Sodium stearoyl lactylate, better known as SSL in the food additive industry, has several qualities desired by bakers: dough conditioning, emulsification, fat replacement and sugar replacement. It is used in a variety of commercially baked goods, including breads, sour cream, salad dressings, soups, cheese products, crackers, cookies and puddings.
Emulsifier
Sodium stearoyl lactylate is an emulsifier, reducing the surface tension between two liquids that do not like to mix together, such as oil and water. This allows them to become a fine dispersion of small drops of one liquid in another. In bread products, the addition of an emulsifier improves water absorption, allowing manufacturers to get more loaves from the same amount of ingredients. It also improves the efficiency of fermentation and slicing of the finished bread product and makes the manufacturing process easier; some believe it also improves taste. SSL is an excellent emulsifying agent because of its short lag time, reducing the surface tension quickly, and its long-term action, keeping the surface tension reduced for a long period of time.
Foaming Agent and Foam Stabilizer
SSL can also act as a foaming agent and foam stabilizer. It creates air bubbles often desired for icings, fillings and whipped toppings, making cakes lighter and giving cream fillings their fluffiness.
Dough Conditioner
As a dough conditioner, SSL makes the gluten in bread stronger and more extensible, meaning the dough is less likely to break or stick during manufacturing, and it increases the volume of the loaf. In the baking industry, SSL is said to improve the ability of the bread to "resist abuse." Frozen breads containing SSL maintain their volume better than those without SSL. SSL also appears to make a bread product that has fewer crumbs, softening crumbs by complexing with free amylose, the starch molecules in the bread.
Fat Replacer
SSL disperses fats in the bread, making it softer while allowing less fat to be used. The food industry, and the baking industry in particular, is always looking at ways to reduce the fat content of products because of the demands of health-conscious consumers, while still maintaining quality and taste. Typically, commercially made cakes in the past have been at least 25 percent fat, while icings have been up to 40 percent fat. Using SSL and vegetable oils, cakes and icings can be made with as little as 2 to 8 percent fat. Using SSL also reduces the amount of oils needed to achieve the desired consistency, further reducing costs to manufacturers.
Sugar Replacer
SSL has a mildly sweet taste. By adding it to baked goods, less sugar needs to be used, particularly in bread. That is a huge advantage to the bread industry, which is seeking to increase taste and sweetness without adding more sugar. Not only does this make a healthier product, but it also costs the manufacturer less, because adding a small amount of SSL is cheaper than adding more sugar.
Shelf Life Enhancer
Although the process by which cake and bread becomes stale and hard is not fully understood, adding SSL to the product slows down the overall process. SSL appears to maintain a bread's fresh texture by keeping the amylose starch in its gelled, non-crystallized state. The advantage of SSL as a shelf-life enhancer is that it decreases the rate of staling better than shortening and is much cheaper.
Safety
The Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Material Safety and Data Sheet on SSL report that SSL is a safe product. As an individual chemical, SSL may cause slight skin or eye irritation, and if inhaled in its pure form, it may be slightly irritating to the respiratory tract. However, it not hazardous, and it is not toxic.
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