Fresh Yeast

A one pound block of fresh yeast

Fresh yeast is a powerful ingredient that can transform your cooking and baking. It not only serves as an excellent substitute for dry yeast, but it also brings authentic flavor and texture to traditional recipes that call for yeast cakes. Embrace fresh yeast, and you’ll elevate your culinary creations!

Using Fresh Yeast

Fresh yeast contains water and solids, forming the medium for the yeast to live in. Because it includes water and solids, it is heavier by volume than dry yeast. Therefore, the percentage by weight you use of fresh yeast is higher than if you use dry yeast. For most practical baking uses, using bakers' percentages, fresh yeast percentages range from 2% to 6%. The 2% level is typical for bread doughs, and up to 6% is for enriched doughs. There are some exceptions to this range.

Measuring How Much Fresh Yeast To Use

To simplify things, I checked the weight of various volume measurements of fresh yeast in measuring spoons. I checked the weights by pressing the fresh yeast with my fingers into the spoon to compress it and then leveling it with a knife.

• 1/2 tsp = 2.4 grams

• 1 tsp = 4.7 grams

• 1 Tbsp = 14.0 grams

Vintage Recipe Cake of Yeast

Fresh yeast is also called compressed yeast cake. Older recipe cakes of yeast weighed about 17 to 18 grams. If you pack fresh yeast into a tablespoon and leave it slightly crested, you get about the same weight, equivalent to a "cake of yeast."

Rule-of-Thumb Fresh Yeast Recipe Examples

All these rule-of-thumb examples have the yeast compressed, packed into the measuring spoon with fingers, and leveled with a knife. These examples are based on 1 cup of flour weighing about 120 grams.

• A pizza dough should be cold fermented in the refrigerator over 1 to 2 nights. Using 4 cups of flour, add 1 level tbsp of fresh yeast, about 2.9% fresh yeast.

•  For an enriched dough for breakfast pastries and jelly rolls, use 4 cups of flour and 2 tbsp of fresh yeast, about 5.8%.

•  If you see an old recipe using an enriched dough that specifies 3-1/2 cups of flour (roughly 420 grams) and 1-1/2 cakes of yeast, this would be about 6% fresh yeast. I would use 1 tbsp plus 2 tsp of fresh yeast compressed into the measuring spoons and leveled off. This would yield about 23 to 24 grams of fresh yeast, close enough to about 5.7%.

•  For same-day bread, bagels, and pizza dough, use 1 tsp of fresh yeast for every 1 cup of flour. With three teaspoons per tablespoon, this would be 1 tbsp fresh yeast per 3 cups flour, then 1/2 tsp for an additional 1/2 cup flour, or 1 tsp per additional 1 cup. This gives you about 4% fresh yeast.

This single loaf of enriched bread dough is cold fermented in the refrigerator overnight. For 4.5% fresh yeast, use 410 grams (slightly less than 3-1/2 cups) of flour and 18.7 grams (1 Tbsp + 1 TSP) of fresh yeast.

Pizza dough with 450 grams flour and 14 grams of fresh yeast.

Using the Pizza Dough with Malt Syrup recipe, we used 3 and 7/8 cups (450 grams) of flour and 1 tablespoon of fresh yeast. The dough underwent a cold fermentation in the refrigerator for two nights, yielding excellent results. This method uses approximately 3.1% fresh yeast, which is the maximum recommended amount for a short cold fermentation.

Finding and buying fresh yeast

Fresh yeast is also called compressed yeast cake. It can be harder to find in the US than in other countries. In Italy, fresh yeast is called Lievito Fresco; in France, it is levure fraiche. I buy fresh yeast in 1# blocks at my local Trattoria, which runs its bakery. You must keep fresh yeast refrigerated and always check the expiration date, as it only lasts one to two weeks.

Questions? Contact me.