There are many different types of sugars, each with a different colour, flavour, sweetness, and particle size. Sugar crystal sizes range from 60 m in powder form to 2000 m in coarse granulated crystals. It is also available as a solution of liquid sugar. The function an ingredient must perform in a recipe determines the type of sugar that is used.
According to Anmol Industries, a well-known company that offers its customers a wide variety of bakery products in addition to Chocolate Cream Biscuits in India, revealed that sugar serves a number of functional purposes in the preparation of biscuit dough as well as in the structural and organoleptic characteristics of baked biscuits. Sugar also gives biscuits their distinctively sweet flavour. It is utilised in semisweet dough recipes in lower amounts and in short dough recipes in larger ones. Cookies include a lot of sugar, but to prevent a crisp cookie texture that would result from using sucrose alone, glucose or invert syrups are used with sugar in these recipes. Furthermore, powdered sugar is used in the cream fillings, the science behind using the powdered version is, the smaller particle size leaves no residue on tongue and gives a smooth tongue experience.
The Use of Sugar in Baking
Sweetness
Since its propensity to sweeten food is its most fundamental quality, sugar is an essential ingredient in baking. Despite the wide variety of sweeteners, sucrose is the most versatile. The size of the sugar crystals affects how sweet biscuits are. The taste is sweeter when using finer sugar particles because the sugar is dispersed more uniformly throughout the biscuit. The pH of the biscuit and the impact of other ingredients are two additional factors that affect how sweet something is perceived.
Flavour
Brown sugar and treacle, by-products of the sugar refining process, can be added to biscuit batter as flavourings. Molasses, which is found in brown sugar and treacle, offers baked goods a stronger flavour and a darker colour than white sugar does. Sugar interacts with other ingredients to provide a tastier product when used in recipes to enhance the flavours of the biscuit. It can be used to emphasise a specific flavour or cover over the taste of other flavours. The flavour of the cooked biscuit is improved by the caramelization of sugar during baking.
Texture & Biscuit Structure
There is not much water in the recipe for short dough biscuits. During the initial step of mixing, the sugar dissolves in the water and binds part of the liquid to stop the starch from gelatinizing. Additionally, it restricts the amount of water that can contact the flour, reducing the amount of gluten that forms and giving the biscuits a softer texture. The degree of sugar's solubility in the water at hand depends on the sugar's crystal size. Small particle size ensures softer dough, since there will be low amount of water content available to the flour. Sugar crystals will still be visible in the dough and, as a result, in the final product if the sugar is not fully dissolved.
Appearance/ Surface decoration
Before baking, sugar is occasionally dusted on biscuits' tops as decoration. The sucrose crystals that were powdered on the dough pieces' surfaces stick firmly to the biscuit's surface and are still discernible after baking. Depending on the intended visual effect, various sugar crystal sizes may be employed. Another phenomenon that can be produced with the use of high sugar levels in the dough is surface cracking on the biscuit's surface.
Shelf life
In a cooked biscuit, sugar bonds water molecules to prevent microbial growth. In addition, it raises the starch gelatinization point, which lessens the likelihood of staleness even though short dough biscuits' low water content does not encourage it. Additionally, it has been claimed that sucrose's antioxidant capabilities, which are in part related to its capacity to reduce water activity, help to preserve flavours. Therefore, the inclusion of sugar in biscuits may help to extend their shelf life.
Bulking Agent
Cream fillings also contain sugar as a bulking agent. The use of sugar is appropriate because it easily dissolves when consumed and has a low water activity, which prevents moisture from leaking from the cream filling into the biscuit. Textural variations and fails may be caused by moisture movement from a phase of high-water activity to one of low water activity.
To give consumers healthier options, there is now a global movement to lower the amount of sugar in a range of meals. It's not always simple to reduce or eliminate sugar from recipes due to the many roles it plays in the processing of short doughs and the physical characteristics of baked biscuits. To achieve the numerous functions that sugar provides, this may in some situations need the use of more than one replacement ingredient, which only a few reputed brands like Anmol Industries could achieve.
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