Back in the day when I’d wait with a jar of jam for Mom’s homemade bread to cool enough to slice, she could go to the local store and buy fresh cake yeast. It’s pretty hard to find cake yeast these days, unless you travel to France, where it costs 0.59 euros per cake. There’s always a bag of live yeast in my suitcase on the return trip and for the next month or so, I can make bread just like Mom did. This is a live yeast recipe, but the general rule of yeast substitution is 1 part dry yeast equals 3 parts live yeast.
Ingredients
- 420 g Bread Flour – 3 cups
- 320 g Water – warm – 1.5 cups
- 10 g Kosher salt – 1 tsp
- 5.4 g Fresh yeast or 1.8 g dry yeast – 0.5 tsp
Process
- Mise en Place: Measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
- Dissolve yeast in warm water and let stand for 10 mins.
- Stir flour and salt in a stand mixer at speed 1.
- Pour in water and continue to stir for 4 mins.
- Knead dough at speed 4 for four mins.
- Put in proofing bowl, cover with film. Let rise 8 hrs.
- Punch down and put in fridge for 24 hrs.
- Remove dough from fridge and either
- Shape into a ball
- Divide into two loafs and place in loaf pans
- Let rise for one hr.
- Preheat oven to
- 500 F. for artisan loaf – preheat Dutch oven.
- 250 F. for pan loaves.
- Score loaf(s) and bake
- 30 mins covered in Dutch oven. Remove top and bake until golden top ~5 mins.
- 20 mins in pans or until golden brown tops.
- Remove from pans/Dutch oven and let cool at least 15 mins before slicing.
