Breadmachine questions

Hello Sue, I've used bread machines for several years, and as I recall I have never used a sweet bread setting. So why am I answering this? Because I think that a sweet bread would include butter (or oil) eggs, probably milk, and most of all, more than 3 Tablespoons of any sweetner, and maybe an addition of raisins or some other dried fruit.

I have made bread using all of the above ingredients, and maybe some of them have been sweet, but I've not made bread using over 3 Tablespoons of sugar, so maybe this is the cut-off point for me NOT using a 'sweet bread' rise. I notice that on my bread machine the 'sweet bread' is the shortest cycle (other than dough and rapid rise.)

If you like sweet bread, you might look for a recipe for "Hawaiian Bread." It is a dough bread and quite common in Hawaii. One can find it on mainland US if one looks for it.

Dee

Sugar binds to the gluten producing proteins in flour. The bound proteins are not able to join to form gluten and the structure of the dough is much weaker than low/no sugar added doughs. Fat also tenderizes (shortens) the dough. Therefore, you generally don't see much more than 2 tablespoons of sugar per cup of flour. Because of the weakened structure, highly sweetened dough takes longer to rise and should not be allowed to over-rise because it will collapse. Sugar also increases browning. I'm not a fan of bread machines for a number of reasons. I find it interesting that the sweet bread cycle is the shortest cycle on your machine. When I make sweet dough like brioche, it always takes much longer due to the increased time to rise. Also, if there is a lot of fat in the dough, you have to be careful not to let it rise in too warm a place or the butter will melt leaving you with a lump of dough swimming in oil.

Yes, more sugar does effect the crust and the rising time--that is what the sweet bread setting is doing, changing the temperature setting and the rise time to accommodate the extra fast rise and keeping the crust from browning too much.

I think you probably need to use mostly recipes for the bread machine ---at least until you get more experience on the machine. Most recipes for the machine are very wet doughs. The wetter the dough usually the better the bread---but when you bake by "hand" the wet dough is really very tough to handle, so we add a bit more flour. I have adapted "by hand" recipes for the machine by reducing the flour. The first few times through I add all but the last 2 cups and let it start. Then I stop and start the machine a bunch, adding flour as needed. I helps to have some dough savvy/experience already.

good luck,

For sweet bread, you need to add more yeast or try the yeast special for the sweet bread. In the newsletter from "Lallemand yeast", it talks about the yeast in different regions: "Choosing the Right Yeast"