561736 Wed Oct 01 23:12:15 -0700 2008 17 31 Home Cooking 0 4076074 while looking at Chinese recipes for Mantou (Chinese steamed bread), I read about a substitute for yeast by using honey. Just wondering, has anyone leavened their dough with honey, and if so, should it be raw honey? Wed Oct 01 23:12:16 -0700 2008 10422 HLing 1 4076223 Honey can supply quick nourishment for yeast,but I don't see how it can raise a bun on its own. Thu Oct 02 04:18:00 -0700 2008 4076074 56131 jayt90 1 4076285 Honey is not a leaven. The leaven in that case must be wild yeasts. Wild yeasts can feed on any simple carbohydrate - sugar, honey, et cet. But that carb is not leaven. Thu Oct 02 05:10:51 -0700 2008 4076074 13819 Karl S 2 4076500 I suspect what Karl means is that the "wild yeast" then comes from the surrounding kitchen environment. And this can work. Especially a kitchen that has had yeast around it for a some time. Yeast will inhabit the kitchen somehow and can find it's way to your bread dough and make it rise. Sometimes this process takes a day or two for enough yeast to find it's way to your bread. The honey may help attract the yeast, and surely provides food for it. Thu Oct 02 07:09:39 -0700 2008 4076285 123480 scuzzo 3 4076655 But you don't need the honey any more than you need sugar. Both would work the same in that regard. Thu Oct 02 08:12:20 -0700 2008 4076500 13819 Karl S 4 4077009 Thanks all for your replies. All I could find was this "Einkorn Bread leavened with honey-salt", but I couldn't get too far past the technical writing: http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v57/n10/full/1601680a.html I guess I'll have to experiment in my kitchen. I'm thinking the flavor wil be different between honey and sugar even if both would work to feed the yeast? Thu Oct 02 10:24:52 -0700 2008 4076655 10422 HLing 5 4077540 Not really. For non-dessert breads, you should not have much sweetener at all - the less, the better (too much sweetener leads to flabby bread in my opinion). So it's very hard to tell. And honey in such small amounts doesn't really add much in the way of preservative value the way it does in large amounts. Thu Oct 02 13:26:30 -0700 2008 4077009 13819 Karl S 1 4078362 Honey IS a leavener, and has been used as a leavener or fermenter for 10,000 years, but as Karl S. said, it's not the honey, per se, it's the wild yeasts and other bacteria that are in the honey that leaven or ferment. Honey is a "starter," of sorts. Honey was probably how the first alcoholic beverage was made. There was honey in some tree stump, and the tree stump accumulated water and voila! -- mead was born. Honey was then used to ferment, or barely leaven, bread. In my food history and scientific reading, I have come across several historical descriptions of bread leavened with honey and even modern-day discussions of honey's microbiological activity in bread starters. So, yes, you can make bread like the ancients and use honey as your leavener. I wish I had the time to dig out the research for you. If I were to do this, I'd research ancient breads, Egyptian breads (since they got the ball rolling), mead, wort, barm, the microbiology of ancient breads. Einkorn is a special kind of triticum wheat, so I'd imagine that the Einkorn flour had some wild yeasts and bacteria that aided the fermentation along with those in the honey. So, in all honesty, it probably wasn't only the yeasts and bacteria in the honey, but those in the flour as well. In addition to doing the research on ancient breads, I'd find a source for wild honey straight from a bee hive (raw, unfiltered, unheated, unpasteurized), and take it out of the honeycomb, then cover it with cheesecloth and leave it outside so it acquires lots of wild yeasts and bacteria. Your flour should be from organic grains that have some wild yeasts and bacteria of their own. It may take two or three times but you'll do it. Good luck. Sounds like fun. Thu Oct 02 19:49:47 -0700 2008 4076074 18222 maria lorraine 2 4078416 The sugar level of the honey in a comb prevents any fermentation; that is why bees can keep their food supply for a year or even longer. After a few weeks they will seal