Please 'splain this yeast proofing method to me

[pax]

I have use of my husband's grandmother's and mother's cookbooks, antiques all, and I found a recipe for "Pain Ordinaire" in a book from 1948 that had me make a "sponge" of yeast, boiled water and flour kneaded into a ball, which was then scored and placed in more boiled water until the ball floated, upon which you mix in the rest of the ingredients and its then handled exactly like any bread recipe.

I'd like to understand this better, I have never seen this before but I'm not a real chef, I am just an amateur eater.

The crackle when I cut this loaf was like a gunshot, and I just baked it in my Joe Homeowner JennAire.

[gfron1]

Check THIS discussion out. Looks like it might be the same.

[tino27]

So the water ... it is boiled and then cooled to room temperature before adding yeast/flour, or are you adding yeast and flour to water that boiled and is still at/near the boiling temperature?

All strains of yeast start to succumb at around 130 deg F, so I can't imagine that adding yeast to water this is close to 212 deg F would last very long.

[pax]

gfron, thank you, that made for interesting reading. I appreciate the link, I had no idea what it was called. I have a loaf of very finely crumbed, almost cake-y bread with an extraordinarily crackly crust. It's quite good. I think I will try this recipe without the levain (if that is indeed what I had, since I too used cultivated yeast) and see what differences show up.

tino, I'm sorry, the water was boiled and then cooled for both the "sponge" and the dough.

[dougal]

Lets begin by disentangling two aspects

1 - the floating of the dough

and

2 - putting all the yeast with some of the flour and fermenting it somewhat before adding the rest of the flour (and water).

No 1. This is a measure of the gas content of the dough. Its most commonly encountered when using just a small piece of dough in the water, and used to time the after-shaping proofing. When the testpiece floats, the rest of the dough is proofed and ready to bake. However, its a bit strange (and somewhat uncontrolled for hydration) to submerge the whole of the dough (at that stage) ...

To puff up to floating in just the 20 minutes of gfron1's example implies rather a lot of yeast being used... which is rather odd, considering point 2.

No 2. There's fine distinctions here, and maybe occasional misunderstanding... The technique known as making a "sponge" is explained by Elizabeth David as being a historical bakers' method of minimising the amount of (expensive) yeast to raise a commercial batch of dough. A small amount of dough is "seeded" with a normal proportion of yeast. That is allowed to ferment, which involves the yeast multiplying. Once the yeast population has maximised, the first dough is used to 'yeast' a larger quantity of flour and water. And the process can be repeated.

Ms David (in "English Bread and Yeast Cookery) reported a 1930's description of just such a three-stage build, then commonly used in Scotland, whereby just 6oz of (fresh) yeast is used to raise a dough containing, ultimately, 280lb of flour - the three-stage process taking 16 hours... The Chorleywood Process, used nowadays, needs 16x as much yeast, but takes less than 1/16th of the time. And develops no flavour at all.

The fine distinction is between a sponge and a biga.

It would seem (and here I cite Hamelman in evidence) that a 'biga' involves a really tiny amount of yeast - and it is used to develop flavour (rather than the sponge's yeast breeding purpose) with lots of additional yeast being added in the makeup of the final dough, to augment the minute amount put in the biga. With a sponge, the only commercial yeast used in the batch of dough is added right at the very start.

But both the economical sponge method and the flavouring biga need many hours to work their magic. Neither of them is going to do much in 20 minutes...

BTW the French word levain just translates as "leaven" but usually (maybe always), in French, implies a "wild yeast" sourdough culture being used (in whole or in part) - whereas yeast translates as "levure". But, hey, I've even come across folks who talked about making "sourdough", with a culture derived from commercial yeast.

Sadly, all this terminology is often used terribly loosely. You have to look at what's actually being done, rather than the process name the author chooses.

[tino27]

dougal -- EXCELLENT explanation. One question for you though ... why boil the water and let it cool to room temperature? Presumably it might serve to sterilize the water and kill any microbial 'beasties' that might compete with the yeast?

[dougal]

... why boil the water and let it cool to room temperature? Presumably it might serve to sterilize the water and kill any microbial 'beasties' that might compete with the yeast?

←

It sounds as though the author's 1940's (or earlier?) experience/prejudice led to deep distrust of water quality... Boiling would also drive off excess chlorine, if the water had been over-enthusiastically treated against "microbial beasties" - potentially worthwhile lest excessive chlorine inhibit even commercial yeast.

However, there is so much in this scheme that sounds as though the author has got a few things confused, that this may qualify as one of those recipes that works despite the method, rather than because of it!

[pax]

Ah, Dougal, thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to me. I really had no idea what the point was off this floating "sponge", and I am fascinated by the historical information. Really, thank you, thank you, that's exactly the kind of thing I was wondering about.

I cook with bottled water, so I had ignored the boil and cool instructions on the water, figuring it was an antimicrobial effort I probably didn't need to make in my 2008 kitchen. And I never even considered a parsimonoius effort in terms of yeast. I go through so much yeast I don't even bother to proof it anymore.

Fascinating.

[andiesenji]

The method for the "floating sponge" is not all that unusual for the era. I have several cookbooks, including one on bread from Cornell University, that recommends this method.

The water is cooled to lukewarm so there is no danger of the yeast being killed by heat.

I believe it was developed during the changeover from cake or "live" yeast to the dried "active" yeast as a way of proofing the yeast without wasting a lot of flour.

I knew many homemakers during the '50s who simply did not trust the dried yeast and insisted on using "fresh" cake yeast.

It is now very difficult, if not impossible, to find here in Calif. I remember being surprised when I looked for it in the dairy case and was told the store no longer stocked it, because they had to discard so much that was outdated. The switch to dried yeast had done it in.

At that time bottled water was not universally available and it was thought that tap water contained a lot of wild yeasts so boiling the water first would insure a "pure" strain of yeast in the dough.