A treatise on the art of making good wholesome bread of wheat, oats, rye, barley and other farinaceous grains / Exhibiting the alimentary properties and chemical constitution of different kinds of bread corn, and of the various substitutes used for bread, in different parts of the world

by Friedrich Christian Accum

Bread made with Yeast.

The principal improvement that has been made in the art of fabricating bread, consists in the substitution of yeast, (or the froth that rises to the surface during the fermentation of malt liquors,) instead of common flour dough, in a state of acescency, called leaven, to rise the bread dough, made of flour and water, before it is baked. This substance very materially improves the bread. Yeast makes the dough rise more effectually than ordinary leaven, and the bread thus produced is much lighter, and free from that sour taste which may often be perceived in bread raised with leaven; because too much has been added to the paste, or because the dough has been allowed to advance too far in the process of fermentation before it was baked.

The discovery of the application of yeast, to improve the panification of bread flour, was made and first secretly adopted by the bakers of Paris; but when the practice was discovered, the College of Physicians there, in 1688, declared it prejudicial to health, and it was not till after a long time that the bakers succeeded in convincing the people, that bread made with yeast was superior to bread made with sour dough or leaven.

The bread used in this metropolis and in most other large towns in England, is made of wheaten flour, water, yeast, and salt. The average proportion are two pints by weight, of water, to three of flour, but the proportions vary considerably with the diversity of climate, years, season, age, and grinding of the wheat. There are some kinds of wheat flour that require precisely three-fourths of their weight of water. That flour is always the best which combines with the greatest possible quantity of water. Bakers and pastry-cooks judge of the quality of flour from the characters of the dough. The best flour forms instantly by the addition of water a very gluey elastic paste, whereas bad flour produces a dough that cannot be elongated without breaking.

The flour, in this case, being seldom mixed up oftener than twice, that is, the yeast previously diluted with water, is added to a part of the flour, and well kneaded; in a short time, swells and rises in the baking trough, and is called by the bakers, setting the sponge. The remainder of the flour is afterwards added, with a sufficient quantity of warm water to make it into a stiff dough, and then allowed to ferment. It is of essential consequence that the whole of the yeast should be intimately mixed with the two-thirds of the quantity of the flour put into the kneading trough, in order that the fermentation of the dough may commence in every part of the mass at the same time. The dough is then covered up, and the water which is mixed with the yeast being warm, speedily extricates air in an elastic state, and as it is now by kneading, diffused through every part of the dough, every particle must become raised, and the viscidity of the mass retains it, when it is again well kneaded and made up into loaves, and put into the oven. The heat converts the water also into an elastic vapour, and the loaf swells more and more, till at last it is perfectly porous.

During the baking, a still greater quantity of gazeous matter is extricated by the increased heat; and as the crust of the bread becomes formed, the air is prevented from escaping, the water is dissipated, the loaf rendered somewhat dry and solid, and between every particle of bread there is a particle of air, as appears from the spongy appearance of the bread.

It is curious that new flour does not afford bread of so good a quality as that which has been kept some months. The flour of grain too, which has suffered incipient germination, is much inferior in the quality of bread prepared from it: and from this principally appears to arise the injury which wheat sustains from a wet harvest. Various methods have been employed to remedy the imperfections of bread from inferior flour, such as washing the grain with hot water if it is musty, proposed by Mr. Hatchet;[^[5]] drying and heating it even to a certain extent; adding various substances, such as magnesia, &c. Some experiments on this subject have been given by Mr. E. Davy. See a Treatise on Adulterations of Food, Second Edition, p.137.

[5]. See a Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons, Second Edition, p. 143.