The Egyptians were probably the first to leaven bread, As early as 2300 BC, they used breadmash, which contained wild yeast from the air, to lengthen dougns.
The immigrants from Europe, had all brought their national recipes for bread and pastry making to America, using brewer’s yeast or a sour dough process of one kind or another.
Until the late 1700s, naturally occurring airborne yeast was still the leavening agent of choice.
In 1868, the production of bread was advanced by the use of compressed yeast as a leavening agent, a product developed by Charles Fleischman. Earlier bakeries had produced their own leavening agents with uneven result.
The first popular chemical leavening agent was pearl ash, a crude from of potassium carbonate, and alkali.
Carbonates of soda were obtained from ashes of sea plants, as well as from plants and was originally referred to as potashes.
The potash was used in baking as a leavening agent until 1830s. Later, a more favored baking soda (sodium carbonate) soon arrived on the scene.
Baking ammonia appeared on the market at this point and it was used by home bakers as well as in commercial bakeries.
Sodium acid pyrophosphate was the next leavening acid introduced to the United States in 1911.
History of leavening agent
