The Function of Sugar in Baking | Blog | BAKERpedia (2024)

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The Function of Sugar in Baking | Blog | BAKERpedia? ›

Sugar helps to retain water, reduce gluten development and delay starch gelatinization. The setting of the structure of a cake takes place when carbon dioxide production from leavening agents is at its maximum, the gas is held in the air cells of the structure. This produces a fine, uniform, tender cake.

Sugar helps to retain water, reduce gluten development and delay starch gelatinization. The setting of the structure of a cake takes place when carbon dioxide production from leavening agents is at its maximum, the gas is held in the air cells of the structure. This produces a fine, uniform, tender cake.

Sugar Tenderizes

Because sugar grabs and holds onto moisture it leaves less moisture readily available, delaying gluten development. Additionally, because sugar holds onto moisture, it keeps baked goods tender for a longer period of time.

The main function of sugar or syrups is to provide a sweet flavor to a baked good. Some provide more sweetness than others. They tenderize. Sugars get in the way of gluten formation, protein coagulation, and starch gelatinization, and any other structure building activity going on in your baked good.

Sugar helps cakes stay moist after baking. A completely sugar-free cake will dry out quickly, so wrap cooled cakes in cling film to prevent moisture loss.

It keeps baked goods soft and moist.

The bond between sugar and water allows sugar to lock in moisture so that items such as cakes, muffins, brownies, and frostings don't dry out too quickly.

While they provide a sweet taste, artificial sweeteners lack the browning, tenderizing and moisture-retaining properties of granulated sugar. Sucralose is the one sweetener than can be substituted cup-for-cup for granulated sugar in baking.

For every cup of sugar, you can replace it with a 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup of honey or 2/3 cup agave. If using maple syrup or molasses, 3/4 cup to 1 cup will do the trick.

What is the functional of sugar? ›

The primary functions of sugar in food products are to provide sweetness and energy. Our sense of taste can identify four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The first taste that we encounter (breast milk) is sweet, which may be why a sweet taste is appreciated and interpreted positively.

Your cakes will still hold up if you use granulated sugar as both the flavour and water content are the same. Caster sugar, however, is much finer and dissolves much easier than granulated sugar which is coarser in texture.

White sugar plus molasses

To make your own light brown sugar, mix 1 cup, or 200 grams (g), of granulated white sugar with 1 tablespoon (tbsp.), or 15 milliliters (mL), of molasses. If you need dark brown sugar, increase the molasses to 2 tbsp. (30 mL). And just like that, you have brown sugar.

Sugar easily binds with water, which accomplishes two main things. 1) It locks in moisture, keeping your baked goods from drying out; and 2) It inhibits the development of gluten which keeps your cookies, cakes and sweet breads softer.

By 2600 bce the Egyptians, credited with the first intentional use of leavening, were making bread by methods similar in principle to those of today. They maintained stocks of sour dough, a crude culture of desirable fermentation organisms, and used portions of this material to inoculate fresh doughs.

The job of butter in baking (besides being delicious) is to give richness, tenderness and structure to cookies, cakes, pies and pastries. We alter the way butter works in a recipe by changing its temperature and choosing when to combine it with the other ingredients.

Simply put, sugar provides a lot more than a sweet flavor in baking. It actually contributes a moist and tender texture to many baked goods. When creamed with butter and sugar, it can also assist in leavening recipes like cakes for a light and fluffy texture.

The most important among these are that added sugar in foods acts as a sweetener, preservative, texture modifier, fermentation substrate, flavouring and colouring agent, bulking agent. The various methods of use of sugar are based on its physical and chemical properties.

You will see many recipes that add a teaspoon of sugar to help the yeast to work faster. Adding up to 5% of sugar will speed up fermentation as it will feed the yeast in the initial stages before enzymes begin to break down the complex sugar molecules in the starches into simple sugars that the yeast can eat.