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Science of bread innovation: enzymes driving quality

Current enzymes are replacing older pre-existing chemical compounds to create “clean” labels, while developing softer breads with a longer shelf life.

July 8, 2015 by Darrel Suderman — President CEO, Food Technical Consulting

Many QSR and fast casual restaurants are attempting to differentiate their menus by adding a new twist to old bread concepts. I spent a large portion of my career developing biscuit products served with fried chicken, and even though biscuits show the slowest growth, they continue to lead total sales charts.

More than biscuits

It is encouraging to see restaurants serve healthier flour-based products that are more than just biscuits, Restaurant chains also present more bread options to consumers for their sandwiches and side add-ons. According to Bret Thorn, the most popular breads are hand-made Artisan breads, followed by pretzel-based hamburger and hot dog buns, brioche and Lavash flat breads.

Flour improvers and dough conditioners

But having an exciting artisan bread product recipe doesn’t guarantee that your product will reach its targeted shelf-life – which may be a week or two. Shelf-life can reflect soft v. tough eating qualities or the presence of surface molds and yeasts. To extend the bread quality shelf-life, bakers are increasingly using flour improvers or dough conditioners. These functional ingredients can be the same, but only differentiated by whether they were added into the flour by the miller, or into the dough recipe by the baker. In the United States, the dough improving ingredients are usually added at the baker level.

Dough conditioning enzymes

Most dough conditioners represent various types of enzymes, with amylase as the most popular. According to Dr, Lin Carson, founder of www.Bakerpedia.com, “amylase is an enzyme that breaks down amylose and amylopectin into smaller starch molecules,” which can be broken down further into sugar molecules that result in softer breads with a longer shelf life. Current enzymes are replacing older pre-existing chemical compounds known as SSL (an emulsifier that softens the bread crumb) and DATEM (another emulsifier) to create “clean” labels, while achieving similar functionality. Currently, bread manufacturers can use certain enzymes as processing aids and not declare them on ingredient labels – but that could change in an instant.

Science of bread innovation

These enzymes represent the “science of bread innovation” in the restaurant industry today. And unless you know about enzymes, you could be missing the bread quality improvements available to you. Another aspect of enzyme science is that enzymes are proteins and they can be denatured by heat. Depending upon your needs, be sure to select enzymes that work at your heating or baking range. Some baking enzymes can withstand baking temperatures, so they begin softening bread as soon as it comes out of the oven.

So keep innovating new bread products, but remember there are new functional ingredients that can improve your bread products even further than you thought.