– Modernist Bread Macerated strawberries demonstrate osmosis at work. Sprinkle sugar on the cut strawberries, and watch how a puddle of syrup collects on the surface. The high amount of sugar outside the strawberry’s cells, combined with sugar’s ability to attract water, causes the water to leach out of the fruit.
The same thing happens to yeast cells—sugar, as well as salt, puts osmotic pressure on the yeast cells, making it harder for them to grow and causing fermentation to take longer. Too much of either can have a crippling effect on the cells. Think of osmosis as the chemical version of water seeking its own level.
Imagine that some very salty water is separated from less salty water by a permeable barrier of some kind, such as the wall around a yeast cell. The water molecules will try to even things up by diffusing from the less salty side to the saltier side until the two solutions are equally salty.
- It is as if there were a pressure pushing on the solution with the higher concentration of water molecules (and thus the lower concentration of salt)—and, in fact, scientists do talk about the osmotic pressure created by a difference in concentrations between adjacent solutions.
- Osmosis can occur in any liquid medium and with any dissolved compound, not just in salty water.
Sugar in a sweetened dough will also exert osmotic stress on the yeasts, for example. Mix salt or sugar into dough, and it dissolves in the watery part of the dough and creates an osmotic pressure that tends to suck water out of the yeast cells. The cells, which have unusually low water activity to begin with, try to hold on to what they have by activating networks of genes that produce glycerol, thus creating an osmotic pressure in the opposite direction.
The strategy works up to a point—and the glycerol that salt-stressed yeasts produce can actually be useful in certain bread recipes—but the response diverts energy away from reproduction. In general, when you make yeast-leavened breads, the more salt or sweeteners added to the flour (which already contains more than enough sugars for yeast to feed on), the slower the yeast activity, unless the yeast strain has been developed specifically to tolerate these ingredients.
The net effect is that yeast doughs generally take longer to rise when they contain a lot of added salt or sugar. : – Modernist Bread
Contents
What does adding sugar do to strawberries?
A Two-Ingredient Topping – Macerated strawberries are an unbelievably easy and versatile alternative to strawberry pie filling or strawberry syrup. They’re made with just sugar and fresh berries, and you can have them prepped in only five minutes! If you’re not familiar with maceration, it’s a very hands-off technique to soften and break down berries or other fruits.
By simply adding sugar to cut the berries, they’ll become juicer and sweeter, and their flavor will intensify. The whole process works quickly, but you do need to allot for a bit of time as they take about half an hour to an hour to macerate. Serve your macerated berries over pound cake, waffles or crepes, angel food cake, or enjoy them on their own.
They also make a delicious snack with some homemade whipped cream –yum!
What happens if you put sugar on fruit?
Simple Maceration – But there’s an even simpler way to macerate fruit, and all it requires is sprinkling it with a little bit of sugar. That’s because sugar is hygroscopic, which means that it attracts water. You’ve probably noticed that muffins sometimes get sticky on top after a day or two.
- What happens is, the moisture in baked goods is pulled to the surface, where it evaporates, which is what causes baked goods like breads to go stale.
- But with muffins and other items with a lot of sugar in them, the moisture is drawn to the surface where, instead of evaporating, some of it bonds with the sugar, forming a sticky surface.
The point is, sugar attracts moisture. So when you sprinkle sugar on your fresh fruits, it pulls the water through the cell walls of the fruit in a process called osmosis. One result of this is that you get a pool of sweet fruit juice in which the fruit is now soaking.
And secondly, because a significant amount of water has been sucked out of the cells of the fruit, the fruit sort of collapses, losing its firmness, becoming soft. And again, as with the mixture of different fruits we just mentioned, you end up with a liquid consisting of the juices from the banana, the blueberries, the strawberries and the pineapple, so you end up with softened fruit bathed in a syrupy melange of fruit juices.
And all you needed was a sprinkling of sugar plus time.
Why does sugar soften strawberries?
Savor the Science: Maceration — RENDER You may have heard of maceration, the no-cook process that yields a delicious fruit sauce perfect for topping cake, yogurt, and ice cream. With maceration, fruit becomes a more intensely flavored, elevated version of itself.
- Maceration” simply means to soften by soaking in liquid, such as liqueur, vinegar, or juice, but the recipe I am going to share with you utilizes the liquid held within the flesh of the fruit itself.
- But, before you can take advantage of this liquid, it has to be drawn out.
- This can be done using a principle called “osmosis.” In chemistry, a solution is a mixture of one substance dissolved in another.
The substance that does the dissolving is called the “solvent” and the substance that is dissolved is called the “solute.” Osmosis is the movement of the solvent across a semipermeable membrane from an area of lower solute concentration to an area of higher solute concentration in an attempt to equalize the concentration on both sides. 
