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The sugar content is ten percent of the weight of the dough. It's crazy when put in such clear terms. I bet a lot of the bread we eat here in the US is similar,

The sugar content is ten percent of the weight of the dough. It's crazy when put in such clear terms. I bet a lot of the bread we eat here in the US is similar, unfortunately, if not worse.

vonmoltke 6y ago
No, it's 10% of the weight of the flour in the dough. There's more to the dough than flour and sugar.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
soneil 6y ago
It's 10% relative to the flour, not 10% of the whole. The number itself isn't nuts. The sponge recipe I usually use is 100% sugar (eg, 200g sugar, 200g flour). They just don't reach the 0% tax bracket if it's over 2%.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Sure but you're making cake. You can make bread with flour and water. Yeast is already in the room around you, and while salt helps, it's not necessary. The amylase enzymes in the flour will break down the starche into sugar when you add water, which then feeds the yeast. Adding extra sugar is an optional step. [edited for clarity] baguettes in France contains no sugar, by law.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    France is responsible for one of the two most famous high-sugar rich bread doughs in the world --- brioche.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      Edited for clarity: the law pertains to baguettes, "French bread," not all bread in France.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        "French bread" might be what people who buy Safeway's execrable facsimile of a baguette call it, but baguettes definitely don't define French bread; it's just the most famous of them. The French are pretty great at all kinds of bread.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        Indeed, I was intending to explain my mistake, not to make the claim that baguettes and French bread are actually the same thing. You are of course correct, apologies for the confusion.
        tptacek 6y ago
        Sorry, I just enjoy writing sentences about French cuisine, I'm not trying to pile on.
  - soneil 6y ago
    Right, I was just trying to provide some context to the number. My regular sponge mix is equal weights of flour, sugar, butter and egg. So the proportion of sugar would be described as 100%, but it's actually 25% of the wet weight. Yes, 10% is high for bread, which is precisely why this court ruling. But it's a misleading number if you're not used to reading this as a ratio rather than a volume. (Although they didn't say it's not bread, they said it's not bread as defined in tax law. There's a very specific tax exemption for bread, and 10% doesn't meet it. You can see this exemption in Part F of http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2010/act/31/schedule/2/enacted/en/html#sched2 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2010/act/31/schedule/2/en... )
    - JdeBP 6y ago
      That's the wrong Act, too. The appeal was of a tax decision taken in 2006, to which a law passed in 2010 could not possibly have applied. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654601
      - soneil 6y ago
        You might like to address your corrections to the supreme court, as they're citing the 1972 Value-Added Tax act verbatim; https://courts.ie/acc/alfresco/fad40678-a172-44c7-9f84-66f8c102c0f0/2020_IESC_60%20(Unapproved).pdf/pdf#view=fitH https://courts.ie/acc/alfresco/fad40678-a172-44c7-9f84-66f8c... It appears the Finance Act doesn't replace the Value-Added Tax act; a large part of the case verbiage came down to the VAT Act citing "food or drink" vs and the Finance Act citing "food and drink". I believe both acts implement EU directives so the same exception had to be carved into each; one doesn't replace the other. It's actually a fairly interesting judgement to read. It's almost entirely either balancing one act against another, or nitpicking the grammatical constructs towards the principle of doubtful penalisation. I especially liked the detours into whether hot tea and cold tea are the same thing, and whether tea and coffee can be said to have been cooked. Whether bread is bread is a relatively small part of the argument, with the percentages only being relevant to 2 points of the 99 (and it wasn't disputed, they were rather disputing the legal construct of a sandwich. I kid ye not.) "This seems a very cumbersome and unnatural description of a hot meatball sandwich."
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
  You mean "sponge" as in the "pre-ferment"? Or the entire bread?
  - soneil 6y ago
    oh I just mean cake batter. They just use the same way to describe weights as ratios (where 10% is read as 1:0.1, not 10% by volume)
    - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
      Thanks for clarifying.

The sugar content is ten percent of the weight of the dough. It's crazy when put in such clear terms. I bet a lot of the bread we eat here in the US is similar, unfortunately, if not worse.

vonmoltke 6y ago

No, it's 10% of the weight of the flour in the dough. There's more to the dough than flour and sugar.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

soneil 6y ago

It's 10% relative to the flour, not 10% of the whole. The number itself isn't nuts. The sponge recipe I usually use is 100% sugar (eg, 200g sugar, 200g flour). They just don't reach the 0% tax bracket if it's over 2%.

arcticbull 6y ago
Sure but you're making cake. You can make bread with flour and water. Yeast is already in the room around you, and while salt helps, it's not necessary. The amylase enzymes in the flour will break down the starche into sugar when you add water, which then feeds the yeast. Adding extra sugar is an optional step. [edited for clarity] baguettes in France contains no sugar, by law.
- tptacek 6y ago
  France is responsible for one of the two most famous high-sugar rich bread doughs in the world --- brioche.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Edited for clarity: the law pertains to baguettes, "French bread," not all bread in France.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      "French bread" might be what people who buy Safeway's execrable facsimile of a baguette call it, but baguettes definitely don't define French bread; it's just the most famous of them. The French are pretty great at all kinds of bread.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        Indeed, I was intending to explain my mistake, not to make the claim that baguettes and French bread are actually the same thing. You are of course correct, apologies for the confusion.
        tptacek 6y ago
        Sorry, I just enjoy writing sentences about French cuisine, I'm not trying to pile on.
- soneil 6y ago
  Right, I was just trying to provide some context to the number. My regular sponge mix is equal weights of flour, sugar, butter and egg. So the proportion of sugar would be described as 100%, but it's actually 25% of the wet weight. Yes, 10% is high for bread, which is precisely why this court ruling. But it's a misleading number if you're not used to reading this as a ratio rather than a volume. (Although they didn't say it's not bread, they said it's not bread as defined in tax law. There's a very specific tax exemption for bread, and 10% doesn't meet it. You can see this exemption in Part F of http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2010/act/31/schedule/2/enacted/en/html#sched2 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2010/act/31/schedule/2/en... )
  - JdeBP 6y ago
    That's the wrong Act, too. The appeal was of a tax decision taken in 2006, to which a law passed in 2010 could not possibly have applied. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24654601
    - soneil 6y ago
      You might like to address your corrections to the supreme court, as they're citing the 1972 Value-Added Tax act verbatim; https://courts.ie/acc/alfresco/fad40678-a172-44c7-9f84-66f8c102c0f0/2020_IESC_60%20(Unapproved).pdf/pdf#view=fitH https://courts.ie/acc/alfresco/fad40678-a172-44c7-9f84-66f8c... It appears the Finance Act doesn't replace the Value-Added Tax act; a large part of the case verbiage came down to the VAT Act citing "food or drink" vs and the Finance Act citing "food and drink". I believe both acts implement EU directives so the same exception had to be carved into each; one doesn't replace the other. It's actually a fairly interesting judgement to read. It's almost entirely either balancing one act against another, or nitpicking the grammatical constructs towards the principle of doubtful penalisation. I especially liked the detours into whether hot tea and cold tea are the same thing, and whether tea and coffee can be said to have been cooked. Whether bread is bread is a relatively small part of the argument, with the percentages only being relevant to 2 points of the 99 (and it wasn't disputed, they were rather disputing the legal construct of a sandwich. I kid ye not.) "This seems a very cumbersome and unnatural description of a hot meatball sandwich."
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
You mean "sponge" as in the "pre-ferment"? Or the entire bread?
- soneil 6y ago
  oh I just mean cake batter. They just use the same way to describe weights as ratios (where 10% is read as 1:0.1, not 10% by volume)
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    Thanks for clarifying.