Baking&Snack - December 2016 - 54

YEAST

vitamin in these yeasts is optimized for conventional
bakery use to allow a "good" source claim.

Beyond leavening
Newest of all uses for bakers yeast is mold inhibition.
Lallemand developed Essential Fresh, a new technology based on the post-baking application of live yeast
to packaged baked goods. "The yeast remains viable on
the surface of the product and creates a controlled atmosphere within the package that inhibits mold and extends shelf life," the company stated.
A dilute solution of rehydrated Essential Fresh is
sprayed onto the product before packaging or into the
package itself. Special packaging is not required; normal
low-density polyethylene bags work well. The yeast remains viable for weeks and converts the residual alcohol
left after baking into volatile compounds that flood the
package and starve microorganisms of oxygen. It provides shelf life similar to calcium propionate. It also contributes a pleasant yeasty, nutty flavor that can enhance
perceived freshness.
Bakers yeast is relatively easy to inactivate, but even
in this condition, it is a fount of functional ingredients.
For example, Pak Group developed a non-GMO, cleanlabel, kosher-certified deactivated yeast that replaces
L-cysteine. "This deactivated yeast has high levels of
glutathione, which does the same thing for doughs as
L-cysteine," Mr. Postelwait explained. "It reduces mix
time by relaxing the dough and weakening the gluten
links to make dough more extensible."
Yeast extracts are getting more attention these days for
their functionality in baked goods and snacks, according to Marilyn Stieve, marketing manager, Biospringer,
a Lesaffre business unit. "Several categories benefit
from such extracts," she explained. "With gluten-free,
the challenge has been taste because of all the different
flours. Customers are using our yeast extracts to improve the flavor of gluten-free foods, both fresh-baked
items and snacks such as pretzels."
Another Springer extract carries roasted and brown
flavor notes. Ms. Stieve described its use to boost
chocolate flavors in cookies. Biospringer introduced an
organic yeast extract earlier this year.
Formulators struggling with reducing or replacing
sugar's sweetness or salt's tang are encouraged to consider yeast extracts. "Springer high-nucleotide yeast
extract boosts umami and can also act as a sweetener
enhancement," Ms. Stieve said. "These yeast extracts
are useful for sodium reduction, especially for snack
foods, which are under tremendous pressure to cut
their sodium content. They're typically not used to replace salt in bread because salt has specific functions
in bread, but they find use in snacks." The company

54 Baking & Snack December 2016 / www.bakingandsnack.com

Sourdough library adds online collection
Pursuing its aim to preserve the biodiversity of leavening agents around the
world, Puratos NV has nearly doubled
its global collection of authentic sourdoughs. And it's adding to its stock
through a unique online effort.
Housed at Puratos' Center for Bread
Flavour located in the Ardennes region of
southern Belgium, the library opened in
2013 and today maintains 87 sourdoughs
collected from around the world, including 12 from the US. It is a non-profit
initiative on the part of the company and
intended as a means of safeguarding the
rich diversity of sourdough.
New to the library is the online
collection, currently numbering 265
sourdoughs. A special website, www.
questforsourdough.com, asks individuals to describe their starters, along with
the process, added ingredients, fermentation and storage methods they use to
develop them into baked foods.
Long before bakers yeast was commercialized in the nineteenth century,
bakers leavened their breads through
natural fermentation caused by wild
yeasts and bacteria present in the environment. Such microorganisms occur in
unique populations around the world.
More than 700 strains of wild yeast and
1,500 lactic bacteria have been recorded
so far by scientists.
Puratos partners its library with
Marco Gobbetti, PhD, a professor at
the University of Bari in Bari, Italy, an
international expert in fermentation
technology and author of "Handbook on
Sourdough Biotechnology." All sourdoughs collected by Puratos are analytically characterized in Dr. Gobbetti's
laboratory as a step in their addition to
the library.
Karl De Smedt, communications
manager for bakery flavors and yeasts at
Puratos, recently produced and narrated
three new YouTube videos tracing the
history and development of sourdoughs
from Greece, Mexico and the US that are
now part of the library.

http://www.questforsourdough.com http://www.bakingandsnack.com

Baking&Snack - December 2016

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