Osmosis, poorly illustrated In our “system,” the solute is sugar, the solvent is the water within the strawberry, and the semipermeable membrane is the cellular walls of the strawberry. When strawberries are coated in sugar, there is a much higher concentration of solute outside of the strawberry than inside the strawberry.
- This causes our solvent (water) to flow out of the fruit and into the surrounding environment.
- The result is a delicious, syrupy, but not cloying sauce.
- Bonus: you didn’t have to heat a thing! In the summer months, I am loath to turn on the oven.
- It’s a real struggle, because I love to bake, but I really despise being warm.
No one should have to give up on dessert out of fear of overheating their house or guests. One could rely on a gallon of store-bought something, but then you would miss out on serving something that you made with your own hand. And I would hate for you to miss out on that; it’s usually tastier and you can brag about it.
- S Note : A humblebrag like “Oh, it takes no time at all.
- I just whipped it up after I got done straining the homemade Greek yogurt” works really well.) I suppose you could make your own ice cream, but that requires forethought and approximately a million years of chilling everything beforehand.
- Plus, most ice creams require stirring custard over a heat source, so that’s out by June.
A final note of caution: because there is such a large amount of sugar in the surrounding environment, it is unlikely that the system will reach equilibrium. The concentration of sugar outside and inside the strawberry will probably never be equivalent.
Easy- Peasy Macerated StrawberriesYou will need: – 1 lb. of strawberries – 3 tablespoons of table sugar
– Flavorings! You can add lemon or lime zest, a couple of teaspoons of balsamic vinegar, or (my choice) a tablespoon of red wine! Instructions: 1. Rinse your strawberries in a colander and let them dry on a kitchen towel. 
2. De-stem and halve or quarter the berries. Don’t worry if they’re not uniform in size; it doesn’t really matter. ( Who has the time? ) 
3. Spoon in the sugar and stir to coat. 
4. Add your flavorings and stir once more. I added a tablespoon of Cab and some lemon zest (I didn’t measure the zest, just eyeballed it). 
5. Let sit at ambient temperature and pressure for at least an hour. The longer you let it sit, the softer the strawberries will be. 
See all that gorgeous liquid? 6. Serve with ice cream or cake or use it as a pie filling! 7. If there’s any left, store covered in the fridge for 24 hours. 
With red wine ice cream, leftover from more ambitious days. Wasn’t that just the easiest? This method isn’t limited to strawberries. Apples, peaches, and blueberries are just a few of the other fruits that can be rendered into delicious toppings by way of osmosis.
Is it OK to eat fruits with sugar?
Bottom Line – For the general public, sugar in fruit is not bad as long as you consume the whole fruit and not just fruit juice or products that contain sweetened fruit pieces. When we are seeking to limit sugars, added sugars are more of a concern. Sweetened foods using both natural and man-made sweeteners should be limited or eaten in moderation.
Is it bad to put sugar on berries?
The Benefits Of Adding Sugar To Berries – The addition of sugar to berries preserves their integrity while enhancing their flavor and sweetness. Fruits preserved by liquid digestion are more enjoyable to eat, as they are flavored with flavor.
How do you enhance strawberries?
If you follow any Bon Appétit staffer on Instagram, you know when Harry’s Berries are in season. In these parts, the arrival of these ridiculously-delicious berries from a single small farm in California marks the official beginning of summer. They’re our first, precious taste of that real-deal ripe-ripe, and their brief season comes well before we actually get any decent local strawberries in this neck of the woods.
These things are so bursting with flavor that they almost taste fake, more strawberry-y than you could even imagine strawberries could taste. But it can’t be all Harry’s Berries all the time—that’s just not the world we live in. And when we’re facing down a clamshell of less-than, trucked-from-far-away fruit, or even farmers’ market berries that aren’t bursting with flavor, we have a simple trick that will make them taste almost as good.
All you’ve got to do to rescue mediocre berries from their own mediocrity? Add a little sugar and salt! Wash your strawberries, cut them, and hit them with a pinch of salt and a couple good three-finger pinches of granulated sugar, give them a little tossy-toss, and watch them magically start to darken and get extra juicy.
The additional sugar supplements whatever natural sweetness the strawberries might be lacking, and helps to draw out their juices to form a tasty, ruby red syrup. And the salt, which may seem like a wildcard in a sweet preparation, actually does exactly what it does in savory applications—it makes the strawberries taste more, which is especially welcome in a situation when they don’t taste like all that much.
