Some pizza doughs are made with sugar, and others are made with out. Usually, we fi nd that dough destined to be baked at excessive temperatures is made with none added sugar, whereas those who shall be baked at decrease temperatures (425 to 450 F) will include a minimum of some sugar to help in crust coloration improvement. Doughs that include sugar will brown fairly shortly when baked at excessive temperatures, thus prompting their removing from the oven. However be suggested, the pizza will not be baked in addition to it seems. Whereas good and brown on the surface, it could be gentle and moist on the within.
Apart from affecting crust coloration improvement, sugar additionally offers a supply of nutrient for the yeast to feed upon. So in case you are holding your dough for a number of days within the cooler, a small quantity of sugar added to the dough method about 1 p.c might assist your dough to carry out higher after a number of days of cooler storage. Since a lot of this sugar shall be consumed by the yeast, there shall be little or no, if any, of it left to contribute to crust coloration improvement within the oven. The kind of sugar added can have an effect on each the flavour and crumb coloration of the completed crust, and that is what we’re going to evaluation on this article.
In relation to choosing a sugar for its taste contribution, we now have a number of decisions. Honey is available in quite a few color-based grades. The upper the grade, the lighter the colour. Because the worth of honey is predicated on its coloration, the lighter the colour, the costlier — however that doesn’t all the time imply that it’s the finest suited to our particular utility in a crust. Bearing in mind the excessive value of honey, it makes quite a lot of sense to make use of a darker coloured, extra intensely flavored honey at a decrease degree to attain the specified taste in our crusts. The one time when a lighter coloured honey must be thought of is when a honey taste is desired and also you need to decrease any darkening of the crumb coloration within the completed crust. Should you’re making a wheat or whole-wheat crust, one of many darker coloured, decrease value grades of honey will present each taste and crumb coloration enchancment to the completed crust and prevent a number of {dollars} in the long term.
Molasses may also be added to pizza doughs to impart a novel taste. However like with darkish coloured honey and malt syrup, the colour of molasses can also be darkish, so it should have a darkening impact on the crumb portion of the completed pizza crust. The flavour imparted by molasses is really distinctive and it blends properly with darkish coloured fl ours comparable to whole-wheat, multigrain and even lots of the extra unique fl ours comparable to buckwheat, quinua, amaranth, and a number of others. About the one factor to observe for with molasses is to buy solely unsulfured molasses, as different types of this sweetener could be detrimental to yeast exercise, leading to poor dough efficiency.
Whereas not precisely a sweetener, fruit juice and juice concentrates have been utilized in some purposes. Among the extra widespread ones are apple juice, apple juice focus, raisin juice, raisin juice focus, and prune juice. Whereas these could be successfully used as sweeteners, their essential shortfall is with the flavour that they communicate. In some merchandise, the flavour will not be a difficulty, however in others, the flavour could be construed as off, overseas, or completely different. In any case, that is one thing that you would need to significantly think about to find out if it could be proper in your product or utility.
Corn sugar, (dextrose) both as a dry sugar, or as syrup, may additionally have a novel utility in pizza crusts. Dextrose differs from sucrose (common desk sugar or cane/beet sugar) in that it’s much less candy, solely about 90 p.c as candy as sucrose, and it additionally imparts a lighter crust coloration to the baked product than sucrose. What this implies is that it may be used to supply some degree of sweetness, or nutrient for the yeast to feed upon with out getting fairly as darkish of a baked crust coloration as can be had with different sweetener types.
Brown sugar is one other sugar sort that we see often used. That is actually nothing greater than white desk sugar (sucrose) with a small portion of the black strap molasses added again to the sugar to provide it the darker coloration and slight molasses like taste. Due to its low degree within the sugar, the molasses actually doesn’t present for a lot taste, but it surely does give extra of a “pure” formulation than the refined, white sugar.
Lastly, lactose, also referred to as milk sugar, is a very completely different sort of sugar from these beforehand talked about sugars as a result of it isn’t fermented by the yeast and it additionally has a really low sweetness, solely 15 p.c that of sucrose, so it doesn’t actually contribute any sweetness to the completed crust. What it does convey to the get together is crust coloration improvement, or browning. This will turn out to be useful when formulating a dough for a take-and-bake utility. As a result of a take-and-bake pizza shall be baked in a house oven, which doesn’t have the sturdy backside warmth to essentially bake the pizza properly, the addition of 3- to 5-percent lactose to the dough method will present for the required browning properties with none undesirable sweetness. And for the reason that lactose isn’t fermented by the yeast, you don’t have to fret in regards to the sugar degree diminishing with time because the dough/pizza is saved within the fridge.
Whereas many of those sweeteners are syrups somewhat than dry, their taste and/or coloration contribution are extra vital than that of normal white sugar. It would be best to experiment with a decrease use degree than you might be presently utilizing in your common sugar. place to begin is to interchange the dry sugar with the syrup on the identical weight. As a result of water content material of the syrup, this can present a couple of 20-percent discount in total sugar degree. You may then make further changes as mandatory to attain the specified taste and coloration traits. If you’re making a pure sort of crust, or simply need to add extra of a “pure” or “wholesome” attraction to your current crust, correct collection of sugar sort can play an necessary roll in the best way your client perceives your crust and your total pizza. ?
Tom Lehmann is a director on the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas.
