Simple Sweet Bread Recipe | Julie Blanner (2024)

FAQs

What ingredient makes bread soft and fluffy? ›

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Many bread recipe call for white sugar. It's cheap and easy and doesn't add much flavor except pure sweetness. Raw cane sugar and brown sugar add a little more flavor and color. They also contain trace minerals not found in refined white sugar.

"Quick bread" is a term used to describe any and all breads that are made without yeast as a leavening agent. They are leavened chemically, usually with baking powder or baking soda, and can be with sweet or savory. Technically, most sweet breads (section 8) are also quick breads.

Butter, technically a dough enrichment, tenderizes bread dough and limits gluten development, yielding a softer, more tender crumb and a richer flavor.

Adding fat: Adding a small amount of fat to the dough, such as butter or oil, can make the bread more tender and fluffy. Adding steam: Steam in the oven can help to create a fluffy texture by keeping the crust from forming too quickly, allowing the bread to rise more before it sets.

If the sugar senses that a moisture-rich food is present, it will actually pull the moisture out of that food and absorb it. You can even store a slice of bread with your brown sugar and just replace it when it gets hard. Microwave it.

It is not recommended to substitute powdered sugar for granulated sugar. Since powdered sugar has a much finer texture, and it contains a small percentage of cornstarch to prevent caking, substituting can give you unexpected results. Q. Does sugar do anything other than sweeten baked goods?

Because yeast does not divide much in bread dough (only 20-30% increase in cell numbers in 4 hours), what you start with is what you end up with in terms of yeast numbers. This can affect the bread by adding a "yeasty" taste if you put too much into the dough.

The possibilities are endless, but the common factor is the basic ingredients of fat, sugar, eggs, flour, liquid, leavening agent, and a flavoring ingredient.

Muffin and Quick Bread Ratio of Ingredients

Sugar, in addition to its interaction with fats, adds flavor, color, and aids in the tenderization of the batter. Eggs provide structure and act as an emulsifier by surrounding fat particles and helping trap air contributing lightness and volume.

What are 2 tips to successfully making quick breads? ›

Potato water is the water that potatoes have been boiled in. The potatoes release their starchy goodness into the water as they are cooked. The potato water can then be used as a substitute for milk and it makes your bread deliciously moist. As well, it can be used as a thickener that is naturally gluten-free.

It's all about the starch

So when you add potato to your bread dough you're upping the dough's starch content, effectively increasing the resulting loaf's total liquid retention — which translates to bread with soft, moist texture and a long shelf life.

This helps create more consistent results for home bakers replicating a recipe. In general, salted butter is preferred for cooking (or simply spreading) as it adds more flavour and has a longer shelf life, while unsalted butter is the go-to for baking.

Some alternative ingredients can help give your bread added moisture. One such ingredient is milk, which has a high-fat content and can add a delightfully creamy flavor when baking. Additionally, adding mashed potatoes or cooked grains can help keep the crumb soft and tender for days after baking.

The softness of the bread is an effect from the gluten content and amount of fat and liquid in the composition. The lesser gluten and the more amount of fat and liquid in recipe, the softer it becomes.

Add an Enzyme. To extend the shelf life of products, many bakers use specially formulated enzymes for preservation. These naturally occurring protein compounds can keep baked goods soft while preventing crumbling and staling.

The chewiness of bread is due to the protein in the flour. High protein flour will give you chewy bread. Low protein flour will give you “cakey” bread. I make a dinner roll with milk, butter and eggs that is pillowy soft and yet a bit chewy too.