Yeast

Roy S. Sell of Johnstown, Pa., asked, "Does someone have a recipe for Tuscany bread? Tuscany is that region in Italy. Thank you very much."Shirley M. Greene of Latrobe, Pa., responded with a recipe. "I have baked this bread many times and it is delicious. I got this recipe from PBS TV station WQED in Pittsburgh, Pa., a number of years ago, on a cooking show called 'Ciao Italian,' hosted by Mary Ann Esposito."Makes one large loaf1 tablespoon dry yeast1/2 cup warm water1 cup flour1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast1 1/4 cups water1 teaspoon salt4 to 5 cups all-purpose flourTo make sponge (bread-dough mixture)

Economical and lower in fat and sugar than most butter cakes or quick breads, this yeast-leavened coffeecake is topped with a lemon glaze. A useful tool for preparing the lemon zest for the cake, glaze and garnish is a citrus zester. Unlike a metal grater, a zester removes the colored portion of the peel but doesn't cut into the bitter white pith. The zest can be left whole or chopped.Cole Publishing GroupLemon CoffeecakeServes 8 to 102 packages active dry yeast1/4 cup 110-degree water1/3 cup sugar1/2 cup 100-degree milk3/4 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg2 teaspoons finely chopped or grated lemon zest1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract2/3 cup butter, softened4 cups unbleached flour4 eggslemon zest, for garnishSprinkle yeast over the water in large bowl of electric mixer.

I COMPARED NOTES on bread baking with a couple of pros recently. For almost an hour we discussed dough, flour and glazes, the finishes that are brushed on the top of loaves.As an amateur who bakes bread about twice a week, I didn't need to be sold on the joy of bread-making. So when this pair of professional bakers, one French and one Italian, came to town to promote their new book "Ultimate Bread" (DK Publishing, 1998, $25), I skipped over the "why-would- anyone-want-to-bake-bread" part of the interview.

Olive orchards blanketing the hills of Provence, France, inspired a regional bread: fougasse, a yeasted flatbread reminiscent of Italian focaccia.For herb fougasse: Omit olives. Press chopped fresh sage leaves or rosemary sprigs into the top of the loaf before the second rising.Olive FougasseMakes 2 flatbreads (12 - 16 servings)1 package active dry yeast1/2 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees)2 teaspoons sugar1/2 cup warm milk (110 to 115 degrees)1/4 cup olive oil1/4 teaspoon salt2 3/4 to 3 cups unbleached flour1/4 cup chopped, pitted green olives (not stuffed)

Game show of lifeAthlete's foot is caused by:A - wet floorsB - bad karmaC - yeastD - germsE - sweatF - NikesAnswer: C: Those itchy feet with that skin that peels and stings are caused by fungus growing on your skin. All yeasts are kinds of fungi!Where do...The holes in Swiss cheese come from?Torey CanaleWestfield, WisconsinCheese is a way of preserving milk. That was very important before refrigerators were invented. Cheeses are preserved with different bacteria and molds. They cure milk into solid cheese.

Two scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believe they have discovered a "senescence factor" that builds up in dividing cells and can indicate signs of aging.The cause of aging, they say in a study published yesterday, may lie in a simple mistake in cell division that causes circular bits of redundant DNA to accumulate within the nuclei of cells. This "junk" builds up to levels equaling needed DNA, clogging normal cellular machinery.The evidence so far comes only from brewer's yeast cells, but David A. Sinclair and Leonard Guarente believe that the same process probably occurs in mammals, including humans.

The Spice War is over, and McCormick & Co. Inc. won.Burns Philp & Co., the Australian conglomerate that waged an expensive battle of attrition against the Sparks-based spice giant, is getting out of the business completely.The company said it will sell its money-losing spice business, and three of its top executives are quitting.McCormick had trouble containing glee at beating back a decade-long challenge to a franchise it started building in Baltimore 108 years ago."When you've been engaged in a global war and the other guy who started it waves a white flag, it's tough not to feel good about it," Carroll Nordhoff, McCormick's executive vice president, said yesterday.

SLIPPAGE HAPPENS. One day you are sailing along seemingly on top of the world, then the next day you are stumbling. Your jump shot can't hit the basket. You're confusing adjectives with adverbs. Your bread dough won't rise.It happened to me recently. For some reason my homemade bread wasn't turning out the way it should.Instead of being light, airy and textured, the bread was dense. It was beyond chewy. It was thick, lumpish, virtually impenetrable. Even making croutons out of it, the fallback position for most fallen breads, was out of the question.

Happy New Year.This very first day of 1997 will most surely begin with sincere and inevitable New Year resolutions. One easy resolution for this day is to try a new recipe or two. Here are a couple worth trying.A quick hot yeast roll that "had a marvelous texture and was made with Quaker Instant Grits" was the request of Deanna Lanham Kaminski of Owensboro, Ky. She wrote that she had gotten the recipe 20 to 25 years from a cooking school held in a high school but lost it."I called the Quaker Oats people and the extension office here but no one had any knowledge of it. Hope you can help," she said.

This is a story that started with a glorious cake and endedwith a fabulous bread, with many fascinating discoveries in between. It began on a visit to San Francisco when my friend Flo Braker wanted to introduce me to another friend. This was Kurtis Baguley, a pastry chef whose signature dessert, the bostini, was based on orange glow chiffon cake, one of the cakes featured in a book I wrote, "The Cake Bible."Braker invited me to lunch at Scala, the restaurant where Baguley works. But before we ever got to dessert, we were both so bowled over by his sourdough kalamata olive bread that ordering the main course seemed almost irrelevant.