Yeast Ingredients Bread

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 2 An introduction What is your favorite kind of bread? –Imagine you were stranded on a deserted island like Tom Hanks in “Castaway.” The Bread Fairy comes and tells you that you can have a pound of bread every day, but you have to pick only one kind. What would you pick? Were your two answers the same?

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 3 Bread Basics The oldest forms of bread center in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. They are mostly unleavened. Tortillas, pita, lavash, are unleavened. What do you think that means? They are flat. Leavened breads rise, and that gives them a lighter texture.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 4 Bread Basics In France, there is a law that regulates what can be in bread if you are going to call it French Bread. Flour, water, yeast, salt. Anything else goes in, you can’t call it French bread.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 5 Ingredients And their Functions

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 6 Flour – gives the bread its structure by the formation of gluten. Gluten strands are formed by proteins in the flour. Flour also provides starch which gives the body the nutrient, carbohydrates. So bread’s structure comes from proteins and starches.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 7 Yeast is a single-celled organism (a plant). When it has the right conditions it grows. Yes, your bread dough is alive in a certain sense. Yeast needs the right temperature (105F to 115F is best), food (it likes carbs like sugar and flour) and water. Yeast is killed by temperatures beginning at about 125F. If you add very hot water to your yeast – it will be dead, dead, dead and your bread won’t rise. You can add the yeast to the dry ingredients and then use water between 120 and 130F. The flour absorbs some of the heat and keeps the hotter water from killing your yeast.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 8 Water (or milk, or juice) – hydrates the bread allowing gluten to form. It also dissolves things and thus allows salt, sugar and flavorings to be distributed throughout the dough.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 9 Salt – is a dough conditioner. It strengthens and tightens gluten. It also inhibits the growth of yeast. Without salt, dough will over rise and then collapse. This can lead to bread with low volume (because the yeast has no food left to continue reproducing.) Lack of salt or too little salt can cause your bread to have a rough texture (especially on the top). If you bake it before the collapse, your bread can have too much volume and become a bread monster.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 10 Bonus ingredients

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 11 Fat – Butter, oil, shortening, lard. –Fat is a tenderizing agent. Add fat to your baked good and it will be more tender. –There is a limit. Too much fat and your baked good will just be greasy. The term for a dough with fat is short. Cookie dough is short; pizza dough is short. French bread is not short; bagels are not short, and neither are tortillas. These breads are called hard or lean.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 12 Sugar – Sugar is a tenderizing agent. –A dough can only hold a certain amount of sugar and still stay together. –It also is a stealth liquid ingredient. Sugar liquefies when it gets wet or hot.

(c) 2007 brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 13 End of notes