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Spent 3 hours in my kitchen trying to make cheap bread rise and the fix was 20 cents of sugar
Two Sundays ago I decided to bake a loaf from scratch to save on the $4 I usually spend at the store, and it turned into a 3 hour mess. My first dough sat on the counter for 90 minutes and never grew, so I tossed it and started over. Second try was the same thing, flat as a pancake, and I was ready to blame the flour. Then my neighbor in Fresno came over and pointed at my packet of yeast, which had been open in the cabinet since winter. She said the yeast was dead and told me to test it with warm water and a pinch of sugar before wasting more flour. I did that and the little bubbles showed up in 10 minutes, so now I do the test every time before I mix anything. How do you all store your yeast so it keeps, or should I just buy the small packets and stop buying the big jar?
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willowg885d ago
Wait, has anyone thought about the sugar itself being the real trick? Your neighbor had you test with warm water and sugar, and the sugar is what feeds the yeast so it wakes up and bubbles. I keep my yeast in a small mason jar in the freezer and it lasts forever, but honestly I wonder if the pinch of sugar in the dough is just as important as how you store it. Dead yeast won't bubble no matter what, but sleepy yeast needs food to get going, and a lot of cheap bread recipes skip the sugar and then wonder why the rise is so slow. Maybe try adding a teaspoon of sugar to the dough itself on your next loaf and see if it rises faster than the plain batch.
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