Amylase: starch turns into sugar
Also searched as: amylase, malt, baking malt, breaking down starch, sweeter dough, sweet potato sweetness
In short: Amylase is an that breaks starch down into sugar. It feeds the yeast, browns the crust and makes sweet potatoes sweet.
Like a baker slicing long loaves: only in small pieces can everyone have some.
Simplified model
What happens
Starch is made of long chains of sugar units. Amylase cuts them into short pieces. contains a little of it, malt contains a lot. In dough it gives the yeast food and leaves sugar over for a brown crust. Sweet potatoes contain their own amylase: cooked slowly, it works for longer and makes them sweeter.
Why it matters
Explains why bakers use baking malt, why slow-fermented doughs get a darker crust and why roasted sweet potatoes taste sweeter than boiled ones.
Rules of thumb
- For a deep crust: a long, cool fermentation or a little baking malt.
- For sweeter sweet potatoes: roast them slowly instead of boiling them fast. The enzyme then has more time to turn starch into sugar.
- Chewing starts the amylase in saliva: bread tastes sweetish after long chewing.
Levers
2
In practice
2
Bread
A cold overnight prove gives the amylase time: more sugar, a browner crust.
Potatoes
Sweet potatoes roasted for an hour at medium heat turn almost caramel-like.
Sources · 1
- Harold McGee: On Food and Cooking (2004)