This year we’re writing a series of blog posts dedicated to sharing with home bakers essential guides to the ingredients we bake with at the Bakehouse and at BAKE!Ⓡ, our hands-on teaching bakery for home bakers. As true artisan bakers, we use traditional recipes, time-honored processes, our hands, and flavorful ingredients, many locally sourced, to make our bread and sweet treats. Our baked goods, all hand made from raw ingredients, are rooted in age-old American, European, and Jewish traditions.
One of the key factors in making flavorful, artisan baked goods is using the best and most flavorful ingredients you can find. Perfect execution with flavorless ingredients may create a nice-looking bread or pastry, but you’ll be sorely disappointed when you taste it. As we say here at Zingerman’s, “You really can taste the difference.” And in this quest, we’re always moving toward using more locally grown or produced ingredients, organic when possible, and building lasting relationships with local farmers, millers, and producers.
To kick off our Series of Ingredients Guides for Home Bakers, we’re starting with Baker’s Yeast, the living leavener that gives magical rise to many of the artisan breads and pastries we make at the Bakehouse and at BAKE!
What is Baker’s Yeast?
The strain of yeast used in baking, known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is a single-celled, living microorganism from the fungus kingdom. To thrive, Baker’s yeast requires food, warmth, and moisture. It derives its scientific name from the Latinized Greek, meaning “sugar fungus”, because when warmth and moisture are present, it converts food–sugars and starches–into alcohol and carbon dioxide through fermentation. And it’s the carbon dioxide that ultimately gives breads and pastries their rise.
In its natural, wild state, yeast exists all around us, floating through the air, living on our skin and in our bodies, and in the food we eat, especially on the surface of grains (like wheat flour) and fruits (like grapes). Humans have been baking with naturally occurring yeast for more than 10,000 years. Archaeologists have found bread remnants on their excavations in the Middle East and hieroglyphics and stone relief carvings suggest that ancient Egyptians were using yeast and the process of fermentation to leaven bread.
In the mid 19th century, Louis Pasteur identified yeast as a living organism and the agent responsible for alcoholic fermentation and dough leavening. It then became possible to isolate strains of yeast in pure culture form. It was this new-found knowledge that set the stage for the commercial production of Baker’s yeast, which began around the turn of the 20th century. Since then, bakers, scientists, and commercial yeast manufacturers have been working to find and produce pure strains of yeast that meet the specialized needs of the baking industry as well as those of the home baker. And given its characteristics that favor rapid gas production, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the chosen strain of yeast found in today’s commercial Baker’s yeast.
Three Types of Commercial Baker’s Yeast for the Home Baker
For the home baker, commercial Baker’s yeast comes in 3 forms: Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast, Active Dry Yeast, and Instant Yeast.
Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast
Fresh ‘cake’ yeast, also known as ‘wet’ or ‘compressed’ yeast, consists of blocks, or cakes, of moist, living, active, yeast cells and was the original form of commercial yeast produced by American manufacturers. Beige in color, it’s soft and crumbly. Once crumbled into small pieces, fresh ‘cake’ yeast can be added directly to a recipe’s dry ingredients or softened in warm water beforehand. It’s best used in breads requiring a long, slow rising or fermentation time, as it activates quickly and stays active for long periods of time. For these reasons, it’s the form of Baker’s yeast we use in the Bakehouse’s Bread Bakery in all of our yeasted, non-sourdough, breads. The brand of fresh ‘cake’ yeast we prefer and use consistently in the Bread Bakery is Red Star® Fresh Cake Yeast, which is produced at Red Star plants in Iowa and Alabama. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the company has been in the commercial yeast business for over a century.
For the home baker, fresh ‘cake’ yeast may not be the best choice. For one thing, it’s highly perishable. This type of yeast must be stored in the refrigerator in an air-tight container and used up rather quickly, since it only has around a two-week shelf life. It also can be difficult to find, as it’s often available only seasonally and in limited markets in the Upper Midwest and Northeastern U.S. Given these limiting factors, we encourage home bakers to turn to one of two forms of dry yeast that are widely available and much easier to work with—Active Dry and Instant.
