YEAST

Yeast is a very influential ingredient in a pizza base, as i found out this week. (that's a lie, i already knew that. BUT this week was the week i actually looked into it properly) wikipedia kindly informed me that:

"Yeast, most commonly Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is used in baking as a leavening agent, where it converts the fermentable sugars present in dough into the gas carbon dioxide. This causes the dough to expand or rise as gas forms pockets or bubbles. When the dough is baked the yeast dies and the air pockets "set", giving the baked product a soft and spongy texture."

Put in simple terms, yeast is basically the ingredient in the base that causes the mixture to rise. It is also stated that the yeast gives the dough a soft and spongy texture. by using this information, i am able to hypothesise that the pizza base without yeast in the mixture will not rise as much as the ones in which yeast is an ingredient, and may infact not rise at all. also from this information, it could be hypothesised that the texture of the yeast free base will be very different to that of the bases with yeast. based on this research, i am thinking that maybe taking the yeast out completely is not such a great idea because the dough will be more like pastry then any dough... but ive decided to do it anyway just to test out how much difference there is.

after researching the other ingredients, i have come to the conclusion that i dont think any of them will really impact either the rising height or cooking time but i will test these recipes anyway just to prove it.

so thats all for today i think.

-annabelle x