EFPP_Lecture class_Chapter 3.1_Sugar

Chapter 3. 1 Functional roles & interaction of food ingredients in the food system - SUGAR

(Just a nice picture from google😛)

Chapter 3 is about functional roles and interaction of food ingredients in the food system. So in chapter 3.1, it is about the properties of sugar, factors that affect the roles of sugar as well as the effects of interfering agents or food additives to the structure of sugar products. 

Small summary before entering the lecture class to visualize what I would learn from this chapter.
(However, it is more than what I thought😶)

Solubility

The solubility of sugar varies in different types of sugar and also depend on the temperature of the water. It can affect the food texture as it increases the viscosity. Fructose has higher grams of sugar dissolved in 100ml water than sucrose which is a table sugar. Hence, fructose has a higher solubility than sucrose and it has a higher concentration than sucrose. While the factor of temperature affect sugar solubility can be seen very obviously during our practical class of sugar😮. When the temperature increases, the viscosity of the sugar increases. It is because of the water in the solution evaporates out, and the mixture becomes more concentrated.

Hygroscopicity

It is also related to the hygroscopicity of sugar as all sugar is humectants and it tends to attract to water and absorb water from the surrounding. In the real world, this function could be good and also bad. In a good way, sugar helps to retain moisture of cakes 😗and prevent food products from drying too quickly. In a bad way, I had experienced when I left a box of caramels on a humid day for a few hours and when I came back for that, it was a gluey mess. Also, the hard candy that left inside my hiking bag for many weeks, there were liquids around it. It can be explained when the sugar absorbs the water from the environment and changing the texture of candy, and then when it absorbed too much of water, the candy becomes "sweated". 😭

This knowledge is informative and useful to me because by understanding the hygroscopicity of sugar, I can select the suitable sugar to use in the food product to achieve different objectives. For example, I would use brown sugar or fructose for making a moist sponge cake because brown sugar which contains molasses that high in fructose is more hygroscopic than white sugar as the molecule of fructose is smaller than sucrose😚. Hence, it will retain the moisture of the cake. Besides, I would use granulated sugar to produce a crust for scones because it will not absorb too much water and it will have a nice crispy crust. 

I didn't bake this but google made.😛
Will love to try to experiment this when I got free time.😃

Sweetness

Sugar helps to balance out the sour and bitter flavour of food. Sweetness will be tasted to the tongue when sugar dissolves😝. Different types of sugar provide different levels of sweetness. There is a table in the lecture notes shows the relative sweetness of sugar solutions and other sweeteners. I did not think what is the purpose of the table until Ms Tracy asked us what we understand from the table. And it is worth to self-retrospect in this case that I did not relate the table to the real practical as I just thought it was some information about different sugars. This table actually tells us or guide us that we could replace sucrose with other sweetener or sugar alcohol with a certain amount. From here, I have understood that any theory/ information or anything that appears have its own meaning and also can be used or applied in a practical way.

Crystallization

Sugar has the ability to crystallize. In the candy market, there are two different types of candies which are opaque and transparency candy, in another word, crystalline and amorphous candies. Crystalline candies are candies with an organized crystalline structure which sugar molecules are hydrogen bonded to each other to form a crystal when the water was evaporated. Most of the organized crystallized sugar molecules give an opacity to the sugar. While amorphous candies lack an organized crystalline structure due to the high concentration of sugar or interfering substance, which gives clarity to the candies. However, after agitation or beating, which a process making the light bend by incorporate the air, the candy becomes opaque. This explained why during the practical time the transparent sugar turn into opaque after we pulled it. To prevent crystallization happen, adding different types of sugar molecules such as fructose or other molecules such as citric acid, it is harder for the sugar molecules to find each other and crystallize because other sugar or molecules interfere the crystallization and hence gives a transparency to candies.

Nice Picture from google =D

Tenderizer

Sugar acts as a tenderizer. When it begins to dissolve and absorb water in a batter, it slower the gluten formation and structure building as well as increasing temperature of starch gelatinization, helping in making a more tender dough by extending the time for carbon dioxide to expand before the dough, hence giving a light result. From here, I have understood that the function of sugar in making bread or bakery product is very important, I can keep this in mind when doing the steamed bun assignment project😀.

Browning

When heated, there are two types of non-enzymatic browning that will involve in sugar which is Maillard reaction and Caramelization. During diploma time, this two terminology always very familiar in my practical class, I just know the surface of these process which one gives a nice favour for Maillard, nice colour and bitter taste for caramelization. In this chapter, I understood more clearly and deeply that Maillard browning is a chemical reaction when the sugar breaks down in the presence of protein and caramelization is the process the sugar undergoes when it is heated at high temperatures. Different sugar has different rates of browning such as fructose brown faster than sucrose as it is in a smaller molecule, hence it got a lower initial browning temperature than sucrose.

The caramelization is happening. 😎

Preservation

Sugar can function as a preservative due to its ability to absorb water and thus the bacteria become dehydrated and hence cannot grow or multiply. Jam and jellies are the common examples we can see in the market. However, I used this knowledge to practice in real life when I put more sugar in pickles cucumber, it is not only to adjust and balance the taste, but I told my grandma that adding sugar can inhibit microbial growth.😂 Even though this is not a really big thing, but I feel this is good to share when I practice and apply the theory that I learnt into life, and thus the theory and knowledge is deeply imprinted in my mind.



Last but not least, I have learned a lot from this chapter. Even though there are a lot of things I am able to bring them into real life and applying the theory in kitchens, but there is still some mistake that I have done which was failed to think whats the purpose of the content and was like waiting for answers😨. However, through this reflection, I will improve on my weaknesses and train myself to think when facing some statement, and not to totally think the statement is an ultimate answer.