Experience with reducing yeast amount in sweet dough?
I am an amateur sourdough baker, but lately I have been also experimenting with poolish and biga. I have been able to bake bread successfully with 1/16 teaspoons of active dry yeast for 300 g of total flour, and I would like to know if it is possible with sweet dough, such as dinner rolls, brioche, panettone, and the like. I have noticed that all sweet yeast dough recipes call for an enormous amount of yeast for some reason. For example, a few days ago I tried an easy version of the traditional panettone, this one is made with poolish and commercial yeast, unlike the traditional recipe that requires a sourdough starter and several days from start to finish. Here is the recipe I tried: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/overnight-panettone-recipe
While it turned out beautifully, the recipe called for one entire tablespoon of yeast, and the dough has only about 350 g total flour. I thought that was a lot of yeast, especially if I consider that I manage to bake decent breads with 1/16 teaspoons of yeast using almost the same amount of flour that is in the panettone recipe. I understand that any sweet and enriched dough requires more yeast than a regular bread dough because of its sugar and fat contents, but still I think that basically any sweet dough recipe that is on the internet calls for way too much yeast.
So, here are my questions. Does anyone have experience in significantly reducing the yeast amount in sweet dough recipes? I would not mind if I had to wait 5-6 hours or even longer for the dough to rise as long as the yeast activity keeps going. What would be the lowest percentage of yeast expressed by baker's percentage that can still rise a sweet and enriched dough without the danger of the yeast activity stopping?
Thank you for your insights.
I trust the recipes on that matter. If you did indeed wait 5-6 what are expecting to gain. Suppose you did wait, well, by hour 4 the yeast is now probably roughly the equivalent amount of the recommended dose. I suppose maybe you want the long wait to help develop flavor and if so well then the way to acheive the same is to use the recommended, allow for some rise over lets say 1 hour or so and then refridgerate.
To really answer that question of how low you can go, one of the science-minded members would have to jump in and, enriched breads is not so mainstream on this site. Speaking of science I actually helped for my kid (and posted here) for a middle school science project. It was 3 flasks of sugar, water and yeast each with a ballon to demonstrate that sugar can completely halt yeast activity. The project goal was to demonstrate that 'too much food and not enough water can equal unfavorable conditions for growth'
Bare with me, since my knowledge is patchy, but: You need a certain amount of yeast to lift sweetened dough and the reason is osmosis. The sugar attracts and binds water, which would usually be available for yeasts to function properly. That is usually counteracted by adding more yeast, to ensure enough is activated before the sugar renders it useless.
I don't know exactly how low you can go before yeast activity is completely halted, but unless you have osmotolerant yeast (which can stand high sugar levels), I would recommend not altering the recipes too much. Although a tablespoon for 350 g seems a lot, I used that amount for 500 g and it worked more than fine. So I guess you could use about a teaspoon, if your dough isn't crazily sweet (<20%).
Another thing you can do to experience a more complex flavor in your final product is using a preferment, such as sourdough, poolish or biga.