As the motivational saying goes, when you make mistakes, you are learning. After two loaves of bread failed to rise, which gave rise (pun intended) to homemade breadcrumbs (which I wrote about before but thought my bread failed due to too much water) and panzanella, and (coming soon) croutons, I finally figured out that my yeast might be dead, and found a way to test it.
This article from King Arthur Flour tells you all about how to test your yeast or baking powder/soda. Baking powder will bubble and foam if stirred into warm water, and baking soda will fizz vigorously if added to vinegar. As for yeast, it needs to be stirred into warm water and sugar, and left for 10 minutes, then we should see that it is foaming.
They also teach us to use the tested yeast in our baking, by reducing the amount of liquid in the recipe by the amount that we had used to test the yeast, but I didn't do that because I didn't think of testing until I had already added my yeast to my flour.
Here's my test bench (aka my dining table):
Together with the bad packet of yeast (the one guilty of ruining two loaves of bread), I tested two new packets (I was a little paranoid about the first new packet not working, and thought it best to check both). The two on the left are the new ones. Here's how the good and bad yeasts turned out.
Good one was foamy and light as described in the article.
The bad one was noticeably less bubbly!
However it seems like the reaction is just delayed, because later on it foamed more. But at the 10-minute mark there were just a few bubbles, nothing compared to the other two cups! So I guess the yeast is not really dead, just...less active? Maybe it can still work if we leave more time for the dough to rise. But when you're using a bread machine like I am, the bread machine waits for no yeast! (yes I'm in a punny mood today)
As I looked at these three cups of yeast, I suddenly realized that I might be making beer :P
By the way, I mentioned panzanella earlier, and here's the one I made:
The basic recipe for panzanella is actually chunks of bread (we're supposed to use heavier bread, but with our usual lighter loaves, we can toast the bread chunks first) tossed with tomatoes, onions, olive oil, and herbs. We can use whatever other vinaigrette, or other ingredients we want. As you can see from the photo, I added some leftover salad leaves and some ham (even though all the recipes I've seen have no meat in them :P ). The dish needs ripe and juicy tomatoes, and I'm afraid my tomatoes didn't live up to that... but the salad was still pretty good.
This article from King Arthur Flour tells you all about how to test your yeast or baking powder/soda. Baking powder will bubble and foam if stirred into warm water, and baking soda will fizz vigorously if added to vinegar. As for yeast, it needs to be stirred into warm water and sugar, and left for 10 minutes, then we should see that it is foaming.
They also teach us to use the tested yeast in our baking, by reducing the amount of liquid in the recipe by the amount that we had used to test the yeast, but I didn't do that because I didn't think of testing until I had already added my yeast to my flour.
Here's my test bench (aka my dining table):
Together with the bad packet of yeast (the one guilty of ruining two loaves of bread), I tested two new packets (I was a little paranoid about the first new packet not working, and thought it best to check both). The two on the left are the new ones. Here's how the good and bad yeasts turned out.
Good one was foamy and light as described in the article.
The bad one was noticeably less bubbly!
However it seems like the reaction is just delayed, because later on it foamed more. But at the 10-minute mark there were just a few bubbles, nothing compared to the other two cups! So I guess the yeast is not really dead, just...less active? Maybe it can still work if we leave more time for the dough to rise. But when you're using a bread machine like I am, the bread machine waits for no yeast! (yes I'm in a punny mood today)
As I looked at these three cups of yeast, I suddenly realized that I might be making beer :P
By the way, I mentioned panzanella earlier, and here's the one I made:
The basic recipe for panzanella is actually chunks of bread (we're supposed to use heavier bread, but with our usual lighter loaves, we can toast the bread chunks first) tossed with tomatoes, onions, olive oil, and herbs. We can use whatever other vinaigrette, or other ingredients we want. As you can see from the photo, I added some leftover salad leaves and some ham (even though all the recipes I've seen have no meat in them :P ). The dish needs ripe and juicy tomatoes, and I'm afraid my tomatoes didn't live up to that... but the salad was still pretty good.
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