The Rise of Bread

Joseph Combs III & Eric Rollins

The Rise of Bread 

The food that we had researched bread/ biscuits have a major chemical reaction that goes on during the cooking process. The one main most important is the turning of sugar into air bubbles. In order for the bread to rise air bubbles inside the bread needs to be formed. In order for that to happen the sugar in the dough needs to be broken down and turned to air bubbles. Two components can be used to turn the sugar into air bubbles. These components being yeast and baking soda. What the yeast does in the bread is a process call fermentation where the yeast takes energy from the sugar and produces air bubbles which causes the dough to rise. The baking soda works a bit different. What it does is combines with the acids in the dough and produces liquid foam like bubbles in the dough. This process is known as “chemical leavening”.    

Hypothesis 

The baking soda will make a bigger and thicker biscuit than the yeast biscuit and the biscuit without a rising agent.  

Procedure 

1. 3 ¼ teaspoon yeast/ 3 ¼ teaspoon baking soda/ No rising agent 

2. ½ cup warm water 

3. ½ cup sugar 

4. ½ cup butter 

5. 1 can evaporated milk 

6. 2 eggs 

7. 1 ½ teaspoon salt 

8. 2 cups flour (whole wheat) 

9. 2 cups all pure flour 

10. Bake on 340 

11. Bake for 15 minutes 

Results 

After the baking process all the dough had completed its cook. The biscuits without a rising agent had no rise, were hard and did not for into any other shape than how it was placed. The biscuits with yeast came out very soft and fluffy. They had formed a very smooth and almost round shape. Lastly the baking soda biscuits were in fact bigger than the yeast biscuits. They were lumpy and very crisp and hard. 

Conclusion 

Due to the fact baking soda creates air pockets based off heat unlike how yeast creates its rise off time the baking soda was bigger. The yeast biscuits were better shaped because there was a more even balance of sugar in the dough than there were acids. Because the one test run of biscuits had no rising agent it stayed the exact same way it was when it was placed on the pan. Lastly the reason all the biscuits were cooked different even with the same cooking time and heat was its concentration. The yeast had more air pockets, so the heat got through the whole biscuit evenly. While the one with no rising agent had just a clump to get cooked through and hardened. The baking soda was like the yeast, but its rising process finished faster, so it gave the biscuit more cooking time which ended up making it too hard.