As the crust gets hotter and hotter, caramelization (when sugars oxidize) and the Maillard reaction (sugars reacting with amino acids at higher temperatures) occur, creating the distinct color and toasty flavor of the crust. Add room temperature water up to the 350ml mark (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons). One of the reasons bakers knead dough is to uncoil gluten compounds and encourage more linkages between them. No yeast goes into container #3. Bread has changed quite a bit over the years. In terms of texture, although it was airy, the air bubbles were relatively small, the texture was more similar to the density of a cake than anything else, and it had more of thin skin on the outside than a crust. However, the yeasted bread had a slightly yeasty flavor, but a distinct bread taste. 4. If your dough is dry and difficult to mix, add water until all your doughs are the same gooey consistency. Our Inspiration. (No wonder yeast means "bubbles" in old English and was dubbed saccharomyces, or “sugar fungus” in Latin!) Yeast is a living single celled organism commonly used in baking. Watching yeast respire involves putting gloves on top of your dough containers to capture your yeast's waste CO2 and seeing how fast this CO2 inflates the gloves. It was only a few thousand years ago that people started using yeast to make bread fluffier and more delicious. Yeast takes a few hours to work because it takes time for the yeast organisms to consume the sugars and produce carbon dioxide that is necessary for the bread to rise. Gluten proteins expand and become tangled up with other straggly gluten proteins nearby. This drives down pH (to more acidic) and gives the sour taste to sourdough bread. Bread-making all over the world continues its various traditions, in addition to enjoying new flavors, ingredients, and techniques. Baking powder is a chemical ingredient also known as a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and acid salts. Soda bread, on the other hand, uses baking soda to create volume, reacting with an acid to form carbon dioxide and breathe life into the loaf. But in the bottle with yeast, warm water and sugar the balloon inflates over time! Baking powder is activated by a combination of heat and moisture. The recipes I found used baking powder, yeast, and sourdough starter as the leavening agents. If you’re a fan of tough, crunchy crusts, here are some tips: A) Cut 1/2-inch deep slits into the top of your dough before baking. As baked, the carbon dioxide bubbles of different sizes (from the different yeast) expand and the ethanol evaporates creating an irregular structure. How to Test Baking Powder . During this quarantine, I’ve had a lot of time to do things that I didn’t have time for before, so one of the things I took up was bread making. If you've got non-chlorinated water, bottled or filtered, use it! For a crispier crust, rub the top of your dough with oil or water. Other ingredients (yogurt, baking soda, salt, honey, etc. So, this process starts in the outermost layer of the bread: the crust. If you are having trouble buying yeast, ... Cakes are generally best if you use baking powder or soda to rise because they are tender and light. Cup the dough in your hands, and run cold water over it continuously. The sourdough, on the other hand, had a distinct sour flavor in the bread, similar to what you’d expect from a sourdough. ): Note: You'll also need a pen and scissors. The active ingredient in baking powder, sodium bicarbonate or baking soda makes an excellent loaf of bread if you can’t get your hands on any yeast. Since both the yeasted and the sourdough breads were kneaded, and the yeasted had additional kneading time, they both got a crunchy chewy crust due to the gluten. Put your glove back on the container. Keep your mixing sticks in their corresponding containers. Did you make this project? For this experiment, I decided to try making bread with three different methods in order to prove why they are different based on chemistry. Let the loaves cool for a few minutes, then enjoy the results of your experiment! Bread started out consisting of only 3 ingredients, grain, salt, and water, but today, bread often contains over 30 ingredients in just one loaf! After kneading for a few minutes, squish the dough back into the container, and flatten the top. ( Log Out /  You can substitute baking powder for yeast but the taste and texture will not be the same. It’s time to explore the science of yeast! Now that your culture is alive and well, continue to remove half and mix 7 scant tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of water into your container every. