Flour & bread additives
Most bread flours contain various additives for improving the baking qualities (ease of manufacture), appearance, or nutritional value of the baked product. All flour other than wholmeal is made from mixtures of white flour, other wheat components and various additives. These may include (unintended) pesticide residues, anti-oxidants, colouring matter, emulsifiers, flavouring agents, flour improvers, preservatives, stabilisers, etc..
Bread ingredients may also include additives; some have to by definition, e.g. 'Brown' bread is made from white flour (with caramel colouring) and at least 0.6% added crude wheat-derived fibre. 'Wheatgerm' bread must contain no less than 10% added processed wheatgerm.
Industrial efficiency requires that bread be made quickly. Consistent flour quality is an important factor in this and chemical help is at hand:
- Flour bleaching agents - additives used to remove colour from flour and improve baking qualities.
- Flour treatment agents (other than enzyme preparations) - added to flour or dough to improve its baking quality.
- Enzyme preparations - additives consisting of one or more enzymes with or without the addition of supplementary material to facilitate the storage, sale, standardisation, dilution or dissolution of the enzyme or enzymes.
A small sample of the additives that may be used in flour and bread:
- E220 Sulphur dioxide - improvement agent for biscuit and pastry flour except wholemeal.
- E223 Sodium metabisulphite - preservative for biscuit and pastry flour except wholemeal.
- E300 L-Ascorbic acid - improvement agent for flour except wholemeal and for wholemeal bread.
- E920 L-Cysteine hydrochloride - improvement agents for biscuit flour except wholemeal and those containing E220 or E223
and for other flour except wholemeal, and bread except wholemeal.
- E925 Chlorine - bleach and improvement agent for cake flour except wholemeal.
- E926 Chlorine dioxide - bleach and improvement agent for flour and bread except wholemeal.
Regulations require that all flour other than wholemeal have calcium carbonate, iron, thiamine (vitamin B1) and nicotinic acid (vitamin B3) added to improve nutritive value. Many other additives are permitted. Caramel, α-amylases and proteinases are permitted in wholemeal flour. Several other additives are permitted in self-raising wholemeal flour.
Self raising flour is a plain flour with added raising agents, including sodium bicarbonate (alkaline) and acid calcium phosphate. These react in water to produce carbon dioxide.
Wolemeal bread may contain many of the chemical additives permitted in white flour. 'Brown' bread is usually made from white flour coloured brown with caramel (plus mandatory added nutrients).
The Bread Pages: Contents
Homepage