Some pizza doughs are made with sugar, and others are made with out. Sometimes, we fi nd that dough destined to be baked at excessive temperatures is made with none added sugar, whereas people who might be baked at decrease temperatures (425 to 450 F) will comprise at the very least some sugar to help in crust shade improvement. Doughs that comprise sugar will brown fairly shortly when baked at excessive temperatures, thus prompting their elimination from the oven. However be suggested, the pizza is probably not baked in addition to it seems. Whereas good and brown on the skin, it might be tender and moist on the within.
Apart from affecting crust shade improvement, sugar additionally gives a supply of nutrient for the yeast to feed upon. So if you’re holding your dough for a number of days within the cooler, a small quantity of sugar added to the dough components about 1 p.c could assist your dough to carry out higher after a number of days of cooler storage. Since a lot of this sugar might be consumed by the yeast, there might be little or no, if any, of it left to contribute to crust shade improvement within the oven. The kind of sugar added can have an effect on each the flavour and crumb shade of the completed crust, and that is what we’re going to evaluate on this article.
On the subject of deciding on a sugar for its taste contribution, we have now a number of selections. Honey is available in various color-based grades. The upper the grade, the lighter the colour. Because the value of honey relies on its shade, the lighter the colour, the dearer — however that doesn’t at all times imply that it’s the finest suited to our particular utility in a crust. Bearing in mind the excessive value of honey, it makes a variety of sense to make use of a darker coloured, extra intensely flavored honey at a decrease stage 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 shade within the completed crust. When 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 shade 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 be darkish, so it’ll have a darkening impact on the crumb portion of the completed pizza crust. The flavour imparted by molasses is actually distinctive and it blends effectively with darkish coloured fl ours corresponding to whole-wheat, multigrain and even lots of the extra unique fl ours corresponding to buckwheat, quinua, amaranth, and a number of others. About the one factor to look at for with molasses is to buy solely unsulfured molasses, as different types of this sweetener might 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 functions. A few of the extra widespread ones are apple juice, apple juice focus, raisin juice, raisin juice focus, and prune juice. Whereas these might be successfully used as sweeteners, their fundamental shortfall is with the flavour that they communicate. In some merchandise, the flavour is probably not a difficulty, however in others, the flavour is likely to be construed as off, overseas, or completely different. In any case, that is one thing that you would need to critically contemplate to find out if it is likely to be proper on 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 shade to the baked product than sucrose. What this implies is that it may be used to offer some stage of sweetness, or nutrient for the yeast to feed upon with out getting fairly as darkish of a baked crust shade as could be had with different sweetener varieties.
Brown sugar is one other sugar kind that we see sometimes 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 shade and slight molasses like taste. Due to its low stage within the sugar, the molasses actually doesn’t present for a lot taste, nevertheless it does give extra of a “pure” formulation than the refined, white sugar.
Lastly, lactose, also called milk sugar, is a really completely different kind of sugar from these beforehand talked about sugars as a result of it’s not 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 carry to the celebration is crust shade improvement, or browning. This could turn out to be useful when formulating a dough for a take-and-bake utility. As a result of a take-and-bake pizza might be baked in a house oven, which doesn’t have the robust backside warmth to essentially bake the pizza effectively, the addition of 3- to 5-percent lactose to the dough components will present for the required browning properties with none undesirable sweetness. And because the lactose isn’t fermented by the yeast, you don’t have to fret concerning the sugar stage diminishing with time because the dough/pizza is saved within the fridge.
Whereas many of those sweeteners are syrups reasonably than dry, their taste and/or shade contribution are extra vital than that of standard white sugar. It would be best to experiment with a decrease use stage than you’re presently utilizing on your common sugar. A superb place to start out is to exchange the dry sugar with the syrup on the identical weight. Because of the water content material of the syrup, this may present a couple of 20-percent discount in total sugar stage. You may then make extra changes as vital to attain the specified taste and shade traits. If you’re making a pure kind of crust, or simply need to add extra of a “pure” or “wholesome” enchantment to your present crust, correct number of sugar kind can play an vital roll in the way in which your shopper perceives your crust and your total pizza. ?
Tom Lehmann is a director on the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas.