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Now, repeat step 1 one last time, and once your mixture is doubled in size and actively bubbling (a few hours), take what you need to use in your sourdough recipe of choice, and place the remainder in the fridge. In a container, mix 250 ml (1 cup + 1 tablespoon) of high-gluten flour with 150ml (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons) of tap water. However, since the sourdough was kneaded less, less gluten developed, creating a more crunchy than chewy crust. I saw video's and posts about how easy it is to brew your own mead. For serious bakers, crust is often the most important part of bread. A leavening agent is any substance that incorporates gas bubbles into the dough, causing it to lighten, soften, rise and take on what is usually referred to as a “fluffy” texture. This ensures the same amount of water is poured into each container. Otherwise, continue repeating step 1 until your mixture doubles in 6 hours. Place a clean glove over the top of the jar such that it covers the top rim. Remove the gloves and place each ball of dough into the corresponding tin. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, the word “leaven” comes from the Latin word “levare,” a word that means “lift up, to make light and rise.” Yeast gets energy from its favorite source of food in the form of sugar. Try the same experiment, but this time use about a tablespoon of baking powder instead of yeast, and leave out the sugar. Baking soda is a simple base and therefore needs to be combined with an acid of some sort, such as yogurt, lemon, or vinegar, in order to become activated. Specifically I was looking at the leavening agents and processes effects on flavor, texture, and color . Dough was left out in the open to "rise," as yeast (which naturally live on grains and other foods) would munch up sugars and release gas bubbles into the dough. Now that you’ve set up your microbe bait, it’s time to wait. The yeast and sugar produce a gas (carbon dioxide). After 24 hours, remove half of your dough, and mix in 7 scant tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of water. To keep the experiment controlled, I decided to use simple similar bread recipes that the only major difference between was the leavening agent. Yeast is a type of leavener (baking soda and baking powder can also be used as leaveners). The cold water will dissolve the starch in the dough, but it won’t dissolve the gluten. So, when wet, a neutralization reaction occurs between the acid and base in baking powder, forming water, potassium sodium tartrate (a salt), and carbon dioxide. Due to the unpredictable nature of the different wild yeast varieties in sourdough starter, sourdough often takes a long time (up to 18 hours) to properly rise because the yeast has to convert all the sugar to carbon dioxide. In these instructions, container #1 is the “Control,” container #2 has “Added Sugar,” and container #3 has “No Yeast.”. Determine which “independent” variables you’d like to change and which “dependent” variables you’d like to measure. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. The best part of this scientific investigation... the eruptions! Use your starter from step 3.3 with any recipe you please! Key Difference – Baking Powder vs Yeast There seems to be a lot of confusion over the difference between yeast and baking powder. Sourdough starter is made using flour and water, and the wild yeast and natural bacteria in the flour start to feed on the sugars and thrive. However, adding vinegar to yeast dough requires a delicate balance, because too much acid can stop yeast fermentation and hinder browning. Even so, all of the loaves could be easily recognized as bread, it just depends on what type you like best. “Respiration” describes the process of munching up food and releasing waste. Knead the dough in your hands until it's a compact ball. Generally speaking if the dough does not have these characteristics yeast alone works and does not run the risk of adding "baking powder flavor" to the product, and if the quickbread has a strong enough flavor due to other ingredients then the baking powder alone is sufficient and there is no need for a fermentation step. Though baking soda, baking powder, and yeast all result in the production of carbon dioxide gas and leaven dough, there are many differences. I decided to make a sourdough starter during this quarantine because sourdough bread has always been my favorite, and we weren’t going to the store often. Store your fledgling starter (dough) in a warm place. However, since the dough has gluten developed, the carbon dioxide doesn’t merely escape the bread into the surroundings, it gets trapped in between the gluten strands causing the dough to rise. Add 3 small spoonfuls of yeast (3/4 teaspoon total) to container #1 (the “Control”) and Container #2 (the one with “Added Sugar”). Once the bread has baked, this is what gives the loaf its airy texture. For the traditional method of making sourdough, skip to Step 10. Mix the dry ingredients together with a … Populations boomed with these energy-rich, storable foods. Since the bread is also kneaded, as explained this creates stronger and longer gluten chains, trapping the carbon dioxide in the bread, also creating the chewy texture. Beat together sugar and egg until fluffy with an electric mixer in the bowl. Mix until the consistency is smooth. Continue rinsing and gently massaging the dough until the water is no longer milky-looking. To make this process faster, people would add pieces of old dough, mashed grapes, or beer foam, which are all full of yeast. Add milk, oil, vanilla and baking powder and beat until well mixed. Baking Soda is alkaline and reacts with acids such as