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56 votes
Accepted

Why use baking powder instead of yeast?

The main reasons are speed and convenience. Yeast takes longer (even "instant" yeast) and requires more maintenance: waiting for dough to rise, etc. But those are the historical reasons for the ...
Athanasius's user avatar
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53 votes
Accepted

Does flour have yeast?

Flour “contains yeast” in the sense that it is not a sterilised product and contains impurities such as wild yeast cells. The yeast and bacteria contained in flour, in fact, are the genesis of “...
Sneftel's user avatar
  • 26.9k
38 votes
Accepted

How was the usage of yeast for bread discovered?

The first yeast was "just there" - in the environment, everywhere. People discovered very early on that leaving the dough (or just a flour-water slurry) out would lead to it getting "...
Stephie's user avatar
  • 58.6k
33 votes

Is it more effective to add yeast before or after kneading?

The whole idea of adding the yeast before kneading is to be able to mix it uniformly. By adding the yeast after the dough is formed, it will be mechanically more difficult to combine it and you might ...
Luciano's user avatar
  • 4,804
31 votes
Accepted

Why not make sourdough bread from young starter?

The advice to let the culture mature before you use it is targeted to getting reliable results. A mature sourdough culture has a relatively small number of strains of microorganism, which have ...
Sneftel's user avatar
  • 26.9k
26 votes

Some instant yeast went into my sourdough starter

"Flour with Leavening Improvers" generally means baking powder and/or chemical dough conditioners. Your sourdough will be unaffected.
FuzzyChef's user avatar
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24 votes
Accepted

What kind of yeast is this?

In addition to the accepted answer: This is called Fresh Yeast in English. There are two other types of yeast commonly available in the English speaking world, called instant (bread machine) yeast and ...
bob1's user avatar
  • 13.8k
23 votes
Accepted

Why doesn't milk create gluten when combined with flour?

Milk does create gluten1 when combined with flour. The water in the milk does create a gluten structure. If it didn't, any bread made with milk would be dense and flat. But the dinner rolls I made ...
Athanasius's user avatar
  • 32.1k
23 votes

Does flour have yeast?

This may surprise you, but there are arguments for both a "yes" and a "no" answer, and both are right. My personal preference is on the "no" side. The arguments for "...
rumtscho's user avatar
  • 136k
22 votes
Accepted

Why is ciabatta poolish usually made with instant yeast?

Commercially produced yeast has been around since the mid-late 1800s, and the commercial strains we use today have been around since the 40s while Ciabatta was invented in 1982. So while ciabatta ...
GdD's user avatar
  • 75.4k
19 votes
Accepted

Can I freeze cinnamon buns in unbaked roll form

You can certainly freeze it in roll form, but it will be virtually impossible to cut while still frozen*. You'd need to completely thaw the roll in the refrigerator, slice, and then rise in a pan. It ...
LightBender's user avatar
  • 1,907
18 votes
Accepted

Some instant yeast went into my sourdough starter

Not withstanding @GdD's comment above, even if you just had a small amount of yeast on a spoon, I would guess that, after a year (and it doesn't take nearly that long), the bacteria and yeast you've ...
moscafj's user avatar
  • 73.8k
18 votes
Accepted

Difference between letting yeast dough rise cold and slowly or warm and quickly

Retarding fermentation allows, as you wrote, different and additional metabolic pathways to have a greater influence on the flavour. In addition, extended enzymatic activity of the flour has a ...
wumpus D'00m's user avatar
  • 4,081
16 votes

What kind of yeast is this?

It's often called fresh yeast in English.
user141592's user avatar
  • 10.6k
16 votes

What proportion of the natural yeast in Sourdough comes from the flour?

It Depends, but ... First, it depends on the flour. Bleached, sterilized, hot-rolled white flour has the least (possibly none) naturally-occurring wild yeast on it. Cold-rolled unbleached organic ...
FuzzyChef's user avatar
  • 61.4k
15 votes
Accepted

Does no-yeast dough need to rest?

