Tartine Baguettes w/Active Dry Yeast?
Hello - I've been making sourdough bread for several years, and have made Tartine's Basic Country Bread several times. Yesterday I was perusing the middle of the book and found the Baguette recipe. So exciting, and I read with interest about the "Golden Age of French Baking", combining commercial yeast with natural wild yeast starter and still using the long fermentation methods. Very exciting! Can't wait to try it, but then I see that the recipe calls for Active Dry Yeast as the commercial yeast, not the Instant Yeast (SAF) that I am used to from other artisanal non-wild-yeast bread recipes. Does he really mean to use the kind that comes in the little envelopes from the regular grocery store? And if so, why doesn't he specify proofing it in water before using it? Is it because he mixes it with water and flour to create the poolish? I just want to make sure that I am using the dry yeast product that he specifies, and it's not a mistake or another name for the instant (SAF) yeast. I'd be grateful for any help from Those in the Know. Thank you!
Hard to say exactly what Mr. Robertson really means--the book to which you're referring (which I am guessing is Tartine No. 3?) is rife with errors. More in the pastry section with weights and measurements and such, but that's just an aside for the moment.
More importantly, I don't think it will really matter whether you use active dry yeast or instant yeast. At day's end, they are more than likely the same strain of yeast, but dried and preserved and activated in slightly different ways. However, even active dry yeast can be thrown in with flour without first having been proofed. It might take longer to work its magic, but it will eventually wake up with an appetite.
In short, if you have Instant Yeast, use that in just slightly lesser quantity than the active dry yeast specified, rather than going out just to pick up another product that will yield the same results.
Good luck and let us know how it goes !
Thanks for quick answer. Actually the recipe is from Tartine Bread. And I thought, at least initially, that I'd like to follow the recipe exactly. But I take your point about the interchangeability.
a few minutes before adding to the dough where instant you can just toss it in the dough. ADY is just an older version f commercial yeast, You can convert any ADY recipe to instant yeast by using half as much instant as the called for ADY amount n the recipe.