Our
whole-wheat bread is made from five simple ingredients - honey,
whole wheat flour, water, salt, and yeast. If you've ever seen a
loaf of bread being made, you've probably noticed that it's much
smaller when it's in its dough form, growing bigger through the
time it's fully baked.
This "bread
rising" happens when the yeast and honey are mixed together, the
yeast feeds on the honey and gives off a gas, called carbon
dioxide. This carbon dioxide gets trapped in the bread dough,
causing the dough to rise and helping give our bread its wonderful
taste! To find out how carbon dioxide is created, similar to what
happens when a loaf of bread rises, try this simple experiment at
home:
You will
need:
a glass
bottle (12 ounces to 20 ounces in size will work)
a balloon
5 ounces of luke-warm water
1 tablespoon of honey
a package of dry yeast
Here's How:
1. Fill the
glass bottle with 5 ounces of luke-warm tap water.
2. Add the
honey, and swirl it around in the water until it dissolves.
3. Open the
packet of dry yeast and add it to the water and honey solution,
and swirl the bottle a couple of times to distribute the yeast in
the solution.
4. Put the
balloon over the mouth of the bottle. Check back in roughly 30
minutes. What's happened?
As the
yeast ate the honey, carbon dioxide was formed which caused the
balloon to partially inflate. When we add yeast to the honey in
our bread dough, the same thing happens, causing our bread to
rise. This process, the yeast eating the honey and creating carbon
dioxide, is called fermentation.
Fermentation helps give our bread its great taste, and also causes
our bread to rise from the time it's in its "dough" form to the
time it's fully-baked.
