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I'll add to this: A lot of home cooks were taught to add a bit of sugar to the bread to help the yeast. I used to mix yeast, water, and a bit of sugar together
by Broken_Hippo 4y ago
I'll add to this: A lot of home cooks were taught to add a bit of sugar to the bread to help the yeast. I used to mix yeast, water, and a bit of sugar together to get the yeast started. I mostly did this because I learned to make bread before the internet, and this was common in instructions that I could access.
- Tyr42 4y agohttps://youtu.be/AqFeXxa_NTk https://youtu.be/AqFeXxa_NTk This guy experiments with sugar levels and how it affects yeast. Turns out the water absorbing properties of sugar also has a large effect in the other direction, so maybe it doesn't really help the yeast
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoSugar can inhibit yeast development: This is generally only an issue with sweet doughs, though. A teaspoon of yeast won't have that effect, especially if it is in a half cup of water. But more importantly, in the times before the internet, you just couldn't reason like that. If your mother and grandmother and great-grandmother all start bread by dissolving yeast and a small amount of sugar in some water... well, you do it too. The cookbooks sometimes told you this if it wasn't too terribly old (old cookbooks expect you to know a lot, and directions get sparse).