I grew up eating homemade bread, so it was natural for me to try my hand at it when I was on my own. I'm sure that my mom gave me bread for the apartment when I'd go home for a visit. But I also started baking some on my own. I liked it. My roommate liked it. And probably more significantly, my girlfriend (now my wife) was impressed.
After college, and when we got married, I continued to make bread for our home. It became a ritual and something of a family tradition. I used to make bagels very often. But since our kids are grown and it's just the two of us, I haven't made bagels in quite a while. I have a handful of recipes that I turn to regularly. But definitely the kind of bread I make the most is challah, almost every Friday when we have a big family dinner with all of the grandchildren.
When the 'stay-at-home' order was issued in Minnesota, to minimize the chance of spreading the coronavirus, my pantry was already well stocked. So I didn't pay too much attention when we saw in the news that many staples and baking supplies were suddenly being snatched from the grocery shelves faster than the stores could restock. But as the pandemic lingered on and we continued to 'shelter at home,' I started running low on some of my supplies. So I asked my wife to try to find some yeast during her regular grocery run.
Finally it got to the point where I didn't have enough yeast left for my weekly batch of challah. When my wife came home from the store, with the news that there still wasn't any yeast on the shelf, it seemed like I was just out of luck.
However, I had read an article online that some people were discovering that their local, independent grocery stores still had products available. You can read the report from CNN (click here) to see why and it seems that it's more prevalent in rural communities. But we have a family-run store (Driskill's Downtown Market) nearby in Hopkins, MN. I gave them a call. Sure enough, they had some yeast available.
When I got to the store, I found out that they didn't have any packets of active dry yeast. Nor did they have 4-ounce bottles of yeast like I usually get. Nor did they have blocks of compressed yeast. (I used to use compressed yeast for challah and bagels for many years until I switched to active dry yeast.) What they did have was a one-pound vacuum-packed brick of instant yeast. I'd never used instant yeast before. But I didn't have much choice. So I bought it and brought it home.
After doing some investigation online. I was reassured that it would work just fine.
- This article on Epicurious does a great job of explaining the difference between active dry and instant yeast and how to substitute one for the other. (Click here.)
- This article on the King Arthur Flour web site also explains the differences and has photos to show how each type of yeast performs under similar circumstances. (Click here.)
- My main bread cookbook is Beard on Bread, by James Beard. He was not a fan of instant yeast, and he recommended only using active dry. (The book was first published in 1973. It's still available new in hard cover. I'm quite surprised to see the price on Amazon is $70 new, $45 used, but $12.99 on Kindle.)
- I also have The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Barenbaum. She is more of a fan of instant yeast and calls for it in most of her recipes, except of course sourdough.
Since buying the instant yeast, I've made two batches of bread. Both recipes are from Beard on Bread.
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| Challah recipe from Beard on Bread |
The first was challah. I follow the recipe pretty much as printed in the cookbook except that I use honey as a sweetener and olive oil for the fat. The bread turned out well, as expected and not noticeably different than when I use active dry yeast. (Since we haven't been having family dinners on Friday, because of social-distancing, I make small loaves the deliver them to our kids' families on Friday afternoon.)
The second batch was Beard's French-Style Bread recipe. In the notes, he draws a distinction between this recipe and an authentic French bread. While made in a baguette like French bread, Beard wrote that his recipe is more of a Continental or Italian bread. I've made it often with several variations. This time I used 1 cup of rye flour and 1 cup of whole wheat and the rest unbleached white flour (about 3 more cups). I also kneaded in a tablespoon of caraway seeds. This batch also turned out well.
So my bottom line is that I would buy instant yeast again in the future. I haven't decided yet if I'm willing to say it's my preferred yeast. But I've got a lot more baking to do before I run out again.
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