more kick.

Quote:

But that would more likely be maltose than glucose/fructose?

Which is fine, as yeast has a maltase enzyme to split the maltose to a useable product.

Quote:

Yeah, more or less that's why it's added. Remember as well that most bread machine baking is done with dried yeast that hasn't been activated; you're starting off with a lagging strain, so you need a good set of conditions (lots of free carbob helps) to get it going. Basic microbiology, the yeast wants the sugar to get its metabolism off the ground in a hurry, and in bread machine baking that can make a difference.

Quote:

I tend to add things like porridge oats and pumpkin seeds after kneading and bulk fermentation, and to try to do it 'lightly', a bit like folding in a soufflé.

Bread machines, many of them at least, also add such ingredients in later. Handy, that.

ButteryHOLsomeness

Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 770

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 1:42 pm Post subject:

alison wrote:

I think the sugar in the bread machine recipe is food for the yeast.

possibly but not always, my favourite bread machine recipe doesn't have any sugar in it at all and it rises very well

if you use non bread machine yeast you have to feed it with warm water and sugar but the stuff for the bread machine works a little different as far as i know

ButteryHOLsomeness

Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 770

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 1:46 pm Post subject:

Fiddlesticks Julie wrote:

doesn't vitamin C do something to the yeast as well? We use to sell ascorbic acid powder ( same thing) in Boots to home breadmakers years ago!

i'm not sure of the science behind it but vitamin c gives you a better rise for the loaf

personally though, i find most bread machine bread like a brick no matter what leavening agents are used so i only use the dough function and then bake it myself (actually faster anyway) i often make rolls vs bread shaped stuff anyway... but i digress

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