Just learned that commercial bakeries use like 10% of the sugar we do at home and I found it in a King Arthur blog post from last month

That explains why my copycat recipe for a grocery store cake came out way too sweet on the first try, has anyone else noticed this difference when scaling down?

3 comments

3 Comments

violatorres2mo ago

Used to think home bakers just had heavy hands with sugar, but that stat really puts it in perspective. Makes sense why store bought stuff tastes so different.

violatorres2mo ago

King Arthur's blog actually has a whole breakdown on this - they mentioned commercial bakeries use invert sugar and syrups that pack more sweetness per volume, so they literally need less. When I scaled down their sour cream coffee cake recipe I cut the sugar by a third and it still tasted bready. Found out the hard way you gotta adjust liquid too since sugar acts like a liquid in baking. My go-to now is to start at 25% less sugar than the home recipe calls for, then taste the batter if it's safe to do so.

ryanh561mo ago

Totally feel you on that. The first time I tried scaling down a pro recipe for my kitchen I ended up with a brick of a cake, it was so discouraging. I spent weeks thinking I just sucked at baking before I finally found that same blog post. The liquid adjustment thing is a real hidden trap, I ruined a whole batch of cookies before I figured that out. It's wild how much we assume a recipe is foolproof when it's actually designed for a totally different setup. Props to you for sticking with it and finding a method that works, that 25% rule is smart.