My Betty Crocker
Potato Refrigerator Dough recipe calls for 2/3 c. sugar to 7-7-1/2 c. flour.
Link to the recipe for vickilynn:
http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=26353
Lesson for the day....
Too much sugar is damaging to the yeast and draws water from the yeast, but 2/3 c. sugar to 7-7-1/2 c. flour isn't too much sugar for a
refrigerator dough.
Two tablespoons of sugar per cup of flour is about the MAXIMUM you can add without major gluten damage, and 1 tablespoon per 2 cups of flour is a common amount for a non-refrigerated dough. So this amount is somewhere in the middle, but with a reason.
Sugar acts as food for the yeast, but so do the carbohydrates in flour. You can make bread without any sugar. The amount of sugar also helps to determine how dark the crust will be (Maillard reaction). A high amount of sweetener in hamburger buns is what gives it that characteristic brown coloring. Without it, they are rather anemic-looking.
If you just don't like a sweet-tasting bread, then try using 25% less sugar, and probably even up to 50%. But don't keep it for very long in the refrigerator, and don't expect as brown a crust.
The main reason for this amount of sugar is because of it's keeping time in the refrigerator. Much of the sugar has been consumed by the yeast after a 5-day stay in the refrigerator. So how long you plan on using it from the refrigerator will help you decide how much to use. If you use it quickly, you could use a lot less.
The purpose of the mashed potatoes (or any pureed vegetables) in refrigerator bread dough is it helps preserve the moisture in the dough. Refrigerators are a very dry environment, and without the potatoes, a regular yeast dough would get dehydrated and unworkable quicker than the Potato Refrigerator Dough recipe does.
