IMPROVERS Bread

The wind beneath the wings of commercial baking success

BY MADELEINE ORINA

In recent years, the technology applied to the production of baked goods has changed significantly. Machines have taken over manual labor not only in industrial bakeries but also in small craft bakeries. New methods for the efficient production of baked goods require a specific quality of doughs and batters, and in addition, the consumer also demands high-quality products.

The commercial viability of any baker hinges on meeting these demands, and so they have taken to using bread improvers - also called improving agents, flour treatment agents, dough conditioners, and dough improvers - to do so.

According to the definition laid down in the German Guidelines for Bread and Small Baked Items, improvers are mixtures of food including additives intended to facilitate or simplify the production of baked goods, to compensate for changes in processing properties due to fluctuations in raw materials and to influence the quality of baked goods.

Improvers have been used for more than 100 years to support the full development of bread flour properties and to balance the natural differences in baking behavior caused by variations in temperature, humidity, flour, and labor. In this way, they enable bakers to ensure consistent premium results with every batch they bake.

Bread improvers activate the gluten and enhance the dough’s rheological and fermentation properties, which in turn leads to an increase in the dough’s strength, extensibility, machinability, stabilized fermentation, handling, and gas retention capacity. When bread improvers are used, the result is always bread with improved texture, color, taste, composition, and tenderness. The bread also has a longer shelf-life, stronger structure, and better volume.

Knowing what bread improvers are and what they do begs the question, what exactly in their makeup gives them their dough conditioning and improving properties? Well, typically, a bread improver contains minute quantities of enzymes, emulsifiers, oxidizing and reducing agents as well as bleaching agents, each with crucial and uniquely defining properties. In this article, we help you understand more about dough improvers by exploring each of these components in detail.

Enzymes Take Bread Baking Back To Its Roots

Enzymes are known to universally catalyze biochemical reactions taking place in living organisms. They help to meet technological needs in several sectors of the food-processing industry, especially breadmaking.

The enzymes used in breadmaking come from various sources. Endogenous enzymes are naturally present in cereal grains found in the flour while exogenous enzymes are added to the flour and may be obtained from animal or plant organisms.

Since their discovery, enzymes have played a role in breadmaking by facilitating the yeast fermentation responsible for leavening. By the late nineteenth century, exogenous enzymes in the form of malt and fungal alpha-amylases were being added to flour and dough to control and aid the breadmaking process in nascent commercial bakeries.

Over time, however, this practice was abandoned as newer chemical additives and processing aids became available. The use of these chemical additives is being phased out in many countries now, and commercial bakers are increasingly returning to exogenous enzymes to control the breadmaking process.

The most relevant for breadmaking are amylases, proteases, hemicellulases, lipases, and glucose oxidases. These enzymes improve control of the baking process and allow the use of different baking processes. They also reduce process time, slow-down staling, compensate for flour variability, and help bakers substitute chemical additives. The enzymes can be added in small quantities either individually or in complex mixtures, which may act synergistically in the production of baked goods.

Bleaching Agents Hold Attributes Beyond The Obvious

In its natural state, flour might not perform well in baking or give baked products the desired texture, volume, and consistency. So, it is often made to undergo a process called aging or maturing that seems to improve its water absorption and baking qualities. With aging, freshly milled flour turns whiter in color and this process also strengthens glutens and proteins in it.

Natural aging happens when milled flour comes into contact with oxygen in the air, but this process takes about two months or more. To make flour white and consumable almost immediately after milling, commercial manufacturers treat it with certain chemical additives which are also known as bleaching agents.

Bleaching agents, when added to flour, break down the carotenoid molecules making it appear whiter, which consumers find more aesthetically pleasing. These agents are also important for oxidizing or chemically altering proteins so that they are ready to form strong gluten networks while you're baking. Plus, this small alteration to the proteins makes the dough less sticky and easier to handle and also gives baked goods a better volume and texture.

The most used bleaching agents are benzoyl peroxide, calcium peroxide, nitrogen dioxide, chlorine, chlorine dioxide, azodicarbonamide, and oxygen from the atmosphere, used during the natural aging of flour. Some methods of flour bleaching, like the use of chlorine, bromates, and peroxides, are not allowed in the European Union.

Emulsifiers Make The Impossible Possible

Emulsifiers bring two opposing forces — water and fat — together in unity. With emulsifiers easing tensions between these components, formulators can blend them to gain a multitude of benefits across a wide range of applications.

The binding of the emulsifiers to the lipophilic part of the gluten proteins happens during the mixing of the dough. This increases the gluten protein aggregation and subsequently the dough development time. It also stabilizes the dough so that it can withstand excessive kneading.

“In a bread formulation, there is a fair amount of water, but not much fat, so there’s less of a need to bring these two together; however, emulsifiers will still help the water and fat complex with the starch to increase loaf volume and machineability,” said Matt Gennrich, senior food scientist, Cargill.

Because bread doesn’t contain much fat, the benefits of emulsifiers can assist more with process tolerance for commercially produced bread as well as improved final product characteristics.

One of the best emulsifiers, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of fatty acids (DATEM) are thought to form hydrogen bonds with gluten and starch. This reaction will act to strengthen the glutenstarch network to improve dough stability during proofing as well as produce baked goods with increased volume, improved external symmetry, and better internal crumb structure.

Oxidizing And Reducing Agents Allow Bakers To Alter Dough Extensibility

Bakeries around the world have modernized their production techniques with high-speed lines. This has posed an issue for wheat growers and flour millers who have been forced to select wheat varieties that give the dough extra strength. However, this is achieved at the expense of dough extensibility and softness.

To control this, bakers add reducing agents that damage the gluten structures that form so that they become more elastic, more extensible, and less hard. The shape of the product is also better retained, being less prone to shrinkage and curling. Reducing agents also reduce mixing time and save on energy, making the baking process more efficient.

Incidentally, to produce a harder dough structure, oxidizing agents are needed to strengthen gluten proteins. High-speed bakeries, lean formulations, and changes to wheat flour quality all led to increased use of these chemicals. Fast oxidizers are ingredients like potassium iodate, sodium iodate, calcium peroxide, and potassium bromate. A slower and clean labelfriendly oxidizer is ascorbic acid. These chemical oxidants have been highly effective in maximizing the potential of the wheat protein available.

Due to consumer demands for the reduction of chemical additives, and legislative restrictions on their use, glucose oxidase was introduced later on in the 1980s and enzymatic oxidation became commonplace. This offered new benefits and fitted well with consumer demand for healthy products with natural and easy-to-understand ingredient listings.

Most common glucose oxidases on the market originate from Aspergillus sp. Recently, DSM developed a new glucose oxidase originating from Penicillium chrysogenum. Biochemical analyses of this new glucose oxidase have shown that this enzyme exhibits a self-regulating mechanism. A possibly larger and more extensive gluten network is formed, improving the overall strength of the gluten network. Moreover, it allows for the dough to become elastic, maintaining its ability to stretch.

Thymly Products recently launched Thymly Phresh Beta, a new maltogenic amylase-based dough conditioner designed for low-pH doughs such as sourdough and ciabatta. Thymly Phresh

IN NUMBERS

High speed mixing requires dough with extra strength US$

4.5B PROJECTED MARKET SIZE OF GLOBAL BREAD IMPROVER MARKET IN 2027