New
#1
Baking Bread
I would like to hear from some of the other members (especially from some of the members who not live in the USA) concerning baking bread. First I'll start with a question. How many of you who have baked bread use sugar as one of the ingredients? The reason I ask is because virtually all of the recipes for baking bread will list sugar as one of the ingredient because as they say, "Sugar is necessary because yeast needs sugar to feed on." I do not understand why they say that. I have been baking home-made bread for quite some time. At first I used to use sugar and one day my wife said to me that her mother never used sugar to bake bread. Furthermore, when my wife used to bake bread she never used sugar. My parents were borne in Italy as was my wife's. Since my wife mentioned that to me, I have never used sugar and the bread comes out just fine. The dough rises just as well as when I used to use sugar. Unless I'm mistaken, using sugar is an "American" thing. I can not understand why most people use the sugar. So from the members who do not live in the USA, I would like to hear from you as to weather or not, most of the bakers use sugar in your land. For those members who live here in the USA who bakes bread using sugar, I challenge you to try it without the sugar and see how it works. Do everything as you normally do, but eliminate the sugar or any other sweetener. After you try it, post back and let me know how it works. I am curious to hear from some of the other members about this.