Sodium stearoyl lactylate

[NulloModo]

Hi,

I am currently undertaking a baking project to recreate my favorite LC Bread, which unfortunately recently dissapeared from the market and the company who made it has apparently fallen off the face of the earth.

Some like-minded individuals have helped reverse engineer a likely recipe for it, but one of the ingredients that has popped up is 'Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate'. Someone from another board dug this up for me about it:

Sodium stearoyl lactylate is an emulsifier used as a dough strengthener in baked goods. It has several features that combine to make it very popular with bakers. It maintains the texture of fresh baked bread by keeping the amylose starch in its gelled state, preventing its recrystallization. It makes the gluten in the bread stronger and more extensible, increasing the volume of the loaf. It disperses the fats in the bread, making it softer, while allowing less fat to be used.It absorbs water, allowing the baker to get 1 to 1.5% more loaves from the same ingredients, thus making each loaf less expensive.

Now, preserving the rolls I will make will not be a huge issue, as I can basically cook them up as I need them. What I am wondering, is if I should try to get ahold of some of this stuff to toss in (I have no idea where I would even begin to find it) or if my rolls would be just as good if I left it out. Does anyone use this stuff? Are the effects dramatic, subtle. or something else?

Also, the recipe calls for Ascorbic Acid (which I am told is Vitamin C). Will I be able to just buy some Vitamin C tablets at the grocery store and grind them up, or does baking use a different grade?

[McDuff]

You can get ascorbic acid at a winemaking supply place, and instructions to use it from Raymond Calvel's book. It's used at a very small percentage.

As for the other stuff, I just don't get it. This is heavy duty industrial stuff probably not available to the home user. There are so many ways to get a good loaf I don't know that you need to resort to better living through chemisty. This chemical is on the list of unacceptable ingredients for food sold where I work, Whole Foods.

This is proof that you don't need chemicals. Just follow some of the tips in the bread threads here. This is Cook's Illustrated rustic Italian, with the hydration pushed to 100% in the dough, and barely kneaded, maybe a minute. But it was turned every 20 minutes for an hour and then allowed to ferment as the recipe indicates. Screaming for nitrate-laden fatty cold cuts and sharp cheeses.

[NulloModo]

Ah. I am sure that if I were baking normal bread it wouldn't be an issue at all. However, when doing low-carb baking a lot of chemistry seems to come into play.

The main ingredients of the rolls are vital wheat gluten (or perhaps wheat protein isolate, I will play with both and see what works better), flax seed meal, oat fiber, yeast, and polydextrose (which should feed the yeast, I am going to try to sub this for inulin). I suppose that I will have to try it without the sodium stuff, and who knows, maybe I won't even be able to tell a difference.

[artisanbaker]

i make artisan hair shampoo with this stuff

[jackal10]

Use Vitamin C - you can buy powder - about 0.5% or a small pinch. It inhibits an enzyme in fresh flour that degrades the gluten.

I wouldn't bother with the soap, unless you are baking on an industrial scale, and using compressed air and mechanical means instead of yeast to get the rise.

[Michael Laiskonis]

I love food chemistry, and I love the thought of mining the mass market food industry for those ingredients and production tricks that have an interesting use in the food I prepare. And just out of sheer curiosity, I'm sort of interested in some of these strange starches and sugars (the not-so-strange being my primary media) being used in the low carb trend... But I have to say, I can be a bit of a purist, too. Why try to bastardize something as simple and wholesome as bread, just for the sake of a fad diet or marketing phenomenon? Why not just skip it, or better yet, just enjoy the real thing in moderation?

[McDuff]

But I have to say, I can be a bit of a purist, too. Why try to bastardize something as simple and wholesome as bread, just for the sake of a fad diet or marketing phenomenon? Why not just skip it, or better yet, just enjoy the real thing in moderation?

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I guess that's what I would have said if I had the words.

[JSkilling]

I'm in the same food chemistry is fun camp but in the end I abandoned low carb baking because I felt the results were a pale comparison to the real thing. And if I'm just substituting one "evil" ingredient for another the compromise seems to be too great. But then, I don't have to moderate sugar for my health and have the luxury of choice. If I were a severe diabetic I might not be so quick to dismiss it as something is better than nothing in many cases. That said...

This sounds like an ingredient that is used more for mass production to get the most $$ out of set of ingredients as opposed to the best product. If you don't need shelf life or to extend your production costs then simply bake your ingredients, eat and enjoy. My personal experience with vital wheat gluten and wpi are that the results are too glutinous for my tastes (so I just buy something that someone else made better ). I think many of the manufacturers are using whole wheat combinations with this to get a better texture.

You'll have fun experimenting, though!

[chefpeon]

When I was in school, we learned little bit about dough enhancer/conditioners when we made bread. We had some formulas that used a product called Reddi-Sponge just so we could see the difference in the loaves we made with it. It seems it has a similar effect on doughs that sodium stearoyl lactate does.....here's some technical data. A lot of bakery suppliers carry it.

Reddi Sponge

[scott123]

The ascorbic acid (vitamin c) used for baking is the same used in supplements. As jackal10 stated, you can buy powder, but I think the pills will be a little cheaper and much more readily available.

This sounds like an ingredient that is used more for mass production to get the most $$ out of set of ingredients as opposed to the best product.

I agree. Increased shelf life and increased output. Not necessarily increased quality.

Nullo, other than the vitamin c, I'd forgo the dough conditioner route. Make the bread and see where you're at. If you find yourself running into dense crumb issues down the line, then, maybe, revisit the conditioner idea.

[NulloModo]

But I have to say, I can be a bit of a purist, too. Why try to bastardize something as simple and wholesome as bread, just for the sake of a fad diet or marketing phenomenon? Why not just skip it, or better yet, just enjoy the real thing in moderation?

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Well, personally, I don't see it as a bastardization, just a variation. Enjoying the real thing in moderation is just not an option on the low-carb plan I am on, or else I would consider that. As for skipping, why skip what you can recreate?

My goal is not to make some disgusting abomination of bread, but rather a flavorful loaf that will see all sorts of duty. I am copying a bread that was on the market commercially for a while, and was wonderful. It was indistinguishable from flour based breads, I think mainly because of a great blend of the properties of ground flax meal and the wheat gluten. My attempts to bake with 100% proteins have led to overly chewy and tough results, while baking with pure fibers has led to dry crumbly goods. I think that if I can combine both and figure out how to get enough moisture into it, I will have a winner.