The Chemistry of Cookery

In the crust some of the work of insalivation is already done by the baker. The digestibility of toast is doubtless aided by its brittleness, causing it to be more broken up and mixed with the saliva. Everybody has, of course, heard of ‘unfermented bread,’ and many have tasted it. Several methods have been devised, some patented, for effecting an evolution of gas in the dough without having recourse to the fermentation above described. One of these is that of adding a little hydrochloric acid to the water used in moistening the flour, and mixing bicarbonate of soda in powder with the flour (to every 4 lbs. of flour ½ oz. bicarbonate and 4½ fluid drachms of hydrochloric acid of 1·16 specific gravity). These combine and form sodium chloride, common salt, with evolution of carbonic acid. The salt thus formed takes the place of that usually added in ordinary bread-making, and the carbonic acid gas evolved acts like that given off in fermentation; but the rapidity of the action of the acid and carbonate presents a difficulty. The bread must be quickly made, as the action is soon completed. It does not go on steadily increasing and stopping just at the right moment, as in the case of fermentation. Other methods similar in principle have been adopted, such as adding ammonia carbonate with the soda carbonate. The ammonia salt is volatile itself, besides evolving carbonic acid by its union with the acid. In spite of the great amount of ingenuity expended upon the manufacture of such unfermented bread, and the efforts to bring it into use, but little progress has been made. The general verdict appears to be that the unfermented bread is not so ‘sweet,’ that it lacks some element of flavour, is ‘chippy’ or tasteless as compared with good old-fashioned wheaten bread, free from alum or other adulteration. My theory of this difference is that it is due to the absence of those changes which take place while the sponge or dough is rising, when, if I am right, the diastase of the grain is operating, as in