Turning a sweet cake into a savoury one: What should I swap in place of sugar?

Question

I am looking to turn the following recipe for pumpkin bread into a savoury one. i.e. I want to get rid of sugar (which in this case is maple syrup). I think that sugar will add to the loafiness of the bread. I have thought of using eggs as this might add the extra moist and structure that sugar seems to facilitate - but I might be wrong, and I am still very confused by the research I have done. It also seems that sugar and eggs complement each other, so I am not sure if eggs alone are the solution.

As per above, I don't care about the cake being vegan (just gluten free). So all suggestions are welcome.

Answer 1

On King Arthur's site, they talk about liquid sweeteners.

One of their comparisons between the different forms is water content/acidity.

Maple syrup's water content/acidity: 34%, mildly acidic (less acidic than honey).

This led me to look up water content and acidity impacts on baking.

The Cake blog did a comparison of cakes based on level of acid used. The no acid cake (what I would assume would happen if you removed the maple syrup because it contains malic acid) still worked, it just wasn't as tall or fluffy as the ones with acid.

My suggestion is that if you want a loaf that is more cake-like, you should add a bit of acid (e.g., lemon juice or vinegar) if you remove the maple syrup. If you want a loaf that's denser, you can leave out the maple syrup and don't add in anything else.

Answer 2

That is an interesting "bread" recipe because it doesn't have any flour. It is more of a... torte?

I don't think the maple syrup and honey in the recipe would add "loafiness" because they are liquid and viscous. Omitting them would reduce the overall water in the recipe so it might just be more dense and dry. The maple syrup especially adds a lot of flavor, to offset that you could add some spices.

You could look up recipes for pumpkin gratin such as this one from Jacques Pepin to get some ideas, he adds eggs, cheese, and cream and bakes it. I have made this and it is delicious, but definitely not bread. If you added eggs to your recipe I bet you would get something that is springy and sliceable.