What makes bread dough rise? Our whole-wheat bread is made from five simple ingredients – honey, whole wheat flour, water, salt, and yeast. To find out how carbon dioxide is created, similar to what happens when a loaf of bread rises, try this simple experiment at home.

Yeast’s Crucial Roles in Breadbaking It acts as a leavener, dough developer, and flavor builder Yeast is the driving force behind fermentation, the magical process that allows a dense mass of dough to become a well-risen loaf of bread. And yet yeast is nothing more than a single-celled fungus. How does it do it?

The Science Behind Yeast and How It Makes Bread Rise Yeast — whether from packets, jars, or cakes sold at stores, or even from a starter you’ve prepared at home — is essential to bread making. And yes, it is alive, even if it is sold dried.

From Chinese baozi to Armenian lavash, bread comes in thousands of forms. What do they have in common? On the most basic level, they all involve cooking a mixture of milled grains and water.