Sugars, Syrups and Sweeteners
Sugars play a lot of different roles in the
bakery industry. It improves texture: works as a creaming agent with fat and as
a foaming agent with egg, gives a tenderness in products, causes bread to rise,
and cookies to spread (as the sugar melts in the oven), gives bread it crunchy
crumb, influences the flavour and the sweetness, gives products colour and
lastly it extends shelf life of bakery products by retaining water. When sugar
is mentioned it normally is with reference to sucrose (saccharose), it is one
of the most important components used in many sweet bakery items. This march
the topic of sugar and its functionalities in bakery products will be
explained. In April we will discuss the topic of how to replace the sugars with
sweeteners and the effect it has on the bakery product and how to solve.