Cream of tartar (tartaric acid, if I remember correctly) helps the rise.

Don't cream of tartar & baking soda (same thing plus bicard of soda) produce CO₂ as it breaks down? Which is what the holes were formed with. Yeast produces CO₂ as it ferments. Maybe a little sugar would accelerate the process.

A food technologist/chemist would tell us, but doesn't some of the starch in the flour have to be converted to "a" sugar for the yeast to do the yeasty thing?

I could ask my food tech niece, but she has made fruit juice drinks etc lately. I kid you not, one of her product was garlic & ginger. Some whizz kid marketing guy's idea, her formula. My idea of hell!