There is a difference between resting and proofing. Resting allows flour to absorb water and lets the gluten that was formed during kneading to relax. Both of these make it possible to work with the ...
Sobachatina's user avatar
  • 47.5k
15 votes

Converting bread recipes for an overnight rise?

There are no strict formulas or conversions, the mathematics of bread baking are too complex for such predictions. Rising at room temperature overnight is not recommended, it is generally way too warm ...
rumtscho's user avatar
  • 136k
14 votes

Why use baking powder instead of yeast?

In addition to Athanasius's excellent answer, the other reason to choose chemical over yeast leavening is the composition and proportion of the other ingredients. Yeast is an organism that requires a ...
SgtStens's user avatar
  • 831
14 votes
Accepted

Dough failed to rise

Could be that your yeast was simply not alive. You could simply try to bloom the yeast with water and sugar. It should become visibly active within a few minutes.
Uncle Long Hair's user avatar
13 votes
Accepted

Difference between types of yeast

Yeasts are pretty much interchangeable but have different fermentation qualities. Most recipes will specify the kind and amount of yeast. Adding more yeast than called for makes bakes rise a little ...
actiaslunabakes's user avatar
12 votes

Why does mixing the salt and yeast sometimes work?

It doesn't work "sometimes", it works pretty much always. People are just being sloppy when they say "salt kills the yeast". Certain levels of salt inhibit the yeast, so that it ...
rumtscho's user avatar
  • 136k
12 votes
Accepted

Can I add new yeast to a dough I made with dead yeast?

Yes, you can knead it in and it will still work. I've forgotten yeast when making bread and added it in at the end, it still rose and I got a good result. How you do it depends on the type of yeast. '...
GdD's user avatar
  • 75.4k
11 votes

Why doesn't milk create gluten when combined with flour?

Let's start with what Gluten development actually is. It's the process of developing the protein in flour, gluten, into a web that traps air into it. Water is essential for this web, and as you ...
Halaster's user avatar
  • 396
11 votes
Accepted

Should instant yeast be room temperature when used?

It probably doesn't matter too much. By the time you mix it with other ingredients, and then add the friction of kneading it will be the temperature of other ingredients. I keep mine in the ...
moscafj's user avatar
  • 73.8k
10 votes

the yeast wont rise in my bread machine

Never use boiling water with yeast! Using boiling water almost guarantees instant death. Baker's yeast is a live organism, a unicelluar fungus saccharomyces cervisiae, very closely related to and in ...
Stephie's user avatar
  • 58.6k
10 votes
Accepted

Can I add instant yeast to sourdough dough that is not very active?

Yes, you can add instant yeast to a sourdough. However, the fact that you used AP vs bread flour should not have much to do with the fermentation activity. The different flours have different ...
moscafj's user avatar
  • 73.8k
10 votes

Can yogurt be used as a substitute for yeast in pizza dough?

No, the bacteria in yogurt will not serve as the primary leavening agent for dough.
moscafj's user avatar
  • 73.8k
10 votes

Why not make sourdough bread from young starter?

The wait is to give the desirable yeast cultures time to fully establish themselves as dominant in the starter. Using a starter that's too young can sometimes mean it doesn't rise as well or that the ...
user141592's user avatar
  • 10.6k
9 votes

Bread with no salt

I have been successfully making yeast bread without salt for more than 3 decades. There's really no particular difficulty in doing so. If you are habituated to excessive salt levels, as in virtually ...
Ecnerwal's user avatar
  • 15.7k
9 votes
Accepted

Does dead yeast result in a stickier dough?

No, the dead yeast (if it was dead at all) has nothing to do with the stickiness. Your dough has 87.5% hydration, which is unusually high. It also uses, for some unclear reason, pastry flour, so it ...
rumtscho's user avatar
  • 136k

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