My recipe says 1 tablespoon of sugar per loaf.
This seems like too small an amount for flavor.
The recipe is as follows:
Is this for flavor, or is there another purpose?
Sugar has a few effects in bread:
It helps make it soft and tender by absorbing some of the water and slowing down the formation of gluten strands.
It feeds the yeast, resulting in a faster rise.
Via caramelisation, it aids in the browning of the crust.
It acts as a preservative, keeping the bread fresher for longer (though 1tbsp probably doesn't make a lot of difference).
It does have some effect on the flavour.
The main reason is yeast food. You may not actually need it if you're using instant yeast; either that, or you can bump it up a little for a slightly sweeter bread.
Sugar is indeed a microbial like salt is but only for certain microbes. The use in bread is it keeps it moist by pulling humidity from the surrounding air. Honey is nature made sugar and a much better choice. If you want a more savory loaf then use 1 tsp. per cup of flour. For pastries then use more sugar or sprinkle it atop the pastry. If you really need food for the yeast then make a water roux by cooking up a portion of the flour and some water on a 1 to 5 ratio(1 part flour to 5 parts water) and keep stirring until the flour becomes really thick and sticky. Allow that to cool and incorporate into your dough. What happens is the starch in the flour is cooked up into carbohydrates which feeds the yeast instead of using sugar. Hope this helps...
