Hey guys it's Bettie from BakerBettie.com and welcome back to another ask
Baker Bettie video. Now if you missed my video from last week I'm actually
starting a new series here on my channel called ask Baker Bettie where I just sit
down in my kitchen and I answer all of your questions about one specific baking
topic. So last week I answered a lot of questions about
yeast; how it functions in baking and different types of yeast. And now this
week I am going to be answering all of your questions about sugar. The reason I
chose this topic this week is because I am going to be publishing a video about
how to make marshmallows from scratch. And sugar is really one of the key
ingredients for what makes a marshmallow a marshmallow. So I thought it would be a
really good topic to tackle this week. And I asked you on Instagram to send me
all of your questions about sugar and I wrote them down and I'm going to answer
them here today. Now if you aren't already following me on instagram I am
@BakerBettie and that is where I am going to be posting the topic for the
upcoming week for you to ask me questions. So if you want to be involved
in that make sure you go follow me over there. And I also do lots of behind the
scenes things and techniques and you do see a little bit of my real life over
there. So it's been a really great community and I hope to see you over
there. Okay so let's do a little brief overview of all of the things sugar does
in our baking because I think it does a lot more than you think it might. Now the
first and most obvious thing that sugar is going to do for us is to sweeten and
add some flavor to our baked goods. Now granulated sugar isn't going to add
so much flavor as it does sweetness but things like brown sugar are going to
also add some flavor because of the molasses in the brown sugar. It's going
to add some caramel and just deeper notes to our baked goods. Now sugar is
also going to help promote browning of our baked goods
so sugar obviously caramelizes when high heat is applied to it.
So a baked coat that has no sugar or a very small amount of sugar in it is
going to brown much less in the oven then a baked good that
has a higher ratio of sugar. Sugar is also going to help leaven our baked
goods. So a perfect example of this is when you are creaming butter and sugar
together the purpose of that is to trap a web of air between the sugar and the
fat and that is going to help leaven your cookies or cakes or whatever you
are using that creamed mixture with. So sugar is really a key ingredient in
those circumstances for leavening. Sugar also holds on to moisture. So sugar is
hygroscopic in nature which means that it pulls in and holds on to moisture
which means that a baked good that is made with no sugar is going to stale
much quicker than a baked good that's made with a high amount of sugar. And
that's just because the sugar is really holding on to that moisture and keeping
the baked good more moist and tender. And speaking of tenderness sugar also helps
to tenderize our baked goods. So because sugar is hygroscopic in nature it is
holding on to that moisture and actually leaving it less readily available for
the flour to produce gluten width so a base coat that's made with the high
quantity of sugar is going to have a weaker gluten structure and therefore
will be more tender than a baked good that's made with no sugar or very little
sugar. So that is a very brief overview of all of the different things sugar
does in our baking but definitely check out that more detailed video if you want
to learn even more. Ok so now I want to answer all the questions that you asked
me on Instagram. I wrote them down and I will try my best to answer them. If you
have another question that didn't get asked or didn't get answered here
definitely ask it in the comment section and I will do my best to answer it. So
Jess asked me "I watch a UK Baker who says castor sugar
and icing sugar... are these the same as granulated sugar and powdered sugar?" So
this is such a great question because people from other parts of the world are
going to use different terminology for things than we use in America. And
they're also going to have access to different ingredients than we
have so it's nice to know what you can substitute for different things or what
different terminology is. So castor sugar is not exactly granulated sugar it is
actually closer to what we would call superfine sugar in the US. So superfine
sugar is not super easy to find, it's not in every grocery store but sometimes you
can find it and that is really the equivalent of castor sugar. And what that
is, is it it's sort of an in-between between
granulated sugar and powdered sugar. It's granulated sugar that has been processed
to a finer grain than actual granulated sugar. So castor sugar or
superfine sugar are actually excellent things to use when you are making things
that require whipping egg whites into a meringue. So something like pavlova or
macarons, all of those things work really well with castor sugar or superfine
sugar. But that's not to say that you can't substitute the two.If you see a
recipe that calls for castor sugar you can use granulated sugar and vice versa.
But if you are making something that has a really delicate and light texture and
it calls for castor sugar and you don't have access to it you can actually take
granulated sugar and put it in your food processor and give it a few pulses until
it's a little bit of a finer grain and then it's going to be a better
substitute for you. Now it's not to say that if you were to just use granulated
sugar it would be a disaster. You definitely can, but to give a more
accurate substitute you can process it to a finer grain. Now icing sugar is
the same thing as powdered sugar. So powdered sugar has quite a few different
names. It's called powdered sugar, confectioners sugar, icing sugar, 10x sugar. It has a lot of different names. Now what that is
is it is granulated sugar that has been processed down to a really fine powder
and then it has an anti-caking agent added into it something like corn starch
to just make sure it doesn't clump up. So that's what all
of those things are referring to. Okay so Anne asked me 'when substituting coconut
sugar for granulated sugar, do you use the same measurements?" So this is a great
question because sugar serves so many purposes in our baking that you really
need to be careful when you do substitute it for other types of sugar.
