BREAD SWEETENERS 101

There is a persistent myth that added sugar or honey is necessary to provide food for the yeast when making breads.  Yeast does prefer added sugars and will shoose them over those from the dough itself, but truth be told, the yeast can convert dough starches into sugars perfectly well, and these are adequate for it in all but the very longest-rising doughs.  The classic daily breads of Europe contain no added sugar or fat, but Americans seem to prefer their breads a little on the sweet side, and most of our recipes do call for some sweeteners.

Sugar in any form--honey, fruit, molasses, our new Xagave, or granulated cane--not only affects the bread's flavour but also makes the curmb tenderer; and when you slice the finished loaf and put it into the toaster, the toast browns faster.  In small quantities--about 1 Tbsp. per loaf or so--the type of sweetener you use will not make too much difference in taste, but when there is more, the sweetener should be considered a flavouring agent as well.

We use honey or Xagave Natural sweetener in our breads because the flavour harmonizes well with the whole wheat, and for ecological and other reasons we prefer it to refined sugar.  For many of us, besides, there are real advantages to keeping granulated sugar completely out of the kitchen but if you want to substitute brown sugar in any recipe that calls for honey, you should have good results.  In breadmaking quantities, the nutritional differences between sweeteners are insignifcant.

Honey:  Honey is fascinating stuff.  Books have been written about it, and songs and poems as well.  One tiny bee works her whole lifetime to produce one teaspoonful, so we use it with a certain appreciative awe.  Honey gives a bright sweetness to bread, and because it holds moisture, bread made with honey keeps well. 

Since it's character reflects the flowers it comes from, there is considerable variation from one jar of honey to another.  This is of much practical interest in breadmaking.  We have had as black as molasses (malt honey from the prairies) that was so acid or so full of enzymes (or something mysterious) that the bread made with it simply would not rise and it was very heavy flavoured with the honey's distinctive taste.  Commercial bakers, when they use honey as all, generally pick the pasturized kind because even the lightest honey is a biologically active entity, with properties that can interfere with the dough's development.  The home baker can deal with these problems better than the professional, whose livelihood depends on being able to produce identical loaves day after day; but even at home if you are making a long dough, one that will take more than four or five hours to rise, we suggest scalding raw honey before adding it to the dough.  For the least damage to it's flavour, heat it in a double boiler, and don't let it get over 180° F.  Of if you prefer, heat it in part of the liquid from the recipe (water for example) then cool to the proper temperature.  Some honeys are acid enough to curdle milk if the two are heated together, but that won't hurt the bread.  When we do our wholesale order each fall we bring in pasturized Clover honey, which requires no pre-treatment and has a mild flavour that doesn't cover up the great wheat taste we want in our breads.

Xagave Natural Sweetener:  Xagave is a healthy alternative to sugar and the only natural sweetener that can be used as a "Complete Sugar Replacement"  Xagave comes from a blend of two varieties of Agave plants:  Agave Salmiana (white agave) and Agave Tequilana (blue agave)  This unique blend, know as Xagave, provides the best taste, cooking qualities and health benefits of any agave product on the market.  Xagave comes in a liquid syrup form and can be substituted in all recipes especially bread, for 2/3 the amount of the sweetener called for in the recipe, for a 23% savings on calories in your bread.  It has a low glycemic index of 30 making it a perfect ingredient for diabetic recipes.  For more information about the nutritional benefits of this product you can check out out Xagave information page here.  The cooking properties in bread is what really interests us.  It is sweeter than sugar by 50% so that is one of the reasons it is reduced in quantity when baking with it.  The taste and texture of the bread usually improves with Xagave because of the natural inulin which improves the taste or "mouth feel" of low-fat and low-sugar bake goods in the commercial industry.  To save even more calories, you can reduce the oils in your recipes as well as the inulin ( a naturally occuring dietary fibre) provides a full body texture in breads.  Xagave also is a natural preservative and will keep the bread moister for a longer period of time because of it's hygroscopic effect, or it's abiltiy to absorb moisture.  Your bread will also bake faster so we adjust the temperature down about 25 °F lower or take off about 5 min. for each 1/2 hour of baking time at the regular temperature your recipe calls for. 

Unlike sugar and honey, Xagave is readily soluble in hot or cold water and mixes well into all recipes.  Although we are not sure of the technical reason, Xagave in breads promotes rise, which makes it ideal for whole-grain cooking.  We found that we an make lighter bread when we exchange the honey or sugar for Xagave in our recipes.

Our next post will discuss the other sweeteners--Molasses, Malt, Maple syrup, and Sorghum as well as crystallized fruit sugars, turbinado and demerara.