Magically, what were once ho-hum berries start to taste.actually awesome! But folks, it doesn’t stop with strawberries! This same little one-two punch of a flavor enhancer can be applied to any berry that could use a little pick me up. Raspberries. Blackberries.
- Blueberries,
- You name it! It even works with stone fruits like peaches, plums, and nectarines.
- To be quite honest, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything that couldn’t benefit from a little hit of salt and sugar.
- So whenever you can get flavorful, perfectly-ripe berries—Harry’s or otherwise—enjoy them with unadorned and with abandon in whatever strawberry recipe you love.
And all those other times? A little salt ‘n suga will have things tasting juuuuuust fine.
Can you put sugar on strawberries and freeze them?
Freezing Strawberries: Dry Sugar Method Sprinkle ½ cup of sugar per quart of strawberries into the bowl and gently stir strawberries to coat and dissolve sugar. Immediately transfer sugar-coated strawberries into Ziploc bags or other airtight containers. Label with contents and date and place in freezer.
Why are my strawberries so shiny?
If the berries look fresh and shiny, they are more than likely fresher. If they look dull and a little withered, they will probably be older. Be sure to inspect your berries closely before you purchase them.
Why can’t bacteria grow in sugar?
Asked by: Anonymous Bacteria evolved in environments where the concentration of sugars and salts is the same as or lower than those inside the cell. High sugar concentrations cause the bacterium to lose water by osmosis and it doesn’t have any cellular machinery to pump it back in against the osmotic gradient.
What happens in my body when I eat sugar? Is the sugar in fruit bad for us?
Subscribe to BBC Focus magazine for fascinating new Q&As every month and follow @sciencefocusQA on Twitter for your daily dose of fun science facts.
How does added sugar affect fruit as it cooks?
Below are some of the important roles sugar plays when it is added to foods: – Sugar as a bulking agent – sugar adds texture to many foods. Not only does it affect the physical characteristic of food, but it adds bulk to many foods which in turn impacts on the texture and mouthfeel of many foods.
- Sugar plays an important role in most baking applications as it helps to promote lightness in baked goods by interacting with leavening agents to create small air cells.
- Sugar helps to stop cookies and biscuits from obtaining surface cracking and helps give many cakes their lightness by interacting with egg proteins to help stabilise the whipped foam structure of the batter.
Sugar as a preservative – by acting as a humectant (maintaining and stabilising the water content in foods) sugar helps to prevent or slow the growth of bacteria, moulds and yeast in food like jam and preserves. It helps to prolong the shelf life of many foods on our supermarket shelves and is used extensively in home-based food preserving because of its preserving characteristics.
Sugar as a flavour enhancer – adding a little sugar to nutritious foods such as sour fruits (frozen berries or rhubarb), or to porridge, helps to balance the flavour and make them more palatable. Sugar also enhances fruit flavours in foods. Sugar used for colour – upon heating, sugar breaks down to produce the colour and desirable flavour that characterises many cooked foods (think of the brown/caramel colour on the top of a Creme Brulee).
This is caused by sugars reacting with proteins as they break down in the cooking process, and is called the Maillard reaction. Many simple recipes use cooked sugar and there are several stages that give different results, for example thread, soft ball, firm ball, hard ball, soft crack, hard crack and caramel.
Each of the stages of cooked sugar offers a gradually darker colour. Sugar adds viscosity – viscosity is how thick, sticky, and semi-fluid a liquid is in terms of consistency. Sugar helps to provide a certain body or thickness in many types of drinks and in semi-liquid foods like syrups, chutneys and sweet sauces.
Sugar as an anticoagulant – when it’s heated, sugar delays the coagulation of proteins (or the change to a more semi-solid state), which is useful for products such as baked custards and other desserts.
Does more sugar make more juice in strawberries?
To preserve the bright color of your Strawberries, sprinkle them with a little sugar, lemon juice or orange juice before adding to your favorite recipes. Adding sugar to your strawberries will also bring out their natural juices. When you are trying to make a fresh strawberry sauce the sugar will help create the juices. See the simple steps below on how to make a quick strawberry sauce.
Cut the strawberries into quarters and place them in a bowl. Slightly mash the berries. Sprinkle the mashed strawberries with sugar, approximately 1/4 cup of sugar per pint. More or less sugar can be used, depending on the sweetness of the berries. Gently stir the strawberries and sugar to mix them and then place them in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours. After allowing to stand in the refrigerator, remove the strawberries and finish mashing them until they are the desired consistency. Taste the sauce and if more sugar is needed, add a small amount at a time until it is at the desired sweetness. The fresh strawberry sauce can be used to top shortcake, ice cream, other desserts or eaten as a sauce on its own.