So coconut sugar is actually going to be a better substitute for brown sugar than
it is for granulated sugar because it has similar properties. It is a more
unprocessed sugar and is going to have those molasses notes to it and it's a
little more moist than granulated sugar. So that's not to say that you can't
substitute it for granulated sugar but it just serves as a better substitute
for brown sugar because it's a little more similar in texture and flavor. Now
you can substitute one for one, I tend to think that coconut sugar tastes a little
less sweet so sometimes I usually add a little bit more but I find that coconut
sugar is going to function best in things that are a little more forgiving
something like a muffin or a quick bread like banana bread or zucchini bread or
cookies also can work well with coconut sugar. If you're wanting to make
something that's a little less forgiving something like a cake or a
marshmallow or a macaron or something that takes a little more technical skill,
I wouldn't really recommend substituting coconut sugar and in fact if you want to
make something like that with coconut sugar I would try to find a recipe that
is specifically written to be made with coconut sugar. When I was a private chef
I actually used to make marshmallows for my client with coconut sugar and I was
able to find a recipe that was written specifically to be made with coconut
sugar. Now those marshmallows have such a different texture than a traditional
marshmallow because that coconut sugar is more like brown sugar they kind of
always stay like a little bit wet they never really set like a real marshmallow
does. But as long as you're okay with understanding that it's not going to be
like the traditional version you definitely can and there are so many
bloggers out there that write recipes specifically utilizing those ingredients.
So that is what I would recommend is to try to find recipes that are
specifically written to use that ingredient because sugar does play such
a crucial role in the texture and you don't want to be wasting all of
your ingredients kind of trying to play around with it and figure out what might
work. Okay so Haley asked me "why do some bread
recipes call to add sugar to the yeast and liquid combination first to wake the
yeast up but some do not call for any sugar at all to activate the yeast?" So
that's a great question and this is something that we addressed a little bit
in the last ask Baker Bettie video about yeast. So some of bread recipes call for
you to proof your yeast. And what that means is you are going to mix the dried
yeast with the liquid in the recipe and a pinch of sugar. And what happens when
you do that is the yeast is going to wake up with that liquid because it's in
a dried state it needs moisture to wake up and then the sugar is going to give
it something to start feeding on. So it serves two purposes it's going to sort
of jumpstart your yeast so that when you add it into your dough it's really
vigorous and active and awake. But also it's going to let you know that your
yeast is definitely alive before you add it into your dough. So when you proof
your yeast you'll start seeing a lot of activity a lot of bubbles forming and
that's just a little insurance policy to make you know that your yeast is alive.
Now this process is not necessary to make a bread recipe. You, in fact the
recipe that I posted last week for my four ingredient bread we just mixed the
yeast into the dry ingredients we added our water in and there's no sugar in
the recipe at all. Now yeast does need a food source to feed on but that does not
have to be in the form of granulated sugar. When flour is hydrated it starts
breaking down the starches in the flour and it's going to start converting that
into sugar that the yeast can then feed on. So yeast is going
to have food in a bread dough whether it has sugar in it or not and yeast is
going to wake up once it's hydrated whether it was done separately from the
bread dough or if it was mixed right into the bread dough, if that makes sense.
So proofing your yeast is definitely a process that can make you know your
yeast is alive and give you a little bit of a jumpstart so that your yeast is
really active when it goes to the recipe. But it's not 100% necessary and recipes
are just written differently based on what they're trying to achieve and just
sort of what the recipe writer prefers when they're making their bread. Okay so
Sarah asked me "when is the best time to put turbinado sugar on things like
muffins or banana breads? It's either melted into the batter or it
bounces right off?" So I tend to put turbinado sugar or sanding sugar on top
of cookies or muffins or scones before they go into the oven but I find that
you actually need quite a bit of sugar like more of the turbinado sugar
than you think you might to make sure you're actually getting that crunchy
texture. So if you do a light sprinkling over the top chances are it actually is
going to seem like it's sort of melted into the batter. You have to do a pretty
liberal coating on it or you're not gonna get that really nice crunchy
effect. So I would say do it at the beginning make sure you're using a good
amount of sugar. If that still isn't working for you for some reason like if
you have a batter that's extremely wet and it's kind of sinking down in, you
could definitely put your muffins in the oven give them a few minutes and then
quickly add some on top while they're still raw but partially baked and see if
that works. But I like to do it at the beginning but
just make sure you're using a good amount of sugar. Okay and the last
question I have is "how does natural sugar affect baked goods?" So I'm not sure
if this question is referring to specifically unprocessed forms of sugar
or if it's referring to things like honey and maple syrup and
coconut sugar and things like that. So if you do want to use more natural forms of
sugar like honey or maple syrup you can substitute them in certain baked goods.
Like I addressed with the coconut sugar, it's typically better to do that with
more forgiving baked goods so a brownie, a muffin, a banana bread those things
tend to work better with those types of sugar substitutes and it's an important
thing to also keep a note is that honey and maple syrup are actually sweeter by
volume than granulated sugar. So you want to typically do about 2/3 of a cup for
every one cup of granulated sugar that you're substituting but again with this
since baking is a science I would tend to work on finding recipes that are
actually calling for the sweetener that you would prefer to use so if you were
to take my banana bread that uses granulated sugar and brown sugar and
tried to swap it out for maple syrup or honey it's possible that it would work
well but you're probably going to get the best results for a recipe that
was specifically tested with that ingredient, if that makes sense. So I'm
not a big fan of making swaps like that. Not that I'm not a fan of baking with
those ingredients but I just think that it just works better if it's
specifically designed to be used that way. Now I really hope you found this
video informative. If you did go ahead and give me a thumbs up and I will be
back in a few days with my how to make marshmallows video. Now if you have never
made marshmallows before I really encourage you to try this. I really think
you're going to enjoy the process and I actually used to think that I didn't
like marshmallows and that was just because I had never tried a
homemade marshmallow. Homemade marshmallows are a whole new ballgame.
They are so delicious and nothing like those store-bought kind so I can't wait
for you guys to see that video I'll be back in a few days with it. If you aren't
already subscribed go ahead and hit that subscription button and ring
the notification bell so you never miss a video and if you're somewhere with
this crazy winter polar vortex, please be safe. I'm in Chicago and we're getting like
negative 20 degrees today so be safe, stay warm, and I will see you guys soon. Bye!