raising agent
Sign in to saveAlso known as leaven, leavening agent
substance which liberates gas and thereby increases the volume of a dough or batter
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- food additive
Show 4 more facts
- Commons category
- Leavening agents
- topic's main category
- Category:Leavening agents
- has effect
- gas
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
In cooking, a leavening agent (/ˈlɛvənɪŋ/) or raising agent, also called a leaven (/ˈlɛvən/) or leavener, is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action (gas bubbles) that lightens and softens the mixture. An alternative or supplement to leavening agents is mechanical action by which air is incorporated (i.e. kneading). Leavening agents can be biological or synthetic chemical compounds. The gas produced is often carbon dioxide, or occasionally hydrogen.
When a dough or batter is mixed, the starch in the flour and the water in the dough form a matrix (often supported further by proteins like gluten or polysaccharides, such as pentosans or xanthan gum). The starch then gelatinizes and sets, leaving gas bubbles that remain.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “raising agent” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.