To Purify Yeast for Bread or Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the yeast
Mix the yeast with a large quantity of cold water.
Set it aside in a cool place until the following morning.
Drain off the water and stir the yeast with more fresh water.
Let it stand for several hours until the water can be poured clear from it.
Change the water daily in winter, and both night and morning in very hot weather.
Use the yeast
If the yeast ferments less freely, stir in a small portion of brown sugar before making bread.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Yeast
- Living culture that ferments sugars and releases gas to raise the dough.
- Brown sugar
- Gives the yeast extra sugar to feed on when fermentation is sluggish.
The step that matters
Changing the water on schedule. Yeast left in standing water at warm temperatures keeps fermenting and can turn sour, and the fermentation byproducts build up in the water. Changing the water often removes them and keeps the yeast clean and active for baking.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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