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Leaven
In cooking, a leavening agent () or raising agent, also called a leaven () or leavener, is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action (gas bubbles) that lightens and softens the mixture. An alternative or supplement to leavening agents is mechanical action by which air is incorporated (i.e. kneading). Leavening agents can be biological or synthetic chemical compounds. The gas produced is often carbon dioxide, or occasionally hydrogen. When a dough or batter is mixed, the starch in the flour and the water in the dough form a matrix (often supported further by proteins like gluten or polysaccharides, such as pentosans or xanthan gum). The starch then gelatinizes and sets, leaving gas bubbles that remain. Biological leavening agents * ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' producing carbon dioxide found in: ** baker's yeast ** Beer barm (unpasteurised—live yeast) ** ginger beer ** kefir ** sourdough starter * ''Clostridium perfring ...
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Sourdough
Sourdough or sourdough bread is a bread made by the fermentation of dough using wild lactobacillaceae and yeast. Lactic acid from fermentation imparts a sour taste and improves keeping qualities. History In the ''Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology'', Michael Gaenzle writes: "The origins of bread-making are so ancient that everything said about them must be pure speculation. One of the oldest sourdough breads dates from 3700 BCE and was excavated in Switzerland, but the origin of sourdough fermentation likely relates to the origin of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent and Egypt several thousand years earlier", which was confirmed a few years later by archeological evidence. ... "Bread production relied on the use of sourdough as a leavening agent for most of human history; the use of baker's yeast as a leavening agent dates back less than 150 years." Pliny the Elder described the sourdough method in his '' Natural History'': Sourdough remained the usual form of leavening d ...
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Quick Bread
Quick bread is any bread leavened with a chemical leavening agent rather than a biological one like yeast or sourdough starter. An advantage of quick breads is their ability to be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time-consuming skilled labor and the climate control needed for traditional yeast breads. Quick breads include many cakes, brownies and cookies—as well as banana bread, pumpkin bread, beer bread, biscuits, cornbread, muffins, pancakes, scones, and soda bread. History The term "quick bread" most probably originated in the United States at the end of the eighteenth century. However, the similar Bannock was well known in Ireland, Scotland and northern England centuries earlier. Before the creation of quick bread, baked goods were leavened either with yeast or by mixing dough with eggs. "Fast bread" is an alternate name. The discovery or rediscovery of chemical leavening agents and their widespread military, commercial, and home use in the Uni ...
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Cake
Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients, and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate, and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies. The most common ingredients include flour, sugar, eggs, fat (such as butter, oil or margarine), a liquid, and a leavening agent, such as baking soda or baking powder. Common additional ingredients include dried, candied, or fresh fruit, nuts, cocoa, and extracts such as vanilla, with numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients. Cakes can also be filled with fruit preserves, nuts or dessert sauces (like custard, jelly, cooked fruit, whipped cream or syrups), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders, or candied fruit. Cake is often served as a celebratory dish on ceremonial occasions, ...
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Baker's Yeast
Baker's yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used in baking bread and other bakery products, serving as a leavening agent which causes the bread to rise (expand and become lighter and softer) by converting the fermentable sugars present in the dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol. Baker's yeast is of the species ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'', and is the same species (but a different strain) as the kind commonly used in alcoholic fermentation, which is called brewer's yeast. Baker's yeast is also a single-cell microorganism found on and around the human body. The use of steamed or boiled potatoes, water from potato boiling, or sugar in a bread dough provides food for the growth of yeasts; however, too much sugar will dehydrate them. Yeast growth is inhibited by both salt and sugar, but more so by salt than sugar. Some sources say fats, such as butter and eggs, slow down yeast growth; others say the effect of fat on dough remains unclear, presenting evid ...
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Dough
Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as ingredients such as fats or flavorings. Making and shaping dough begins the preparation of a wide variety of foodstuffs, particularly breads and bread-based items, but also including biscuits, cakes, cookies, dumplings, flatbreads, noodles, pasta, pastry, pizza, piecrusts, and similar items. Dough can be made from a wide variety of flour, commonly wheat and rye but also maize, rice, legumes, almonds, and other cereals or crops. Types of dough Doughs vary widely depending on ingredients, the desired end product, the leavening agent (particularly whether the dough is based on yeast or not), how the dough is mixed (whether quickly mixed or kneaded and left to rise), and cooking or baking technique. The ...
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Beer Barm
Barm is the foam or scum formed on the top of a fermenting liquid, such as beer, wine, or feedstock for spirits or industrial ethanol distillation. It is used to leaven bread, or set up fermentation in a new batch of liquor. Barm, as a leaven, has also been made from ground millet combined with must out of wine-tubs and is sometimes used in English baking as a synonym for a natural leaven ( sourdough). Reinhart derived the term from his training undeMonica Spiller Various cultures derived from barm, usually ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'', became ancestral to most forms of brewer's yeast and baker's yeast currently on the market. In Ireland, barm is used in the traditional production of barmbrack, a fruited bread. Despite the name, the barm cakes of northern England are not necessarily made with barm. See also * Kaiser roll *Sour mash *Yeast in winemaking The role of yeast in winemaking is the most important element that distinguishes wine from fruit juice. In the :wikt:anae ...