Photo Source: Red Star® Yeast
Dry Yeast – Active and Instant
Invented in the early 20th century, dry yeast is one of the miracles of modern baking, especially for the home baker. It’s a miracle because it keeps for a long time and it speeds up the fermentation process which is appealing in some applications. It comes in 2 forms–Active and Instant. Active is any dry yeast that needs to be activated prior to use, usually in water. It has a hard outer shell that needs to be melted off to release the active yeast. Instant describes any dry yeast that’s ready for use immediately. It can be added directly to the dry ingredients of the recipe. Both forms of dry yeast are essentially a free-flowing granular powder made from millions upon millions of dehydrated and dormant yeast cells. Hydrating the yeast granules with warm moisture activates the cells and sets them on their feeding crusade, munching on the sugar and starch in a dough that ultimately produces the carbon dioxide that gives dough its loft.
Active Dry Yeast was the first of the dry yeasts to be developed early in the 20th century and is still widely available today and very popular with home bakers. The texture of active dry yeast is granular, not unlike cornmeal or very finely-ground coffee. As the name suggests, the live but dormant yeast must first be “activated” by proofing or dissolving the granules in warm water, ideally between 105℉ [41℃] and 115℉ [46℃]. Also known as blooming, the yeast is activated when completely dissolved and small bubbles rise to the top of the water glass. One word of warning, though–active dry yeast can be very unstable. Its potency can vary over time, producing inconsistent results; and it’s notorious for dying out before it hits the expiration date on its packaging. Given these factors, it’s important to always check the expiration date and verify, through the activation process, whether the yeast is live or dead before proceeding with a recipe.
Instant Dry Yeast came of age in the 1970s when changes were made to dry yeast to make it simpler to use and work faster than active dry yeast in achieving the same leavening results. While made utilizing a similar process as active dry yeast, instant yeast is dried more quickly and is milled into finer granules that are thinner and more pointed. It is also guaranteed to be 100 % active from the get go. These combined factors allow the yeast to dissolve and activate fermentation much faster, thereby eliminating the need to activate or proof it ahead of time. With instant yeast, as the name implies, it can be mixed straight from its package into the dry ingredients. Another change instant yeast ushered in over active dry yeast, was that it was now much more stable with a significantly longer shelf life to boot. If stored frozen in an airtight container, instant yeast can last and be used, reliably, for years.
Given instant yeast’s many advantages over active dry yeast – ease of use, faster activation, consistent stability, and long shelf life–it’s the form of dry yeast we use at BAKE! and it’s what we recommend for home bakers. The recipes calling for yeast in our cookbooks, Zingerman’s Bakehouse and Celebrate Every Day, as well as those we teach over at BAKE!, are all written for instant yeast. The brand we prefer and use consistently is Saf-instant® Red. It’s a high performance instant dry yeast that’s been an optimal, sound, and consistent leavening agent for professional and home bakers since 1973. Its rapid fermentation allows an easy, efficient, and reliable rise. Of natural origin, it reveals and enhances the flavour and aromas of bread and pastries, while giving optimal volume. Saf-instant® Red is manufactured for Lesaffre, the largest producer of commercial yeast in the world, with Milwaukee, Wisconsin as the company’s North American base.
One last note on Instant Yeast
Since its inception in the 1970s, instant yeast has undergone some variation, with manufacturers devising even faster acting instant yeasts–think “RapidRise” or “Bread Machine” (produced by the Fleishmann’s brand), or “Quick Rise” (from Red Star). While these fast-acting instant yeasts are likewise stable and easy to use as their standard counterpart, like Saf-instant®Red, they’ve been formulated to activate fermentation on a more accelerated timetable, and as such, are unsuitable for dough recipes requiring a long slow rise or cold proofing. We use traditional baking methods. In the case of fermentation this means that we use time to enhance flavor. We prefer to use less yeast and more time, so for our recipes, these rapid rise yeasts are not an advantage.
