Buzz
With the bread-baking boom triggered by spring stay-at-home orders, yeast has become a sought-after ingredient. Many home bakers may know yeast is essential for making bread dough rise, but they may not fully understand how it works. If you're sensitive to the details, beware: The intricacies of your bread recipe might not be the most appetizing read while you're snacking.
Yeast is a single-celled organism and plays a vital role in many food and beverage products, including bread and beer. Yeast exists in the air around us, which means you can cultivate it at home with just flour and water. (This type of yeast is known as starter and is used for making sourdough bread). If you don't have time to collect yeast naturally, you can buy instant yeast or active dry yeast from a packet. This kind of yeast is dormant but can be activated by adding it to warm water.
However, yeast alone isn't sufficient to make bread dough rise. For it to work effectively, it requires two key ingredients: sugar and time. Yeast consumes the sugars found in flour, such as sucrose, fructose, glucose, and maltose. As the yeast breaks down these sugars, it releases carbon dioxide gas and ethyl alcohol in a process called fermentation. This is also why adding table sugar or honey to yeast and warm water helps to activate sluggish yeast. So, when you see your yeast, warm water, and honey mixture starting to foam, you're essentially witnessing yeast 'release gas'.
In bread dough, the carbon dioxide creates bubbles that cause it to expand. This is why a ball of dough with yeast can increase in size in just a few hours. The alcohol produced by yeast also helps the dough rise in the oven. At high temperatures, the alcohol evaporates, creating gas bubbles that add more height to the bread.
Yeast is a staple ingredient, making it an excellent introduction to the world of culinary science. For those looking to deepen their knowledge of yeast, this genetic engineering kit allows you to create your own fluorescent yeast at home using genes from jellyfish.
