Food Microbiology

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the most common species used in bakery due to its rapid sugar consumption and CO2 production, the most important attributes required to leaven the dough. These attributes have been shown not to be unique to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but also found in several non-conventional yeast species. Only a reduced number of these non-conventional yeast species presenting potential to be used in bakery have been described. The rest of them remain poorly studied, being a vast untapped potential for the use as leavening agents and flavor producers. In this research work, the potential of several non-conventional yeasts to be used in bakery was assessed employing dough-like conditions in the microbread platform. This platform allows fast screenings of different recipes. In this case, the capabilities of bread leavening and aroma formation of different non-conventional yeast species were tested. The results showed that bread leavened with the non-conventional yeasts Kazachstania gamospora and Wickerhamomyces subpelliculosus had better overall results compared to control baker’s yeast, especially regarding aroma profiles. In this way, this study points out Kazachstania gamospora and Wickerhamomyces subpelliculosus as interesting alternative baker’s yeasts.