the cells with wax, promoting long storage. If you intervene and and leave it outside it won't ferment. Cheesecloth is unlikely to stop predators such as bees, wax moths, ants or animals, and this is not condusive to producing a leavener for recipe use. The OP has a recipe, and perhaps we could see a paraphrase, to get a notion of the thrust of the honey in practical use as a leavener. Thu Oct 02 20:25:16 -0700 2008 4078362 56131 jayt90 3 4078430 Oh yes, honey ferments, but not in the honeycomb. Both the honey's low pH, the comb itself, and lack of moisture prevent fermentaiton. Once the honey is out of the comb, it attracts moisture from the air -- it's hygroscopic -- and the yeasts and bacteria in the air. Even without the addition of water, the moisture in the air along the yeasts and bacteria with eventually ferment the honey. The moisture percentage has to reach 18.6% and the temperature of the honey has to get above 50 F. The point, though, of the exposing the honey to the elements (in a way nothing gets at it) is not to ferment it even slightly but to accumulate those wild yeasts and bacteria. Only when flour or water is added to the honey are the yeasts and bacteria in the honey (and also the flour) activated. I agree more reading and research is in order. Thu Oct 02 20:32:42 -0700 2008 4078416 18222 maria lorraine 4 4078465 If left outside the wild yeasts would settle on the wax caps, which are removed later with a hot knife, killing them. Leaving the intact honeycomb outside might be a challenge, allowing the elements free access, but nothing else as small as an ant. Thu Oct 02 20:56:28 -0700 2008 4078430 56131 jayt90 5 4078475 As mentioned, the honey has to be removed from the honeycomb to attract the moisture and the airborne yeasts and bacteria. It can be left outside, if it will be safe, or by an open window. Thu Oct 02 21:07:00 -0700 2008 4078465 18222 maria lorraine 3 4078621 jayt90, I don't have a recipe actually. I only read in the "tips" section of the Chinese recipe about using honey when there's no packaged yeast. That's why I've turned to you all at Chowhound :) Fri Oct 03 00:05:43 -0700 2008 4078416 10422 HLing 2 4078449 Maria Lorraine, thanks for all the leads! Yes, I would love to get some sprouted old grain like farro as my dough and then see what the unpasteurized honey does with it. I think my place has some potential for leaven development from past accidental experiments. Thu Oct 02 20:46:08 -0700 2008 4078362 10422 HLing 3 4078494 There are several kinds of spelt. Einkorn is one, Emmer is another. After you get honey loaded with lots of beasties, I'd take a small mount and add a little water, and let that go awhile. Then I'd add a small amount of flour, so that the liquid:flour ratio is 1:1. Let that go awhile as well. Then you've got your starter. With this method, you'll probably get a loaf that's leavened only slightly, not a puffy, Wonder-bread loaf. But perhaps you'd like to use another method. You probably already know that too much sweetness prevents gluten formation. Some spelt flours, also, will not form gluten. Thu Oct 02 21:20:50 -0700 2008 4078449 18222 maria lorraine 4 4078618 "..You probably already know that too much sweetness prevents gluten formation. Some spelt flours, also, will not form gluten..." Thanks for reminding me. I had forgotten about the strong protein but non-gluten forming aspect. I should probably mix it with the hard wheat. I'm going to be grinding the grains wet, which tend to be much more "alive" and many ways, so it will be a slightly different game, but I will work on getting a starter going. Fri Oct 03 00:01:38 -0700 2008 4078494 10422 HLing 4 4078698 You should be able to use raw honey straight from the comb as the leavening agent, skipping any collection step. It accumulates all the familiar yeasty beasties during its curing, and at least the yeast should reactivate just from the environmental change to a more hydrous, aerobic environment. Fri Oct 03 02:35:12 -0700 2008 4078494 177724 tmso 2 4080389 Honey was the first alcoholic beverage - mead. Mead is the oldest alcoholic beverage. Fri Oct 03 16:48:21 -0700 2008 4078362 162977 sarah galvin