Bread maker - do I need sugar?

[offthestickerchart]

Just bought a bread maker so that fussy 3yo will be eating soft white bread made by me and not processed by Mr Hovis. But the recipe says I need caster sugar. Is this what helps it rise and can I still make bread without?

The machine is a Lakeland Compact Bread Maker.

Thank you!

true, but a breadmaker ime (maybe newer models are better) don't leave enough time for proving for sourdough.

A kg of flour to 300 ml of water, that doesn't sound right.

I've had my breadmaker for 15 years and have never, ever added sugar (other than for things like banana bread or other sweet recipes). It is totally unnecessary.

I use the ones in the recipe booklet and leave out the sugar!

Agree @Daftasabroom conversion error maybe? 500g flour sounds more like it for a basic 60% hydration loaf.

@greenacrylicpaint My 10 yo panasonic machine has a sourdough setting with rising time of 24 hrs. Never actually tried it as SD is so easy to make by hand, but I use that setting as a proofing drawer for all loaves.

Thanks @greenacrylicpaint

Our Panny recipe is 300ml water to 400g flour! And we actually use 280ml with the flour that we buy (16kg at a time!)

My Panasonic has this, the 24 hour programme is for making a sourdough starter, not the sourdough itself. I've tried it a couple of times, it's good and the starter makes lovely bread

I rarely add sugar unless I have a poor batch of yeast and then much less than the recipe calls for.

Actually this is probably the biggest issue, dodgy yeast and dodgy flour. Or, as we found out recently old batteries in our electric scales.

I've been baking yeast bread for more years than most of you have had hot dinners. I've never added sugar as the yeast digests the sugars in the flour.