February 20, 2012 - 9:14am
what breads convinced you to return to commercial yeast?
For the last few years I have baked sourdough breads only. My cultures are thriving and my breads are terrific but I find myself wondering what commercial yeast breads I'm missing. So, I'm curious to hear from sourdough bakers which yeast breads you choose to bake and why.
Share
Baguettes & brioche
and pretzels :)
Oh, I'd like to add that I never "returned" to commercial yeast, always had some around. So I didn't jump off the boat with my sourdough tucked under my arm leaving myself to sink or swim with one method of raising dough. Some breads just taste better with commercial yeast.
Bagels
Several durum loaves are better with yeast than sourdough, e.g. Tom Cat's Semolina Filone (in Glezer's Artisan Breads) Pugliese (Barenbaum's Bread Bible)
Sandwich breads of all types
All of these can be made in sourdough versions - it is just my opinion that they are better with yeast.
Pizza's! Like Varda picks and the duram flour loaves made with packaged yeast have a lovely flavor...the 'sour' IMHO covers up the 'buttery' of the duram flour...my household favors the more unsour sourdough breads.
Sylvia
Pizza, ciabatta, focaccia, baguettes come to mind.
Sandwich loaves like "pain de mie" - although they can be made with a sourdough starter, usually they are not.
and higher percent buckwheat bread (gets too sour).
Karin
I hate to admit it, but every once in a while, I forego my sourdough made with wheat and oat bran, and ground flax in favor of plain old white bread made with buttermilk and commercial yeast. It rises to the sky and tastes absolutely fantastic for grilled cheese sandwiches, hamburgers or hotdogs.
sweet fruited breads like Raisin Bread, Hammelman's wholewheat, hazelnut and current bread, Vanochka, Panetonne, etc Pam
But make struan, focaccia, and croissants with *gasp* instant yeast!
I've tried all three with levain instead, but never liked the results as much.
I didn't ever give up yeast, and I still bake the majority of my breads with sourdough, but I'd say the top two are pizza and baguettes. Sometimes I want baguettes and I want them tonight!
Backed this so many times when BBA first came out. Whatever flour or yeast or whatever it always was delicious & picture perfect. Now I want to try a different method. I am very short on refrigerator space. I have baked loaves with all the ingredients added at once and placed in the fridg immediately after mixing to ferment cold. Also the cold water thing. Liked the process loved the bread. I’m not so good with wet doughs. Some other year maybe but not now. Has anyone tried it? When or how would I add the yeast? How did it work? Also lastly but most important is has any one come up with a correct gram measure? Thanking you all for even thInking about it.
Baked. Not backed. Darn auto correct & my eyes. Forgive any more errors.
About 90% of my breads are SD. Occasionally I need to get bread baked because we are out,and I also need to feed my starter. This happened just yesterday, so after feeding my starter, I mixed up a whole wheat sandwich loaf. Bonus material, half of the liquid was buttermilk, which I was also wanting to use up before it expired. Baking something on an afternoon whim may also nudge me to use yeast.
And occasionally I bake bread for someone who isn't much of a fan of SD. She really loves a slow rise no knead yeast bread.
Mary