Loaf 3: the sugar comes out
Take out 164 g of sugar and add nothing. The mixture thickens without losing a drop of water, and you get the blandest loaf in the course. That is the lesson, not the failure.
This is Loaf 3 of 16. One thing changed from Loaf 2: 164 g of sugar came out, and nothing went in. Water stays at 165 g, so hydration stays at 60%.
Say the quiet part first, because it is fairer than letting you find out at the cutting board. This is the blandest loaf in the course. It is not a failure and it is not your fault. It is a measurement, and you are the one taking it.
The four things that never move
400 g flour, 8 g salt (2%), one 9 x 5 inch (23 x 13 cm) loaf pan, 375°F / 190°C. Three loaves in, and the only things that have changed are the ones each loaf declared.
The formula
| Ingredient | Grams | Cups / spoons | Baker's % |
|---|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 400 g | 3⅓ cups | 100% |
| Water | 165 g | ⅔ cup + 2 tsp | 41.2% |
| Eggs | 100 g | 2 large eggs, out of the shell | 25% |
| Neutral oil | 80 g | ⅓ cup + 1 tsp | 20% |
| Fine sea salt | 8 g | 1⅓ tsp | 2% |
| Baking powder | 12 g | 2¾ tsp | 3% |
Hydration: 60% (240 g water on 400 g flour)
Method
- Heat the oven to 375°F / 190°C. Grease the pan.
- Whisk water, eggs and oil.
- Whisk flour, salt and baking powder.
- Combine to the last dry streak. The mixture is thicker than Loaf 2 and pulls at the spoon.
- Bake at 375°F / 190°C for 55 to 65 minutes. Cool completely.
Why this works
Step 4 is where this loaf earns its place. The mixture is visibly thicker than Loaf 2 was, and you did not remove any water. You removed sugar.
Sugar dissolves into water and holds onto it. Water with 164 g of sugar in it is no longer entirely available to the flour, because the sugar is in the way, competing for it. Take the sugar out and that same 165 g of water goes where it was always going to go, which is into the flour. Wet flour proteins start linking up into the stretchy network that traps gas, the one bakers call gluten, and wet starch swells. Both of those make the mixture stiffer.
So this is the first loaf that makes the course's central point, three loaves early: stiffness is not the same as dryness. A mixture can thicken dramatically with the water held constant. Every beginner who reaches for a splash of water because the bowl looks dry is reading a texture as a hydration figure, and the two are not the same reading.
Sugar was doing a second job too. Sugar browns. It caramelizes on the surface and it feeds the browning reaction between sugars and proteins that gives a crust its color and most of its toasty flavor. With the sugar gone, the crust has only flour starch and egg protein to work with, so it stays pale. Pale is correct here. Do not chase color by leaving it in longer.
How you know it's ready
As you mix: it thickens visibly as you fold. The ribbon coming off the spoon stops flowing and starts breaking. That break is the gate, and it is new. Loaf 2 poured in an unbroken ribbon.
Out of the oven: the center reads 200 to 205°F / 93 to 96°C, usually after 55 to 65 minutes at 375°F / 190°C. Since the crust will not brown much on this loaf, the thermometer is doing more of the work than it did before.
What goes wrong
The failure this loaf introduces: a soapy, faintly metallic aftertaste.
One cause: too much baking powder.
The amount did not change. Your ability to taste it did. At Loaf 2 there were 164 g of sugar in the loaf covering for it, and at Loaf 1 there was banana on top of that. Here nothing is covering anything, so a baking powder overdose that was always there suddenly announces itself on the back of the tongue.
The fix is to weigh it: 12 g, not a heaping spoon. A heaping spoon can easily be 18 g, which is half again as much as the formula calls for, and this is the first loaf in the course bare enough to taste it.
When it worked
Pale gold rather than brown. Domed, but flatter than Loaf 2. Tender and slightly crumbly.
And bland. Genuinely, memorably bland, in a way that is worth sitting with for one slice. This is what flour, water, egg, oil and salt taste like with no sugar and no fermentation. It is the floor of the building.
Everything that makes bread taste like bread arrives in the next thirteen loaves, and almost all of it arrives from fermentation rather than from the shopping list. Knowing what the floor tastes like is how you will recognize what fermentation gave you when it shows up at Loaf 4.
Bake it twice, do not linger here, then move on to Loaf 4, where yeast takes over the lift. One good loaf is luck. Two in a row is a skill.
You baked Loaf 3. Did it work?
The course is free. This is the one thing it asks for. Thirty seconds, and it is how the next baker gets a better loaf.