Chez Robinson

Today, I made yeastless bread. The word technically is unleavened, but not really in this case. I still rose the dough. I just didn't use any yeast.

The chemical principles behind it were pretty easy, they came to me last night when I was studying Japanese. Normal household vinegar is diluted ethanoic acid. I had 5% ethanoic acid, and some baking soda(sodium bicarbonate).

Now, before I get into this anymore, maybe I should explain what happens with NORMAL breadmaking. You add yeast and sugar to your dough, cover it, and leave it somewhere warm. After a couple of minutes, it rises, and voila, leavened dough ready for the oven.

The dough rises because the yeast(which is actually alive), uses the sugar in respiration to produce energy. The byproducts of the yeast respiring, are alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide escapes into the dough, and makes it rise. As for the alcohol, them amount of it produced is so small, that it all evaporates away during baking, and you can't get drunk off it. (Sad, but true =[)

So, if sodium bicarbonate(baking soda) + ethanoic acid(vinegar) produces carbon dioxide, and yeast+sugar also produces carbon dioxide, and we know that carbon dioxide makes the dough rise, common sense says that we could use the baking soda and vinegar as a substitute for yeast and sugar, right?

Yup, I'm here to tell you that it works, but there are a few details you need to take into consideration.

First of all, you need to store the vinegar at a cold temperature (the reason for this will become apparent later). It would also be nice if the baking soda is at a cold temperature too. Also, although I said you don't need to add yeast + sugar to the dough, you may want to add a LITTLE bit of sugar (and salt) to the dough, just to help the bread to taste like bread, instead of saltwater on flour(a LITTLE, not American little, but Third World™ little).

So, like any Good Christian™ (forgive me, I just learnt how to use the trademark symbol today =]..lol), you make your dough with all the traditional ingredients, minus the yeast. Now, you need a pretty big pan to pull this off. You're also going to want something small to mix the vinegar and baking soda in, such as the cover of a peanut butter bottle(...ghetto, right? I know, homey, I know. lol). Don't mix it yet, here's some more info for you.

Put the dough to one side of the pan. On the other side, put your cover or whatever small object you're going to store the baking soda in. DO NOT FILL IT COMPLETELY. In fact, just shake a LITTLE bit of the baking soda into the bottom of the container, about half or a quarter teaspoon full. Remember people, Third World™ little. :P

Now, cover half of your pan with a dishtowel/teatowel/whatever you wierdly accented people want to call it. I'll stick with the word dishtowel, thank you very much.

Make sure the half you've covered is the half with the dough in it. Now, take your vinegar out of the fridge(hopefully its cold by now, but not frozen), and pour a SMALL amount into the cover. Don't pour a lot, because there's going to be a bit of effervescence, from the carbon dioxide being released, and it might spill out and make your dough wet and sloppy.

As soon as you add it, cover the entire pan quickly, so the carbon dioxide doesn't escape.

The reason we kept the baking soda and the vinegar cold is because the chemical reaction is pretty quick under normal circumstances, so most of the carbon dioxide would escape really fast. Chemical reactions(in general) are slower at lower temperatures. Hence, the reaction would be slowed down a bit, so not a lot of carbon dioxide would escape before you get to cover it.

Now, you're almost done. Check back on it in half an hour, and empty the small container where you mixed the baking soda and the vinegar. Refill it like I just described above and leave it for another half an hour.

After that, remove the container with the mixture and dispose of it. Then, bake the dough that's left over like you'd bake bread normally.

I'm no chef, but the end result when I did it was pretty tolerable. I still admit that it would taste better with yeast though, but then again, my baking skills have room for improvement.

Scratch that, they have a STADIUM for improvement.

Maybe I just need some practice.

Okay, I'm lying a bit....the bread wasn't tolerable. It tasted like crap. That was mostly my fault, due to not adding enough salt and sugar to the dough(hence the reason for me warning you earlier, so you don't make the same mistake).

The point is, my dough rose, due to sound scientific techniques...heheheh. Maybe someone with a better baking technique than me could pull it off using the baking soda and vinegar method.

Anyway, I'm done blogging for today, just wanted to let you guys know what killed me, so you can tell the coroner, if you ever get called to identify my body at the morgue.

Peace and Love,
Gavin™

P.S. Technically, I simplified the chemistry a bit. The baking soda + vinegar doesn't produce carbon dioxide directly. Instead, it produces carbonic acid (H₂CO₃), which then breaks down to produce carbon dioxide and water. I suppose my hot tropical climate was partially responsible for the reaction being so quick. Who knows?

Now go make your own bread and go to hell.