Baker’s Yeast Conversions for the Home Baker
While we now recommend using standard instant yeast, like Saf-instant® Red, for home baking, we also know that traditional or old-school recipes, especially those dating back generations, may call for the earlier forms of Baker’s yeast–fresh ‘cake’ or active dry. All three forms of commercial Baker’s yeast are made from the same strain–Saccharomyces cerevisiae–yet they are processed differently and therefore their respective amounts and behavior in a dough recipe will differ as well. Sue Chagas, BAKE! Principal and Instructor, puts it this way in the BAKE! classes she teaches:
Every form of Baker’s yeast is the same plant based, one-cell fungus, whether it’s Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast, Active Dry or Instant. They are processed differently and therefore the amounts in the dough must be addressed since we want just the right amount in any given recipe. Instant yeast is what we use, but if you want to use active dry instead, the amount of yeast will be 1 ½ times more. Baker’s yeast cells, no matter how they’re processed, are like little Roman soldiers trained to do one job–perform fermentation by searching out and eating the sugars and starches in a dough, which ultimately leads them to burp out carbon dioxide, ethanol, and acids, which gives doughs their magical rise. It’s also important to note that all 3 forms of Baker’s yeast are temperature sensitive but not as much as wild yeast. As home bakers, it’s our job to manage in a recipe both the amount of yeast and the temperature of the dough to achieve optimal results.
With all this in mind, we’ve put together some general guidelines to help home bakers navigate how to substitute one form of Baker’s Yeast for another in their recipes. Generally speaking, when converting from one form to another, it’s essential to adjust the weight of the Baker’s yeast (our preferred method) or its volume equivalent.
Here are some general guidelines for converting from one form of Baker’s Yeast to another:
- To convert from Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast to Active Dry Yeast, multiply the Fresh quantity by 0.4 (40 %) to get the equivalent amount of Active Dry Yeast needed.
- To convert from Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast to Instant Yeast, multiply the Fresh quantity by 0.33 (⅓) to get the equivalent amount of Instant Yeast needed.
- To convert from Active Dry Yeast to Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast, multiply the Active Dry quantity by 2.5 times to get the equivalent amount of Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast needed.
- To convert from Active Dry Yeast to Instant Yeast, multiply the Active Dry quantity by 0.75 (or ¾) to get the equivalent amount of Instant Yeast needed.
- To convert from Instant Yeast to Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast, multiply the Instant quantity by 3.0 (roughly 3 times the amount) to get the equivalent amount of Fresh ‘Cake’ Yeast needed.
- To convert from Instant Yeast to Active Dry Yeast, multiply the Instant quantity by 1.5 times to get the equivalent amount of Active Dry Yeast needed.
If you don’t trust your math skills and are looking for conversions specific to a particular recipe in your home baking repertoire, head to the Foodgeek website, where you’ll find a very handy and versatile tool to convert from one form and measurement of Baker’s Yeast to another.
If you’re local and looking to purchase Red Star® Fresh Cake Yeast or Saf-instant® Red Instant Yeast, look no further than the Bakehouse Bakeshop. We’re always more than happy to supply you with the Baker’s yeast we use at the Bakehouse and BAKE! every day.
After a long, established career as a Ph.D. art history scholar and art museum curator, Lee, a Michigan native, came to the Bakehouse in 2017 eager to pursue her passion for artisanal baking and to apply her love of history, research, writing, and editing in a new exciting arena. Her first turn at the Bakehouse was as a day pastry baker. She then moved on to retail sales in the Bakeshop, followed by joining the Marketing Team and becoming the Bakehouse’s designated culinary historian. In addition to her retail sales and marketing work, she’s a member of the Bakehouse’s Grain Commission, co-author and editor of the Bakehouse's series of cookbooklets, and a regular contributor to the BAKE! Blog and Zingerman’s Newsletter, where she explores the culinary, cultural, and social history and evolution of the Bakehouse’s artisan baked goods.