Baking & Snack - June 2005 - 70

June 2005

Leavening's Other Powers
BY LAURIE GORTON

ood things often come in small
packages. Among the baker's
"small" ingredients, the leaveners - yeast, sourdough bacteria,
leavening acids and bicarbonates - not
only perform important fermentation

Don't overlook
leaveners as
sources of color,
flavor, texture,
nutrition and
dough conditioning
activities
and leavening roles but also contribute
additional functional benefits. Depending upon the ingredient, these improvements may include natural dough
conditioning, flavoring, texturizing or
enriching, among other activities.
"Nowadays, yeast is more than the
leavening medium for bread," said Arnaud Denaiud, manager, new product
development, Lesaffre Yeast Corp., Milwaukee, WI. Current research aimed
at making the most of the clean, nonchemical, subtle advantages of yeast
in baking targets the microorganisms'
roles in fermentation, flavor, rheology
and delivery of other nutrients.
Yet in baking, leavening products are
primarily sources for leavening gases.
"First and foremost, leaveners must be
selected for their volume and timing of
release," said Barbara Heidolph, market
development manager, food, Astaris,
St. Louis, MO. "But some bakers don't
realize what else they can accomplish by
picking the right leavener. Crumb struc-

ture, for example, can be controlled by
balancing early versus late release."
Leaveners offer much diversity. "One
size does not fit all," cautioned Nita
Livvix, R&D food scientist, Clabber
Girl Corp., Terre Haute, IN.

FRONT SEAT
FOR SIDE FUNCTIONS
In today's marketplace where
flavor and eye appeal often reign
supreme, the ability of leavening
ingredients to give an extra boost
to color, texture, keeping quality
and nutrient content should not
be overlooked. "The secondary
roles of leavening can be just as
important as the aerating role,"
said John Brodie, technical service manager, bakery, Innophos,
Cranbury, NJ.
Consider the matter of texture.
"Leavening contributes to the texture
of products, to mouthfeel and bite,"
Ms. Heidolph said. "You can impact
these qualities through selection of
your leavener."

Chemical leavening matches a source
of carbon dioxide with a food-grade
acid that releases the gas. Reactions
vary widely and depend on the presence of moisture and heat. As formulators move from fast- to slower-acting
leaveners, the size of air cells in the finished product also changes from small
to larger - even to tunneling effects.
Finer cells present more surface area
to the tongue, so the taste is dryer. The
leavener sodium acid pyrophosphate
(SAPP) yields higher perceived moisture in finished products such as cakes.
"The calcium and aluminum ions
interact with protein to reinforce it and
give resilience to the bite of the product," Ms. Heidolph said.
Effects of various leavening acids
were compared by Mr. Brodie. "Sodium
aluminum phosphate (SALP) will give
a very fine crumb structure with a very
resilient, soft crumb," he said. "SAPP
will give a soft but slightly gummy
texture with a slightly more open grain.
The slowest calcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate dihydrate (DCP), yields

ᮣ Leavening acids not only provide extra
lift to pizza crust, they also help condition
the dough for better performance.
Astaris

June 2005 / BAKING & SNACK / 75

Baking & Snack - June 2005

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