Much kneaded researchFirst published Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Fermentation Investigation Effects

of Sucrose Levels in Bread on overall
Bread Characteristics
Brodie Parrott, Ryan Burdett, Sophie Matthews, Nic Hardy
Biotechnology
Bioprocessing,
Australian
Science and
Mathematics
School, Flinders
University,
Sturt Road
Bedford Park
SA, 5042,
Australia.
Brodie Parrott
Principle
investigator
Ryan Burdett
Researcher
Sophie
Matthews
Researcher
Nic Hardy
Researcher
Correspondenc
e to:
B. Parrott

parr0091@asms.sa.edu.au

Abstract

Objectives To determine the

effect of increased sucrose levels
in bread on the baked loafs size,
density and softness.
Design Prospective cohort study.
Setting Public Specialist High
School
Subjects Nine loaves of bread
mixed, rested and baked in the
same location at the same time.
Outcome Measures Volume of
loaf as measured by volume of
water displaced (cm3), density of
internal bread structure through
weight and selected sample
volume (g/cm3) and softness of
selected sample volume from
percentage change in height upon
addition of 50g flat weight to the
top of the sample.
Results The loaves with greater
sucrose levels had smaller
volumes, greater internal densities
and decreased softness. Loaf size
dropped dramatically as sucrose
levels in the bread dough were
increased, appearing to level off as
levels approach 1:1 sucrose to
flour ratio. Each loaf with higher
sucrose was less thoroughly
cooked than those with less,
regardless of equal baking times,
and softness became squishiness
with these as the internal structure
of the loaves was still dough.
Densities also increased markedly
with greater sucrose levels,
partially due to uncooked nature of
the loaves.
Conclusions Increasing the
amount of sucrose in loaves of
bread leads to denser, doughier

loaves which are also more solid

and sticky in texture.

Introduction
An increasingly sugar addicted
modern society sees more and
more people choosing a sweet
option over a healthier, more basic
dietary element such as the
humble loaf of bread. Many
solutions to this exist; glazed
doughnuts, iced buns and jam
filled scrolls to name a few,[1] but
none address the household staple
of sandwich bread.
Simply adding to the dough
various amounts of sucrose seems
to most the obvious answer, but
bakeries refrain from this practice.
At first glance, it would seem that
the addition of sucrose would not
only add to the flavour but also
allow yeasts in the rising dough to
produce extra ethanol and carbon
dioxide in an alcoholic
fermentation process[2] and so
cause the loaves to rise faster and
higher than their conventional
counterparts. This investigation
set out to find if this intuitive
seeming deduction is accurate.
One study in this area was
conducted in 2004, but dealt with
an industrial context rather than a
household.[3]

Methods
All bread in this investigation was
baked according to the
Taste.com.au recipe.[4] All
ingredients were provided by the
ASMS at which location this

Much kneaded researchFirst published Wednesday, 19 November 2014

investigati
on was
carried
out.

The ingredients were all measured

out minutes prior to the
commencement of this
investigation using a sterile set of
scales in a room of equivalent

Baking
three separate bowls at the same time
and thoroughly combined.
After combining, more flour was added
to the runnier dough mixtures until each
had roughly the same consistency as
measured by touch.
Each dough was turned out onto a
floured tabletop and kneaded for ten
minutes before being rubbed with butter
and placed in the washed mixing bowl it
was made in. These bowls were covered
and set aside to allow the dough to rise
for one hour.
Each loaf was again turned out onto a
floured surface and kneaded for two
minutes before being rolled out into a
baguette shape and cut into three equal
pieces. These pieces were shaped into
flattened spheres and marked for their
sugar content via one, two or three
finger holes pushed into the top.
The loaves were spread out over two
baking trays with care taken to not have
two loaves of the same sugar content
near each other and placed in an oven
preheated to 200o where they were
baked for 25 minutes.
Upon removal from the oven, the loaves
were placed on a cooling rack and left to
cool for 1.5 hours.
Measuring
Each cooled loaf was wrapped in two
layers of glad wrap before being
completely submerged in a full bowl of
water sitting in a tray. The displaced
water was captured by this tray and then
weighed. As 1ml water has a volume of
1cm3, the volume of each loaf was hence
found and recorded.
Loaves were then unwrapped and a
27cm3 chunk (this investigations
selected sample volume) was measured
and cut from the centre. This chunk was
weighed and its density then found and
recorded.

cleanliness to a common domestic

kitchen.
500g plain flour, one 7g sachet of
dried yeast, 375ml lukewarm
water and either 150, 300 or 450g
sucrose were added to
The height of each chunk should have
been 30mm, but each was measured
again to be sure. The chunks were
placed individually on the edge of a table
and a flat circular 50g weight was placed
on top of each in turn. The weight was
allowed to sit for one minute before a
final height measurement was taken.
The percentage difference between the
initial and final heights was found and
recorded as the compressibility of each
loaf.

