Baking Class - Sweet Breads.

Lewisburg.

And, for those who feel like making cinnamon rolls at home, here's the information from the second baking class. It was a blast watching the students make their own cinnamon rolls, but nothing beat the moment where they decided that these didn't need any icing. They'd brought some, just in case - and left it behind when they took their piles of goodies home.

SWEET BREADS
Baking 101 – Spring 2008

ABOUT SWEET BREADS

Sweet breads are, as the name implies, a group of breads with a distinctly sweet flavor from a significant amount of added sugar, often 10% or more the weight of the flour in the recipe. The addition of sugar, as well as other common ingredients such as milk, butter, and eggs, has a definite impact on the structure and other qualities of baked goods. Sweet breads are still yeasted breads, and behave in much the same way, but with differences worth examining.

SUGAR

Sugar does more to baked goods than simply make them sweet. Though some non-sweet bread recipes call for a small amount of sugar that has little effect other than flavor, the amounts that occur in typical yeasted sweet breads are enough to make a significant difference in several ways. Sugar inhibits gluten formation by diluting the flour’s proteins. Combined with sugar’s tendency to absorb moisture, and to hang onto it, this means that sweet breads are more tender and slower to go stale than other breads.

High proportions of sugar also limit the activity of the yeast in the dough. Sugar’s affinity for moisture dehydrates the yeast cells, and so sweet bread recipes often call for larger quantities of yeast, longer rising times, or both. The sugar also makes these breads more prone to browning early in baking, and so many recipes use lower baking temperatures to prevent the outside browning before the interior is set.

There are several varieties of sugar common in baking:

• Granulated or white sugar. Common table sugar, it’s almost pure sucrose. It has very little flavor, until it begins to caramelize, which makes it an ideal choice for times when you want other flavors to shine.
  
  
• Superfine or castor sugar. This is the same as granulated sugar, except that it’s been ground finer, making it easier to dissolve in certain special situations. It is not, however, as fine as...
  
  
• Powdered or confectioners’ sugar. This is sucrose that has been ground into dust; labeling such as X, 6X or 10X refers to increasingly fine gradations. To prevent these very finely ground crystals from absorbing moisture and fusing solid in the package, they’re mixed with cornstarch. For this reason, powdered sugar is not interchangeable with granulated sugar in recipes; the effects of the cornstarch are not always desirable when not specifically called for.
  
  
• Brown sugar. Made by mixing white sugar with molasses, brown sugar is available in light brown and dark brown. The dark, with more molasses, has a stronger flavor. Brown sugar tends to clump as it dries because the molasses acts almost like glue; place anything moist – an apple slice, a piece of bread, a wet cotton ball - in the container to soften it.
  
  
• Turbinado, demerara and other “raw” sugars. These sugars, in varying shades of brown and degrees of fineness, are forms of unrefined sugar. The impurities that make up molasses have not been removed, but are still part of the crystals; they’re inside, not outside, and so less prone to clumping. Less processing also means that they tend to have a more complex flavor than regular brown sugar.
  
  
• Honey. Made by bees, honey is a saturated sugar solution containing more than 20 different sugars, various amino acids, enzymes and other compounds. It is sweeter than table sugar by 20% or more, depending on the variety, and its approximate 17% moisture content must be taken into account when baking.
  
  
• Maple syrup. Like honey, using maple syrup as a sugar replacement requires adjustments to the quantity of liquid in the recipe; maple syrup is approximately 34% water. Supermarket syrups rarely contain even a trace of true maple syrup, but are rather made from corn syrup with artificial colorings and flavorings. They are not interchangeable with maple syrup in recipes.

MILK

Like sugar, milk has more effect in baked goods than just adding flavor. Since it contains a variety of proteins and, depending on the type of milk, often some amount of fat, exchanging it for water will make a difference. The proteins and fats in milk work to weaken the gluten network in breads by interfering with the gluten molecules. This produces a more tender crumb, and the presence of fats can slow the staling process.

BUTTER

Butter is almost all fat, but not so much that it is always interchangeable with pure oils or fats in recipes. Depending on the type of butter, it’s usually about 80% fat, 16% water, with the rest being proteins, lactose, and some other trace components. European-style butters are often closer to 85% fat, making them useful for certain tasks, not to mention more flavorful. Cultured cream butter has been slightly soured, producing a more full-flavored butter that is otherwise interchangeable.

Most baking recipes call for unsalted butter; salted butter contains between 1 and 2% added salt as a means to prevent microbial growth and to keep the butter from turning rancid. This works out to around 1 to 2 teaspoons of salt per pound of butter. It’s not enough to make a significant difference where small amounts of butter are called for, but it is enough to make puff pastry too salty. If you don’t have any unsalted butter, reduce the amount of salt in the recipe by about a teaspoon per cup of butter.

In bread recipes, butter works like other fats, as a tenderizer; its salt content, in most cases, makes little difference to the final product. Butter does, however, bring a lot of flavor to baked goods, even in relatively small quantities.

EGGS

Although eggs can do some pretty phenomenal things in baking, their main use in bread baking is as a tenderizer. They contain a large proportion of proteins and fats, both of which interfere with gluten formation, resulting in a more tender texture. They also lend flavor and a distinct richness to many breads, which other ingredients can’t quite replicate.

CINNAMON ROLLS
Adapted from How to Cook Everything
Makes one dozen

INGREDIENTS

• 2-½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
  
• 1-½ teaspoons instant yeast
  
• ½ teaspoon salt
  
• 1/3 cup sugar
  
• 2 Tablespoons butter, melted, room temperature, plus more as needed
  
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  
• ½ cup milk, plus more as needed, room temperature
  
• ½ cup brown sugar
  
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  
• Zest of an orange (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine the flour, yeast, salt and (white) sugar in a large bowl and mix thoroughly to combine. Add the melted butter and egg and stir until combined, then as much of the milk as required to form a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, 5 to 10 minutes. Smooth the dough into a ball.
   
   
2. Butter a bowl and place the dough in it. Cover and let rise until doubled, 2 to 3 hours. Turn back out onto a lightly floured board and gently roll into a rectangle, approximately 3/8-inch thick. Brush liberally with melted butter, then cover with an even layer of brown sugar, cinnamon and orange zest. Roll it up, slice into twelve pieces, and place in a buttered 12-compartment muffin tin. Cover and allow to rise another hour.
   
   
3. Preheat the oven to 400° F. Brush the tops of the rolls lightly with a little melted butter and bake until well browned, 20 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool for several minutes in the pans, then transfer to a rack to cool.

NOTES

• These are best served warm. If they can’t be served right away, place them in a foil-covered baking dish and reheat them in a low oven until just warmed through.