Last week, I wrote about my success in using half the yeast in homemade bread by "growing" the dough in multiple stages of a sponge. The sponge is the loose dough that usually has just yeast, water, flour, and small amounts of sugar and salt. After the sponge has developed into a bubbly mass, more flour and other ingredients can be added to make a stiff bread dough. My new-to-me method grows the sponge 4 or 5 times over the course of a long day. I keep the sponge warm in the oven with a light on and the door closed, and it takes about 1 to 2 hours to get the sponge super bubbly and ready to add more flour. The post in the link above gives more detailed info on how I've been doing this.
I indicated that one should add some ingredients to the sponge/dough at one of the last stages in mixing, to allow for better growth of the yeast. Today, I thought I'd share all of the ingredients that could slow the rise in the sponge and growth of the yeast.
- fats -- fat coats the gluten particles in dough, making it difficult for the gluten to combine with the rest of the dough. The gluten is what gives bread doughs that stretchy texture to hold bubbles of gas without collapsing on themselves. Too much fat in a recipe will cause a denser, less high loaf. Fat introduced in the sponge period can slow the yeast activity in the dough.
- sugar -- too much sugar can slow yeast activity, according to King Arthur Flour, sweet doughs with more than 1/4 cup of sugar per 3 cups of flour will have slower yeast development
- salt -- if too much added or too early -- too much salt "dehydrates" the yeast, starving it of necessary water for development
- milk -- I've read several explanations why milk may impair yeast activity, from proteins and enzymes, to bacteria present in the milk. Old-time recipes called for scalding the milk before use in yeast dough to counter bacteria. Enzymes and proteins are also changed when heated, resulting in a better bread when milk is scalded. Despite modern pasteurization, many bakeries prefer to use dry milk powder in breads. Dry milk powder also has reduced bacteria and altered enzymes and proteins, simplifying milk additions in the large-scale bakery process.
- whole wheat, specifically the bran in whole wheat -- the bran in whole wheat interferes with gluten development and can impair or slow a good rise in bread dough.
You can still use these ingredients in a reduced-yeast bread. It just may be better to add the bulk of these ingredients toward the end of growing sponges.
Over the weekend, I made our family's favorite holiday bread. The recipe called for 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast, but I used only 1 teaspoon. This recipe makes a sweet, rich bread, using many of the ingredients on my list above. This is how I mediated those complicating factors and produced a good loaf with less than half the yeast.
I "grew" the dough over several hours with multiple steps of a sponge. I began with only the yeast, water, flour, salt, and a small amount of the sugar. I added the flour in portions, allowing the sponge to rise thoroughly in between each addition. With the particular rise-inhibiting ingredients, I made a few adaptations.
sugar -- I used less sugar to begin the dough, adding more in the last addition of flour.
fats -- I added the oil immediately before the last addition of flour instead of with the flour and sugar at the beginning.
milk -- I used water to soften and activate the yeast, then added dry milk powder with the final addition of flour with oil and extra sugar. The recipe had called for adding cooled, scalded milk for softening the yeast.
Here are two photos to show how much the sponge grows between additions of flour.
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| After about 1 1/2 to 2 hours after the second flour addition, all bubbly. |
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| Just after stirring the sponge down. It's still a little bubbly, but the level in the bowl is about an inch lower than before stirring the sponge. |
Time, warmth, and holding off on the addition of rise-inhibiting ingredients resulted in a loaf of a family favorite bread, using less than half of the yeast.
(Just a note -- for the last couple of months, I've had some significant issues with my aging computer. I think I downloaded a virus and it messed up my storage disk. In my attempts to fix this, I somehow deleted a bunch of stuff related to my various Google accounts. This blog, and a lot of other blogs you may visit, is a Google product. Well, one of the end results is I can't always access my own Google accounts. It's as if Google "forgot" who I was. I even have trouble with my own blog, especially with responding to comments. I was locked out of the comments for one of my posts for several days this past week. I've read that I should uninstall, then reinstall some stuff on my computer, but I need to back everything up first. I'm still at that point in fixing my issues. Anyways, if I were to "disappear" for a few days, it could very well be that my computer died and I can't use public library access during this pandemic. It's frustrating not having the skills to fix this, as I seem to only make things worse with each attempt. But I am working on it.)
