My toddler loves a specific kind of bread. Likely because it’s sweetened. I would like to avoid the sugar. Perhaps if I can make an unsweetened version of his favorite „round bread“? I found a recipe for this kind of bread, but obviously it’s got syrup in it.
I wonder if it’s possible to skip or replace the syrup somehow. I know baking is chemistry, so this might be difficult. I guess I would be okay with adding a small amount of sugar to help the yeast. What else am I missing? I assume the consistency would change if I just skip the syrup?
So I’m looking for advice.
The original recipe:
- 50g fresh yeast
- 6dl fingerwarm milk
- 50g butter, room temperature
- 0.75dl light syrup
- 2 tsp salt
- 9dl wheat flour
- 6dl rye flour
Crumble the yeast into a bowl and dissolve it with the milk. Add butter, syrup, salt, and flour a little at a time towards the end. Mix everything together into a smooth dough and knead it for a few minutes. Let the dough rise under a kitchen towel for 45 minutes.
Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Form them into round balls and flatten them on a floured baking board. Roll them out into rounds, about 1 cm thin. Roll out the last time with a rolling pin or prick tightly with a fork. Roll quite hard so that there is a deep pattern, otherwise large air bubbles will form in the bread during baking.
Place the rounds on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Let them rise under a kitchen towel for about 20 minutes. Set the oven to 250°C.
Bake the rounds in the middle of the oven for 8-9 minutes or until they are golden brown. Let them cool on a wire rack under a kitchen towel.
Edit: Thanks everyone for your input! I think I’ll try to just leave the syrup out entirely and give it more time to rise. I don’t know what the dough should feel like at the different fermentation stages (so I don’t know how to judge when it is ready). So I might actually end up making just the original recipe first, to help me with that. It will be a few days before I have time to try this out. Thanks again!
It’s kinda on the edge of things.
Sugars in any form are going to change how bread comes out at least a little because the yeast go crazy for it. It shouldn’t be a huge difference in rise and crumb, but there’s going to be some difference.
A small enough amount, and it won’t be detectable at all because it’s just getting the yeast going sooner and then the activity settles out. But the syrup here is being added after getting the yeast to get going, so it’s going to contribute to the rise, at least during the initial ferment.
So, you can’t just replace it with water, even if you calculate how much water is in the syrup.
You should, however, be able to replace it with something else and get roughly the same outcome. I’ve seen good results with applesauce 1:1. It does up the acidity some, and it slightly softens the end bread compared to sugars only, but it’s less of a difference than replacing with water would be, or just using nothing.
You could also try a tangzhong method, which won’t necessarily make the crumb come out exactly the same, but it should give a softer texture that will be nicer than using nothing at all
Mind you, you definitely can just skip it. Nothing says you have to worry about it at all. The sugar isn’t necessary to make bread. It only changes the exact outcome, and a toddler may not notice the lack of sweetness when it looks the same. A toddler might notice, but it isn’t a certain outcome.