The Roles of Ingredients in Bread Making: From Flour to Eggs (2024)

FAQs

What is the role of each ingredient in bread making? ›

Sugar: Sugar is added to bread dough to provide food for the yeast and to help with browning during baking. It also contributes to the flavor of the bread. Fats: Fats, such as butter or oil, are added to bread dough for flavor and to help keep the bread moist. They also help to create a tender crumb.

Flour lends structure to baked goods, like cakes, biscuits, pastry and bread, with a range in protein content to suit the purpose and desired outcome. Higher-protein flours provide a greater proportion of gluten and a stronger dough for products like bread and the reverse is true for use in cakes and biscuits.

Flour provides the structure in baked goods. Wheat flour contains proteins that interact with each other when mixed with water, forming gluten. It is this elastic gluten framework which stretches to contain the expanding leavening gases during rising. The protein content of a flour affects the strength of a dough.

Eggs function as natural emulsifiers, combining liquids and fats to achieve a smoother dough texture. Additionally, eggs also play a role in strengthening the gluten network to enable the bread to maintain a good shape and volume. Eggs contribute to prolonging the shelf life of bread by reducing water activity.

Therefore, the simplest form of bread is vegan. However, some types include additional ingredients like sweeteners or fats — both of which can be of animal origin. For instance, some recipes may use eggs, butter, milk, or honey to modify the flavor or texture — which means that not all types of bread are vegan.

When eggs and flour are combined in a recipe, the egg adds an additional protein layer to the flour and creates a stronger gluten network that traps more gases from your leavening and gives your baked goods even more lift! Egg whites can play dual roles in the texture your baked goods!

Eggs play an important role in everything from cakes and cookies to meringues and pastry cream — they create structure and stability within a batter, they help thicken and emulsify sauces and custards, they add moisture to cakes and other baked goods, and can even act as glue or glaze.

The gluten in the dough traps the carbon dioxide gas, preventing it from escaping. The only place for it to go is up, and so the bread rises. Carbon dioxide actually also helps gluten develop in bread. Unless you're gluten-intolerant, gluten is a great thing, folks.

In bread making fat provides flavour but more importantly lubricates the dough. This helps to retain the gases released during baking thus ensuring a well risen loaf which will have a soft crumb and will stay fresh longer.

What are three functions of eggs in quick breads? ›

Eggs provide structure and help bind the ingredients together. Eggs also act as an emulsifier. By surrounding small particles of fat, the egg helps make the quick bread batter smoother, thus contributing to volume and texture.

The Functions of Yeast

Yeast has two primary functions in fermentation: To convert sugar into carbon dioxide gas, which lifts and aerates the dough. To mellow and condition the gluten of the dough so that it will absorb the increasing gases evenly and hold them at the same time.

2 The basic ingredients in a yeast dough are: flour, liquid, salt, sugar, fat, eggs and yeast. FLOUR: The flour used in making bread provides starch and protein, namely gluten. Different types of flour have different amounts of gluten in them.

Sugars are nutritive carbohydrates used by the baking industry to add sweetness, flavor, fermentable solids. They perform key functions in doughs and batters that improve the overall quality of the finished products. Sugar has traditionally meant table sugar or sucrose.