A simple question of bread

JeromeBarry1

I make simple loaves of white bread and wheat bread with an Oster bread machine.
Comparing calories to commercial bread, the recipe I'm using seems to yield a bread with much lower calories per gram.

Does this happen when you make bread?

I'm trying to figure out if I'm mistaken somewhere. I know that King Arthur recommends weighing and I should weigh 120 grams when the recipe asks for a cup. I used cups to measure and cups in the recipe tool, so I guess my question should be, "What is the gram weight definition of a Recipe Tool cup?"

amusedmonkey

Are you weighing your loaf still warm? It would be better if you wait for it to completely cool down, or even leave it overnight before weighing for the bread to settle and steam weight to balance out.

If you mean the ingredients as a total, not the loaf, come out lower in calories, a cup of bread flour in most databases I've seen is usually defined as 137 grams, so I'm guessing the recipe tool would use that weight.

JeromeBarry1

I was not weighing the cooked loaf. I also was not using the scale at all in assembling the ingredients for these loaves. Next time, I'll weigh the flour and input that weight into the recipe tool. Whatever the result will be, the fact of today is that I'm ending with less than 1500 calories logged and if my diary had an asterisk button I'd press it.

amusedmonkey

My breads usually come out higher in calories than commercial, but that's because I tend to want to bake denser breads like dark rye and such which weigh more per slice. I've always weighed ingredients for bread even before dieting. Tends to yield more consistent results. Most standard breads have pretty comparable calories per gram, though, unless it's some special bread that uses oil or eggs, so I'm not sure why your recipe came out much lower. You'd be safely within a few calories logging the generic USDA bread entry for most breads you bake if you suspect you are doing something wrong with the calculations.

lynn_glenmont

If you're not weighing the cooked loaf, how are you determining how much a serving is? Are you eating the whole loaf in one sitting, or at least in one day?

Are you using generic flour entries, or entries for the specific brand and type of flour you're using? If the latter, the label should list both a volume (typically 1/4 cup) for one serving and how many grams of flour the manufacturer expects will fit in the quarter cup.

And my homemade loaves are generally higher per slice than commercial bread, because my loaves are generally denser, but like amusedmonkey said, I don't think that would affect calories per gram. ... (goes to check)

OK, I looked at the stats for the last loaf I baked (no-knead white whole wheat, oat & spelt) and on the label of a commercial loaf I just finished (Panera's country white). The homemade loaf had 2.67 calories per gram and the commercial loaf had 2.5 calories per gram, which is only 5 to 10 calories per slice, and given the rounding allowed on food labels would seem to be well within the error margin. The homemade loaf had eggs, molasses, and a half cup of oil (but it made two loaves that were 24 oz. each -- close to 700 g, if that's more meaningful to you -- so that's really not a huge amount of oil), whereas the Panera loaf seemed pretty plain (the label said it had soybean oil and brown sugar in it, but it tasted like a very standard white loaf to me).

JeromeBarry1

That is much to think about, thanks.

lynn_glenmont

Too late to edit, but in my post above "only 5 to 10 calories per slice" should say "a difference of only 5 to 10 calories per slice"

thelovelyLIZ

I wouldn't be surprised. Lots of store bought loaves contain sugars and other additives.

HeidiCooksSupper

My breads also tend to be more calories per slice because they are denser. The only way to give a pretty accurate count per slice of homemade bread is to total the calories of all the ingredients you put in it by weight and then divide that by the number of slices that result. I think most of us homemade bread folks cut off slices as needed which makes it hard to get an accurate count of slices. Our hand-cut slices also vary in thickness a good deal.

amusedmonkey

thelovelyLIZ wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised. Lots of store bought loaves contain sugars and other additives.

Sugar in bread is negligible. Even if the manufacturers add 2 tbsp per loaf (any more than that and it's a sweet roll), you're talking about 1 extra calorie or less per slice. Preservatives and binders don't usually add any calories.

Most breads are between 2.4 and 2.8 calories per gram, so if his homemade bread came out significantly lower than that, something is wrong with the calculations or portions.

Francl27

It totally depends on the bread. But typically it comes close to 140-160 calories for 2oz, like most bakery bread (I'm not talking about the commercial packaged stuff, I haven't bought those in close to a year). The weight of a slice will vary greatly depending on how dense the bread is though, obviously, and how good you are at cutting small slices...

120g will typically be a cup of flour for most MFP entries too, as most flour brands are 30g a serving of 1/4 cup (but you'd be better off using the nutrition info for whatever brand you're using and not generic anyway). It's what I use for baking too BUT in some cases it just hasn't been enough flour at all, which is a major PITA... I seriously loathe recipes that use volume measurements!

But anyway, what I do too is just weigh all the ingredients, enter that, then weigh the loaf when it's cooled and enter the weight as the number of servings. In the end though, it won't matter how accurate you are if you're eating the whole loaf yourself.

RodaRose

http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/27528/what-is-the-purpose-of-sugar-in-baking-plain-bread

Sugar has a few effects in bread:

It helps make it soft and tender by absorbing some of the water and slowing down the formation of gluten strands.
It feeds the yeast, resulting in a faster rise.
Via caramelisation, it aids in the browning of the crust.
It acts as a preservative, keeping the bread fresher for longer (though 1tbsp probably doesn't make a lot of difference).
It does have some effect on the flavour.

JeromeBarry1

I made another loaf today. This time I weighed the bread flour, whole wheat flour, butter, salt, and sugar; and I spoon-measured the powdered milk. The loaf weighed 404 grams. When I adjusted the recipe with these values and changed the number of servings to 404, a slice of 32 grams works out to 70 calories. For comparison, the commercial loaf of white bread says that one slice is 26 grams and 70 calories. This time I'm more confident in the calorie attribution of the bread I log in my diary. It's still 81.25% lower calories than commercial white bread.

Francl27

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

I made another loaf today. This time I weighed the bread flour, whole wheat flour, butter, salt, and sugar; and I spoon-measured the powdered milk. The loaf weighed 404 grams. When I adjusted the recipe with these values and changed the number of servings to 404, a slice of 32 grams works out to 70 calories. For comparison, the commercial loaf of white bread says that one slice is 26 grams and 70 calories. This time I'm more confident in the calorie attribution of the bread I log in my diary. It's still 81.25% lower calories than commercial white bread.

You could check the nutrition information for one slice of your bread and see where the difference is. I'm sure a lot of commercial white breads have extra sugar, butter, etc.