Baking & Snack - August 2006 - 90

Water's Roles
Formulators must figure out how to manage moisture
in foods to assure proper finished results,
especially shelf life.

BY RICHARD F. STIER
read is called the staff of life by
some, but without water, there
would be no life at all. Water is
essential for crop production, animal
husbandry and human well-being,
and it performs a wide range of functions in food.
Water contributes to food's taste
and texture and acts as a solvent for
flavors. In fact, water is considered the
universal solvent. Keeping its levels
low in foods will discourage microbial
growth, yet its presence and movement can cause baked foods to begin to
stale. It is also an essential ingredient
in many foods and ingredients, even if
much of that added water disappears
during the baking process. So, let's
take a look at the role of water in baked
foods and snacks.

DURING PREP
There are a huge number of baked foods
and snack products, but for simplicity's
sake, this discussion will address the
role of water in two categories of products: breads and fried snacks/pastries.
Breads. There are good reasons
that commercial white bread contains yeast foods, mold inhibitors and
emulsifiers. In contract, bread that is
baked at home, or in the many boutique bakeries that have sprung up
around the US, has a simpler formu-

ᮤ As steam leaves bread during baking,
it carries along the ethanol generated by
fermentation, and both rise through the
oven flue.

94 / BAKING & SNACK / August 2006

la because it is made and sold at the
point of preparation. Shelf life is not
an issue for these types of products;
the breads are prepared for immediate sale and consumption. Keep them
a bit longer, and they become prone
to staling and/or mold growth, but
more on these issues later.
When bread dough is prepared, the
water, starch and protein work together
to form the complex that becomes bread
when baked. The starch and protein react with the water to yield a starch paste
that forms cells and provide structure.
Chilled water and jacketed mixers are used to maintain the bread at
proper temperatures during mixing.
Why? Dry ingredients produce heat
when they take up moisture. Also,
the physical actions of mixing generate heat through the friction of the ingredients against the bowl sides and
agitators. The use of chilled makeup
water at 40oF (4°C) plus the use of refrigeration-jacketed mixers ensure that
bread doughs are not too warm when
they move to the next step.
Sugar, salt and preservatives dissolve in the water, which ensures they
are completely distributed throughout
the dough to allow them to make their
contributions to the final product. If one
wishes to impart unique flavors to the
bread, water will be the carrier.
The dough is then transferred to
a proofer, so it will rise. Yeast uses
water and yeast food to produce carbon dioxide. The proteins (gliadin
and glutenin primarily) are modified
during the mixing process, so they

Baking & Snack - August 2006

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baking & Snack - August 2006