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Food Fermentation
In food processing, fermentation is the conversion of carbohydrates to alcohol or organic acids using microorganisms—yeasts or bacteria—under anaerobic (oxygen-free) conditions. Fermentation usually implies that the action of microorganisms is desired. The science of fermentation is known as zymology or zymurgy. The term "fermentation" sometimes refers specifically to the chemical conversion of sugars into ethanol, producing alcoholic drinks such as wine, beer, and cider. However, similar processes take place in the leavening of bread (CO2 produced by yeast activity), and in the preservation of sour foods with the production of lactic acid, such as in sauerkraut and yogurt. Other widely consumed fermented foods include vinegar, olives, and cheese. More localised foods prepared by fermentation may also be based on beans, grain, vegetables, fruit, honey, dairy products, and fish. History and prehistory Natural fermentation precedes human history. Since ancient times, hum ...
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Salt-rising Bread
Salt-rising (or salt-risen) bread is a dense white bread that is traditional in the Appalachian Mountains, leavened by naturally occurring ''Clostridium perfringens'' and other bacteria rather than by yeast. Salt-rising bread is made from wheat flour; a starter consisting of either water or milk and corn, potatoes, or wheat; and minor ingredients such as salt and sugar. Salt in the name is a misnomer; the bread is not leavened by salt nor does it taste salty. One explanation for the name of the bread is that the starter was kept warm in a bed of heated salt. Another possible origin of the name is the use of salt to inhibit yeast growth and provide an environment more conducive for the microbes to grow, enhancing the distinct flavors which predominate over the more typical yeast flavors. Compared to a sourdough starter, salt-rising bread starter requires a shorter incubation period of 6–16 hours and a higher incubation temperature, ranging from . Salt-rising bread is denser, wi ...
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Batter (cooking)
Batter is a flour mixture with liquid and other ingredients such as sugar, salt and leavening used for cooking. It usually contains more liquid than doughs, which are also mixtures of flour and liquid. Batters are usually a pourable consistency that can't be kneaded. Batter is most often used for pancakes, light cakes, and as a coating for fried foods. It is also used for a variety of batter breads. The word ''batter'' comes from the French word ''battre'', which means ''to beat'', as many batters require vigorous beating or whisking in their preparation. Methods Many batters are made by combining dry flours with liquids such as water, milk or eggs. Batters can also be made by soaking grains in water and grinding them wet. Often a leavening agent such as baking powder is included to aerate and fluff up the batter as it cooks, or the mixture may be naturally fermented for this purpose as well as to add flavour. Carbonated water or another carbonated liquid such as beer may ...
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Saccharomyces Cerevisiae
''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' () (brewer's yeast or baker's yeast) is a species of yeast (single-celled fungus microorganisms). The species has been instrumental in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. It is believed to have been originally isolated from the skin of grapes. It is one of the most intensively studied eukaryotic model organisms in molecular and cell biology, much like '' Escherichia coli'' as the model bacterium. It is the microorganism behind the most common type of fermentation. ''S. cerevisiae'' cells are round to ovoid, 5–10  μm in diameter. It reproduces by budding. Many proteins important in human biology were first discovered by studying their homologs in yeast; these proteins include cell cycle proteins, signaling proteins, and protein-processing enzymes. ''S. cerevisiae'' is currently the only yeast cell known to have Berkeley bodies present, which are involved in particular secretory pathways. Antibodies against ''S. ...
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Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transparent to visible light but absorbs infrared radiation, acting as a greenhouse gas. It is a trace gas in Earth's atmosphere at 421 parts per million (ppm), or about 0.04% by volume (as of May 2022), having risen from pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm. Burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of these increased CO2 concentrations and also the primary cause of climate change.IPCC (2022Summary for policy makersiClimate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA Carbon dioxide is soluble in water and is found in groundwater, lakes, ice ca ...
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Bicarbonate
In inorganic chemistry, bicarbonate (IUPAC-recommended nomenclature: hydrogencarbonate) is an intermediate form in the deprotonation of carbonic acid. It is a polyatomic anion with the chemical formula . Bicarbonate serves a crucial biochemical role in the physiological pH buffering system. The term "bicarbonate" was coined in 1814 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. The name lives on as a trivial name. Chemical properties The bicarbonate ion (hydrogencarbonate ion) is an anion with the empirical formula and a molecular mass of 61.01  daltons; it consists of one central carbon atom surrounded by three oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement, with a hydrogen atom attached to one of the oxygens. It is isoelectronic with nitric acid . The bicarbonate ion carries a negative one formal charge and is an amphiprotic species which has both acidic and basic properties. It is both the conjugate base of carbonic acid ; and the conjugate acid ...
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