Much kneaded researchFirst published Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Amount of
Sucrose
Trial
Volume (cm3)

30

50g
1
856.0
0

2
717.0
0

Averag
e

3
915.0
0

829

Density(g/cm3)
0.74
0.63
0.59
0.65
Compressibility
(%)
6.67
3.33
8.57
6.19
Table 1 Bread characteristics for 50g sucrose per
loaf
Variable
Repetition
Volume (cm3)

1
514.0
0

Variable

Volume (cm3)

Compres s ibility of Loaf

Volume

20
500(Compressibility)
Power
10
(%)
Volume of Loaf (cm3)
0 0
150
Logarithmic (Volume)
0

S ugar Amount per Loaf (g)

100g
2
582.0
0

3
528.0
0

Averag
e
541

Density (g/cm3)
1.00
0.85
0.93
0.93
Compressibility
(%)
20.00
17.86
26.67
21.51
Table 2 Bread characteristics for 100g sucrose per
loaf

Repetition

Compressibility

1000

150g
1
494.0
0

2
472.0
0

3
459.0
0

Averag
e
475

Density (g/cm3)
1.00
1.07
0.96
1.01
Compressibility
(%)
10.00
16.67
13.33
13.33
Table 3 Bread characteristics for 150g sucrose per
loaf

Figure 3 Bread compressibility and volume for

sucrose levels

Results
As seen in figure 1, the internal density
of the loaves decreases at a similar rate
to that at which the loaf size increases,
though their scales are vastly different.
The loaf size drops 48% from around
900cm3 in the loaf with 50g sucrose to
475cm3 in that with 150g, while the
density experiences a 42% increase over
that same period. Figure 2 clearly shows
that the average trends in the
compressibility and density increase at
roughly the same rate, giving rise to that
the more dense the bread is, the softer it
becomes. Finally, in figure 3, the softness
is shown to increase as the volume of
the loaf decreases.

Discussion
Volume

Power (Volume )

Volu me of Lo af (cm3
Den
)
s ity of I ns ide of Loaf (g /cm3)

Density

Lo garithmic (Density)

S ugar Am ount per Lo af (g)

Figure 1 Bread volume and internal density for

sucrose levels

Compressibility

Power ( Compressibility)

Density

Logarithmic (Density)

Com pre s s i bility of Loaf

Den s(%)
ity o f Ins ide o f Loa f (g / cm 3)

S ug ar Amo unt pe r Loa f (g )

Figure 2 Bread compressibility and density for

sucrose levels

Results Analysis
These results bring to light some fairly
obvious relationships, some unexpected
trends and some erratic data.
First off, the trend in figure 1 shows the
relationship between the density of the
inside of the loaves and their volume,
which follows as expected that the larger
loaves have lesser densities. This data
all sits extremely close to the trend line
and so is precise, but as there are no
other studies found in this area, the
accuracy is up for debate. Figure 1 finds
purpose in and mostly only in showing
how much crust the loaves had in the
difference between the overall volume
and the internal density.
The data gathered for the compressibility
and so the softness of each loaf is quite

Much kneaded researchFirst published Wednesday, 19 November 2014

erratic, and so figures 2 and 3 are not
very reliable sources. This strangeness
was most likely caused by the transition
between the loaves from light, bread like
internal structure to uncooked dough.
The 50g sucrose loaf was light enough to
be soft and the 150g loaf doughy enough
to be squishy, leading to their similar
readings, but it seems that the 100g loaf
combined the best aspects of each to be
almost twice as compressible as the
others. This data is highly unreliable and
requires many more readings before it
will be trustworthy.
This result was unexpected and
contradicted the intuitive result. As the
sucrose levels in the bread were
increased the yeast seemed to either die
off or become inactive despite the
abundance of readily available food,
leading to denser, flatter bread.
Fermentation Analysis
Yeasts ferment sugars through the
enzyme zymase[5] which catalyses the
decomposition of glucose into ethanol
and carbon dioxide.
C6H12O6 + zymaseC2H5OH + CO2 +
zymase
In bread, the glucose is obtained from
hydrolysed starch and the reaction takes
place from there. The carbon dioxide
produced forms tiny bubbles which are
trapped in the dough and these bubbles
expand in the oven and so cause the
bread to rise. The ethanol from the
reaction boils away at this time due to
the intense heat.
The possible explanations for the flatter
denser loaves with higher levels of
sucrose are most likely down to osmosis
and hormone like effects.[3]
Osmosis is the process where a solvent
will diffuse through a membrane (in this
case a cell wall) from a lower
concentration to a higher one[6]. Since
the sucrose levels outside the yeast were
relatively higher than those inside the
cells, the water inside the yeast cells
would have diffused out into the dough
to try and even out the concentrations.
This dehydration of the yeast cells would
have caused rapid and irreversible

