Hacker News Reader

Comment by mahesh_rm | Hacker News Reader

"You can put a touch of sugar in the dough, or you can put a touch of sugar in the sauce, but don't put it in both. Corollary: If you put pineapple or other sweet toppings on the pie, don't put any sugar in the sauce or dough."

As an Italian, I feel the urge to jump in here. Sugar in dough is used to kickoff/boost yeast levitation, while sugar in sauce is used to affect tomato acidity. In both cases, they are not intended to provide your pizza with a sweet taste. If for some reasons you like some sweet flavor on your pizza, you should at least take into account the fact that it comes as a byproduct of diverse chemical reactions that affect consistency and PH of your pizza in multiple/subtle ways.

View on HN

The American concept of "a touch of sugar" is different from most places', so for that audience the advice is pretty sound.

I moved to the USA from Australia. If I want bread that doesn't taste like cake, I actually have to bake it myself.

Have you tried buying bakery bread?

Lots of them simply don't contain sugar at all. Really.

As an American who lives abroad...I hear this about American bread all the time but I've yet to discover what's actually different. Supermarket sandwich bread is just about the same everywhere.

Perhaps the rest of the world is just used to buying from a bakery, rather than the supermarket?

In my experience, the difference is that in the US, bakery bread is more expensive, while in Europe it's just as cheap to buy fresh.

Well, it's the other way round. In Italy supermarkets evolved to contain bakeries, because otherwise people would not buy supermarket bread. Nowadays you can find pretty good bread at the supermarket, but it is all fresh

I should probably clarify: by "supermarket bread" I mean the pre-wrapped, pre-sliced stuff you buy from the carb aisle, like Wonderbread. Most American supermarkets (well, most suburban ones at any rate) also have traditional bakeries inside.

I'm not sure sugar in sauce affects acidity, I think that's a myth. Finding it hard to find some studies on it though, best I've found:

https://warmchef.com/does-sugar-reduce-acidity-in-tomato-sau...

No, but it does affect your perception of acidity.

Fair enough... Pizza is a savory dish and I've he'd the displeasure (on multiple occasions) of having sweet sauce and dough bloomed with lots of sugar, and it transformed almost into a dessert.

I use sugar in the dough for making it slightly brown and a tiny bit crunchy.

That will work, but the best way to add crunch and color to crust is to steam it: https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2017/02/28/steam-in-bread-b...

You crank up your oven to very high (for most ovens that is ALL THE WAY), let it stabilize temperature for 40-60 minutes with an empty pan in the rack underneath where the bread goes.

When the bread goes in, pour a cup of water into the pan. This will create steam in the early stages of cooking and promote good crust properties.

Thanks for the link. It looks interesting.

I look forward to reading it later.

I'll probably still end up doing the extra sugar when I feel like that particular type of dough (usually thin ones) since it's a different type of crunch.

Olive oil is for that purpose. Sugar is to feed yeast. It won’t be there by the time the dough is fired.

> It won’t be there by the time the dough is fired.

In my dough it most certainly is, and it makes a big difference.

Olive oil does not caramelise.

... your dough caramelizes? How much sugar do you put in?

Probably not as much as you're imagining. I like just a little bit of caramelisation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com