The type of fungi used in making break is yeast, more specifically “baker’s yeast.” Without baker’s yeast, you’re not going to be able to make some bread. My mother bought a breadmaker last year since it was in perfect condition at good will at a good price. She knows how to bake, cook, sew, and such. One of the things she knows how to bake is fresh bread. She told me that yeast is the important thing when making bread.
You can get this type of yeast at your regular grocery store. Whenever there’s no yeast in the pantry, my mom can’t make any bread. What the baker’s yeast does is act as a leavening agent. Meaning, it’s responsible for the rise when baking bread. If your bread doesn’t rise, it means you didn’t add enough baker’s yeast to the dough. That’s happened to my mom numerous times.
What this yeast does is turn the sugars that are present in the dough into carbon dioxide. It will make the dough expand and rise as the carbon dioxide created as a result turns into air pockets or bubbles. Which is why holes are present when you cut off a slice of bread. When it expands, the bread gets a spongy texture making it easier for you to cut when its fully baked. If the bread’s hard, there wasn’t enough yeast added.
Baker’s yeast is usually a dry yeast. My mom buys it in the powdered form in small packets. Whatever you add to the breaddough affects the growth of yeast. Anything with sugar or starch accelerates yeast growth. Salts and fasts slow down the growth of yeast.
You basically mix flour, salt, and warm water or milk. Depending what’s in the fridge. Depending on what bread she wants to make, my mom will add other ingredients. She’ll added the potato flakes that’s used to make mashed potatoes if she wants to make potato bread for example. Making a loaf of bread requires a few hours. Before baking it, my mom allows the bread to give it time to rise which is pretty important.
Since my mom uses a bread machine, she’s only going to use dried yeast. Without fungi, the various types of bread would be non-existant in today’s world.
