Homemade cassava bread: budget-friendly soft recipe for 2026
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Glossário Culinário
Baker’s Yeast
Baker’s yeast is a living ingredient made of yeasts that feed on the sugars in dough and release gas, making breads, pizzas and sfihas rise and turn soft. It is what gives homemade bread its fluffy crumb and bakery bread its open holes.
Characteristics
It comes in three forms: fresh yeast, sold as refrigerated cakes, moist and fast-acting; active dry yeast, granules that need proofing in warm water with a pinch of sugar; and instant dry yeast, fine granules that can go straight into the flour. As a rule of thumb, 1 oz (30 g) of fresh yeast equals about 2 1/4 tsp (10 g) of dry yeast. Proofing water should be lukewarm, never hot, because excess heat kills the yeast.
Uses in the kitchen
It is the yeast for all kinds of bread, pizza, sfihas, focaccias, cake donuts and bakery sonhos. After kneading, the dough needs to rest in a warm place until doubled in volume — fermentation also builds flavor, so slow-fermented doughs are usually more aromatic.
- Homemade, sandwich, whole-wheat and stuffed breads
- Pizzas, sfihas and focaccias
- Cake donuts, sonhos and baked savory snacks
Substitutions
The three forms substitute for one another respecting the fresh-to-dry ratio. Baker’s yeast cannot be swapped for baking powder: one works by slow yeast fermentation, the other by immediate chemical reaction. The traditional alternative is natural starter, sourdough, which needs its own feeding routine and a longer fermentation time.
Fun facts
Salt in direct contact and in excess inhibits yeast — that is why many recipes tell you to mix the salt into the flour before adding the yeast. Sugar, on the other hand, feeds fermentation and speeds rising. Store fresh yeast in the fridge, dry yeast in a tightly closed jar, and suspect yeast that has sat for a long time: dough that does not rise is almost always expired yeast or water that was too hot.