damage to the cells and this would have

killed them. Dead yeast leads to no
fermentation and therefore no carbon
dioxide bubbles to make the bread rise.
The explanation of hormone like effects
takes on a completely different view. In a
2004 paper on industrial baking, yeast
was found to have decreased
fermentation effects when in the
presence of high levels of sucrose or
glucose. The cells were observed to start
to reproduce rather than live on and also
become more susceptible to stress,[3]
resulting in more dead yeast cells. The
paper finds that with these high levels of
sucrose the fermentation process is
slowed or even stopped.[3]
Experimental Analysis
This investigation design was ambitious,
but overall sound. The required level of
repetition was well thought out and
would have given highly satisfactory
results had it been taken into account
the time this method took to complete
and the number of researchers present.
The obvious and major consideration
with this design was just how long this
experiment was going to take to carry
out. Baking bread is not a short task and
making twelve loaves depended on utter
organisation and preparedness on the
part of all researchers. Unfortunately on
the day, one researcher was absent and
so the team was short. This resulted in
the planned control loaf not being able
to be baked due to lack of both
equipment and hands to make it with,
leaving the experiment overall one data
point less. While this weakness in the
design was not catastrophic, the net
result of it was the data being less
reliable as the trend had to be deduced
from just three points.
Another weakness of this design was the
fact that the effect of the sucrose on the
doughs consistency was not taken into
account. The loaf with 150g sugar had
the same amount of every other
ingredient, but ended up more like cake
batter than dough when mixed, leading
to the necessity of adding more flour to
it to get a bread like firmness. This

Much kneaded researchFirst published Wednesday, 19 November 2014

meant that a systematic error was
introduced to the loaves baked from that
dough.
Errors
Many errors were introduced in this
experiment, but none were significant
enough to throw the data collected into
irrelevancy.
Most of the random errors in this
experiment were in the making of the
dough, but were small enough that each
loaf could still be considered equal. The
kneading stage introduced floured
benches and as the dough was kneaded,
flour was mixed in. Different amounts of
flour were used randomly for each dough
and so some would have absorbed more
than others. The kneading itself
introduced another random error. Since it
was carried out by three different
researchers, each dough would have
been kneaded in a slightly with different
style and intensities, leading to slightly
different dough.
The systematic errors were of less
importance than the random ones in this
investigation. Their main contributors
were the temperature of the water used
and the impurities in the flour. The
lukewarm water was taken from the
same tap at the same time, but then
allowed to sit and cool before being
used. This drop in temperature could
have meant that less of the yeast was
activated. The flour used was
homebrand and so while it has to meet
certain standards, the flour was not as
fine or consistent as a higher end
product might have been and this could
have impacted the uniformity of the
dough.

Conclusions
While sweeter bread may be a desirable
foodstuff, the results of this experiment
evidence the conclusion that the simple
addition of sucrose to the dough mixture
will not give loaves of equivalent quality
to those made normally. Higher sucrose
levels in this investigation produced
loaves which were denser, harder and
not nearly as well cooked as their
savoury cousins. This finding directly
opposed the hypothesis of greater
sucrose levels producing better, sweeter
bread.
Results gained from this investigation
are by no means conclusive, and further
research with different levels of sucrose
and possible different yeasts is
recommended. Other research into the
sweetening of bread could be centred
around addition of sucrose after rising,
including artificial sweeteners to the
bread or even adding sucrose to the
bread after baking.
Contributors: All researchers provided equipment
and personal time to the completion of this
investigation. The ASMS provided all ingredients
and facilities.
Competing Interests: None declared
Ethical Approval: None required
[1]

Bakers Delight, 2014. Product Information. [Online]

Available at:
http://www.bakersdelight.com.au/whatwebake/products/
?category=1218
[Accessed 11 November 2014].

[2]

BBC, 2014. Fermentation in plants and fruits. [Online]

Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/standard/chemistry/plastic
sandothermaterials/carbohydrates/revision/6/
[Accessed 11 November 2014].

[3]

Verstrepen, K., 2004. Glucose and sucrose: hazardous

fast-food for

[4]

industrial yeast?, Online: NCBI.

Anneka Manning, 1998. Basic White Bread. [Online]

Available at:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/10857/basic+white+br
ead
[Accessed 19 September 2014]

[5]

Nuffield Foundation, 2012. Fermentation of glucose

using yeast. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/practicalchemistry/fermentation-glucose-using-yeast
[Accessed 18 November 2014].

Much kneaded researchFirst published Wednesday, 19 November 2014

[6]

Nave, R., n.d. Osmosis. [Online]

Available at: http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/diffus.html#c3
[Accessed 16 November 2014].