A dough conditioner, flour treatment agent, improving agent or bread improver is any ingredient or chemical added to bread dough to strengthen its texture or otherwise improve it in some way. Dough conditioners may include , yeast nutrients, mineral salts, oxidizing agent and reducing agent, bleaching agents and emulsion.[ They are combined with flour to improve baking functionality. Flour treatment agents are used to increase the speed of dough rising and to improve the strength and workability of the dough.
]
Examples
Examples of dough conditioners include Vitamin C, distilled , citrate ester of monoglycerides, , ammonium chloride, ,
Less processed dough conditioners include sprouted- or malted-grain flours, soy, milk, wheat germ, eggs, potatoes, gluten, yeast, and extra kneading. Malted, Diastase flours are not typically added by manufacturers to whole-wheat flours.
History
In the early 1900s it was discovered that a mixture containing calcium chloride, ammonium sulfate, and potassium bromate halved the amount of yeast needed to raise dough. These mixtures were generally known as mineral yeast foods or yeast nutrient salts. After they became popular among bakers, one patented yeast food was analyzed by Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station chief chemist J.P. Street who published in 1917 that it contained, "gypsum, 25; salammoniac, 9.7; potassium bromate, 0.3; halite, 25; patent wheat flour, 40."
Yeast nutrients
Yeast requires water, carbon sources such as starch and simple carbohydrates, nitrogen preferably as ammonium as it cannot assimilate nitrate, sulfur, phosphorus (often as inorganic phosphate), and minute quantities of vitamins and elemental mineral ions.
Oxidants and reductants
Oxidizing agents are added to flour to help with gluten development. They may or may not also act as bleaching agents. Originally flour was naturally aged through exposure to the atmosphere. Oxidizing agents primarily affect sulfur-containing amino acids, ultimately helping to form disulfide bridges between the gluten molecules. The addition of these agents to flour will create a stronger dough.[Hui and Corke 2006, p. 233.] Dehydroascorbic acid and potassium bromate are oxidants, acting on sulfhydryl groups and disulfide bonds in wheat dough, in particular oxidizing glutathione. Potassium bromate acts more directly or with fewer chemical conversion steps than ascorbic acid. Glutathione increases wheat dough's extensibility, or relaxes it, while oxidizing a dough's glutathione increases elasticity. Common oxidizing agents are:
-
ascorbic acid
-
azodicarbonamide (E number927)
-
potassium bromate (E924, the component which gives bromated flour its name, used mainly in the U.S. East and Midwest, acts as a bleaching agent, banned in some areas)
-
potassium iodate
Reducing agents help to weaken the flour by breaking the protein network. This will help with various aspects of handling a strong dough. The benefits of adding these agents are reduced mixing time, reduced dough elasticity, reduced proofing time, and improved machinability.
Emulsifiers
, monoglycerides, diglycerides, and DATEM are considered . They disperse fat more evenly throughout the dough, helping it to trap more of the carbon dioxide bubbles produced by yeast.
Enzymes
Various are also used to improve processing characteristics. Yeast cells naturally produce digestive enzymes, but additional enzymes are often added:
-
break down the polysaccharides in flour into smaller sugars, thereby feeding the yeast cells. (Malting is a good natural source of amylase enzymes)
-
(e.g papain) improve extensibility of the dough by degrading some of the gluten.
-
oxidize components within the flour.
Other agents
Other additives may be used as yeast nutrients or as a source of enzymes:
See also
-
Chorleywood bread process
Notes
Bibliography
-
Hui Y and Cork H (2006). Bakery products: science and technology. Blackwell Publishing.
External links
