SC - OP: Vodka Cream Sauce and Sour Cherry Soup

[Jenne Heise]

Salt slows the action of the yeast, allowing the yeast to spread through the
dough more thoroughly and producing a more even aeration and a finer crumb.
Yeast is a living organism and the rise is produced from carbon dioxide
interacting with the gluten strands in the dough and the yeast grows.  Salt,
as Adamantius points out, strengthens the gluten, allowing to better trap
the carbon dioxide and form a nice crust.

On the other hand, yeast needs to be fed to grow.  Yeast can grow on the
sugars released by the amylase reaction between the water and the flour, but
the rise will be slow.  By adding sugar, you add yeast food and speed the
growth of the yeast, accelerating the rise.

So the balance between the salt and the sugar will determine how fast the
yeast grows and how quickly the bread rise.  This will be modified by
whether or not you cream the yeast, how much fat is in the bread, and what
else has been add to enrich the bread.

In general, keeping the first rise to two hours or longer and the second
rise to one hour or longer improves the crumb and the flavor of the bread.
I personally prefer "longer," and tend to use a small amount of yeast, more
salt, and only a pinch of sugar for plain bread.

In the case of the Mexican chocolate bread, the sugar is primarily to
sweeten the chocolate and the quantity of fat will help slow the rise.  This
is more of a yeast leavened dessert cake than a loaf of bread.

Bear

> From:  Adamantius
> 
> > Salt would be there, most likely, to make gluten strands 
> extensible, for
> > a lighter bread. I don't think it has much direct 
> beneficial effect on
> > the yeast itself, although I suppose anything's possible.
> 
> Actually, the book which came with my breadmaker says that 
> the salt is there
> to impede the growth of the yeast and the sugar is present to 
> encourage it.
> What I have never quite grasped is why one can't just cut the 
> amount of
> sugar.  I think that the book says that the use of the two 
> ingredients helps
> regulate the amount of rise.
> 
> Gwynydd