Talk Yeasty To Me
Just like everyone else during the pandemic, I baked. A LOT. I was an avid baker prior to lockdown, my sourdough starter was already a year old. That sounds very hipster of me. “I was making sourdough before it was cool”. But baking was my stress relief and my self care. So during stay-at-home, the stress multiplied and I multiplied the baking.
The supply chain problems were so real, though. No yeast, no flour, no eggs for a while. How does one bake without any supplies? I started using resources from previous jobs - commercial food suppliers, cash and carry restaurant supply shops - to feed my addiction. YEAST. I had a variety of flours, I was able to find some eggs, but it was a yeast desert where I live. I found a restaurant supplier who said she could order yeast, but I had to pick the kind I wanted from the list. If anyone has ever ordered from a restaurant supply catalog, it is a mess of item numbers, short abbreviations, and weird quantity listings (am I buying 4 units? 4 oz? 4 lb?). So after pouring over it, I realized that I could get yeast for me, and all my friends. I could get 1 pound packages of yeast, separate them up into smaller bags, and mail them to all my pals that couldn’t get yeast at their houses either. I ordered 4 pounds of yeast and anxiously awaited it’s arrival. About a week later, the supplier let me know it was ready! HUZZAH! When I got there it was in the refrigerator area, “How nice! They did that to maintain the freshness for me!”. It wasn’t until I got home and opened up my treasure box that I realized what was up. When I opened the box, I found what looked to me like bricks of drugs.
Is this what bulk yeast looks like? Is it vacuum packed in these weird open packages?
I started to carefully unwrap the first one in case dry yeast came spilling out. But that evidently wasn’t a concern. Because I didn’t buy dry yeast. I bought fresh yeast. FRESH. YEAST.
What I had in my possession was four pounds of extremely perishable (!!) yeast that needed to be converted and weighed to work with any recipe that I planned to make. The weighing and converting was not the problem. But the FOUR POUNDS of perishable yeast. THAT was the big problem. I called myself a baker before this, but I never knew that there was anything other than dry yeast! Fresh yeast needs careful temperature control to maintain its activity. So that meant that I couldn’t mail any of it to my friends (postal times were out of control), and locally no one was interested in fresh yeast! What to do?
I was lucky enough to have invigorated my supply stash. So I embarked on a yeast journey in order to try to use up as much of this yeast as possible before it went bad. What this meant was that I made one, sometimes two yeasted bakes every day - beignets for breakfast, garlic knots for dinner. Sometimes I would make two breads in a day, and then start a bread for the next day. We dropped off bread for the neighbors, our families, loaded up the freezer. It was a baketacular. I tried so many different recipes. Coffee cakes, babkas, focaccias, danishes.
I learned a lot about baking. And it gave me something to focus on as a laid-off mother of two small children, stuck in her house. I also did so many dishes. So. Many. Dishes, Yall. A year and a half later, I’m only baking under duress because, hey, we’re still here doing this pandemic thing. But this was a really cool time capsule for me. I feel like I can think about it, without thinking too much about Covid, and I really was able to flex some baking muscles I didn’t know I had!
If I was going to rank my favorite things that I made during this time:
5 - Beignets
As a way to build our weekday excitement, I started to do Friday, Fried Donuts with my kids. And every other week (sometimes each week) we would make a different kind of donut to test things out. Beignets are, by far, our favorite. Chewy, soft, pillowy, sugary. You can pretend you’re a dragon by breathing out the powdered sugar! They’re perfect.
4 - Danish
Will I make Danishes again? Maybe not. But what a fun challenge! The folding, the rolling, the cutting, the forming, the filling, the icing! This was about a two-day project, that I really sunk my teeth into (literally) and it was an amazing achievement. We ate danishes for days.
3 - Flatbreads
What a cool staple to know how to make! Making flatbreads also allowed me to use my daily allotted bread making for dinner! I tried a bunch of different kinds, with varying levels of success, but it was so neat to test out different cultures’ versions of them!
2 - Steamed Buns filled with Pork
Have you ever cooked something and then stared in awe of yourself because you couldn’t believe you did it? That’s how I felt about making steamed buns! I MADE THOSE! ME!?! They felt daunting and complex, but breaking them down step by step, really helped!
1 - Babka
Babka is the queen of breads. Or it should be. Chocolatey, Nutty, Spicy. It’s unmatched. It looks impressive (and is honestly, a little tricky and time consuming), and your finished product is delicious and your family and friends will think you are amazing.
So what is the moral of this story?
Read? Make sure you know what you’re buying? Ask questions? Maybe. I am happy that I went down this road, even by accident. I would never do it again, because I did have to waste some of the yeast, and that’s just a shame, especially with the shortages we had in 2020. BUT baking gave me a tangible thing to focus on every day, I could achieve a goal, I didn’t have to figure out what to do, because the recipe was telling me. So this weird project helped me through that really hard time. If you find yourself in the presence of fresh yeast, give it a whirl. I found it really great as far as activity and effectiveness! I would definitely buy it again, and I hope you give it a try!
