By lightness is meant simply that in order to
facilitate digestion the particles are to be separated from each other
by little holes or air-cells; and all the different methods of making
light bread are neither more nor less than the formation of bread with
these air-cells.
So far as we know, there are four practicable methods of aerating
bread; namely, by fermentation; by effervescence of an acid and an
alkali; by aerated egg, or egg which has been filled with air by the
process of beating; and lastly, by pressure of some gaseous substance
into the paste, by a process much resembling the impregnation of water
in a soda-fountain. All those have one and the same object--to give
us the cooked particles of our flour separated by such permanent
air-cells as will enable the stomach more readily to digest them.
A very common mode of aerating bread in America is by the effervescence
of an acid and an alkali in the flour. The carbonic acid gas time
formed products minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook says,
makes it light. When this process is performed with exact attention
to chemical laws, so that the acid and alkali completely neutralize
each other, leaving no overplus of either, the result is often very
palatable.
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