Why does bread get puffy?
Bread gets puffy because tiny living helpers called yeast make little gas bubbles.
Pip’s answer
- Bread gets puffy because tiny living helpers called yeast make little gas bubbles.
- Yeast eat a little sugar in the dough and breathe out bubbles.
- The stretchy dough traps the bubbles, so it grows bigger and bigger!
- Ooh, the holes in your bread slice were made by tiny yeast bubbles!
Try it together
Can you puff up your cheeks like rising bread?
For grown-ups
Yeast is a living single-celled fungus. In dough it eats sugars and releases carbon dioxide gas. Stretchy gluten from the flour traps the gas in bubbles, so the dough rises. Baking sets the structure, and the bubbles become the holes in bread.
Ask your child: Can you spot the yeast bubble holes in a slice of bread?
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- 🧲Why do magnets stick?
- 🫧Why are bubbles round?
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