vinegar, releasing carbon dioxide ( a gas ) and water. Try the same experiment, but this time use about a tablespoon of baking powder instead of yeast, but without the sugar. This variety of yeast in the starter gives the bread its unique flavor as well as contributing to the unpredictable pattern in the rising and bubble structure of sourdough bread. If you see weird colors, fuzzy patches, or anything else that looks like mold, you’ve caught some other moldy microbes, and you’ll need to start your sourdough starter over. So, when baked, these carbon dioxide bubbles expand and spread apart due to the increased kinetic energy from heat, causing air bubbles to form and stay. The happier the yeast, the faster their respiration rate, and the faster the gloves will inflate! In the presence of oxygen, this fungus munches up sugars and produces carbon dioxide, or CO2, making bubbles in liquid or dough. Why might it be stretchy? Get a big glass of luke-warm water from the sink. So, once stabilized and added to the flour and water of bread dough, the starter feeds on the sugars converting them into carbon dioxide, ethanol, and acetic and lactic acid. Baking powder crumpet experiment, raising problem. Long-term care: Store your starter in the fridge, and feed by mixing in 7 scant tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of water once a week. In a clean plastic sandwich bag, place one small (2” x 2”) piece of damp paper towel. Add 3 small spoonfuls of yeast (3/4 teaspoon total) to container #1 (the “Control”) and Container #2 (the one with “Added Sugar”). They may look similar. As far as the procedures go though, I really just followed the recipes as written. To grow these grains, people settled down and began to farm and build thriving communities. Once you see bubbling in the mixture and the glove inflating, your yeast are replicating! Observations Time: What differences do you observe in your breads? Record what percentage of the bread is covered by mold, and see if the mold coverage follows an exponential growth curve. Make sure to talk to an adult (your parents, teacher or an older friend) before you begin any of these experiments, as they will be able to help you get the tools you need to conduct the experiments. B) Salt: Add a couple more pinches of salt to the top of your flattened dough before baking. The carbon dioxide gas makes the dough rise. In terms of texture though, this bread overall had the largest irregular air bubbles, and a chewy texture in the bread, a crust also formed on the outside of the bread that was crunchy and slightly chewy. Be sure to use warm or hot water; cold water will not work for this test. Using yeast is rather inconvenient - it can be dead already or if the yeast is submerged in too hot water it can die and also waiting for yeast to work to let it gas-fill the pastry before baking … Baking powder and yeast are two of the most commonly used leavening agents in baked foods. However, the yeast in sourdough starter is actually greatly outnumbered by lactobacilli, also known as lactic acid bacteria. Through your experiments, you’ve learned different ways to make your bread denser or fluffier. Typically, baking powder consists of cream of tartar as the acid, baking soda as the base, and cornstarch as a filler to separate the particles of acid and base. You'll need the following materials, included in Magical Microbes's DoughLab, or available at your local grocery (or pantry! The baking powder bread tasted slightly egg-like, almost biscuit-like in flavor. Add flour and mix. So, if you want to see how I made the loaves or want to make them for yourself, I will link the full recipes below. https://bakerbettie.com/basic-quick-bread-recipe-sweet-or-savory/. The typically used active dry yeast, or baker’s yeast, that you can buy in the supermarket exclusively consists of one type of yeast: Saccharomyces cerevisiae. https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/flame-light-relight https://www.firstforwomen.com/posts/food-recipes/how-to-replace-yeast Yeast & Baking Lessons We want you to be successful in baking! Overall this experiment did not disappoint. The type of yeast used for baking is usually Saccharomyces cerevisiae , but it is one of more than 1,000 species of yeast. Add 2 small packets of salt (3/4 teaspoons total) to each container. This process is aided by the gluten built up in the bread because gluten is a protein, so at higher temperatures it begins to coagulate and turn into a semisolid or solid-state, giving the crust it’s characteristic chew and crunch. You’ll need them again later. Repeat Step 1 daily until your starter is bubbling and yeasty or fruity smelling. All containers should get the same temperature water. https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/baking-powder.htm, https://www.lefoodist.com/guides/cooking-classes-paris/cookingparis146.html, https://www.thekitchn.com/the-science-behind-yeast-and-how-it-makes-bread-rise-226483, https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-biology-of-sourdough, https://slate.com/culture/2012/11/why-does-steam-make-bread-light-and-crusty-it-slows-down-the-cooking-process.html. 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