cake of yeast?

[firehorse]

I've got a Southern Living Desserts cookbook dated 1967 (from before when butter was a bad word :) ). I'd like to make the sour cream dinner rolls, but it calls for one cake of yeast. How big, exactly, is a cake of yeast? Google tells me it's likely the same size as a modern envelope of yeast, but there's enough variance in the answers that I'd

Comments

[hugh_mannity]

Cooking for engineers has the answer: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/213/Bakers-Yeast

Fresh yeast
Fresh yeast are live yeast cells mixed with carbohydrates (commonly corn starch) that has been compressed into small square cakes, wrapped, and refrigerated. The yeast is kept cold so it doesn't grow before being incorporated into a recipe and is only viable for about one to two weeks. After that, the yeast runs out of nutrients and dies. Fresh yeast is the most active (that is, gas producing) of the three types of yeast commonly available. According to Fleischmann's Yeast, a 0.6 ounce (17 g) cake of fresh yeast is interchangeable in a recipe to one packet (1/4 ounce or 7 g) of dry yeast. A 2 ounce cake is equivalent to three 1/4-ounce packets of dry yeast.

I've seen Fleischmann's cake yeast in my local supermarkets along with the dried yeast.

Red Star has a conversion table: Reply

[firehorse]

Thanks for the info! I should have thought of looking to see what Red Star had to say.

I haven't seen cake yeast since I was a kid-my mom used to buy it to make root beer and sasparilla? Some other small beer, anyway. I'll have to keep an eye out for it, but I live in a small town in the back of beyond, and haven't seen it yet.

[kestrelcat]

The conversion noted above should work fine. You might also be able to find cake yeast at a brewers supply.

KC

[firehorse]

I'm not so fussed about finding it, although it would be fun to experiment with, but I've got enough old cookbooks that having a ready conversion is handy.

[kestrelcat]

I tend to convert to Red Star. It's what I have here in PDX and usually cheapest.

Let us know how your baking turns out.

KC

[olala60]

How much flour should be used in that recipe?

[firehorse]

1 cake of yeast, 1/4 cup water, 2 cups soured cream, 3Tbsp sugar, 2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp soda, 5 cups flour.

The recipe makes it pretty clear that the soured cream is more liquid than not; it calls for scalding, then says to pour it, neither of which you can do to regular sour cream. Or maybe modern sour cream, which does have thickeners, etc, in it, that probably weren't in it 45 years ago. I've got good fresh cream souring now.

[olala60]

I'm sure your fresh cream is from the shop.:)
Well, flour is about 500-600g. That means you need no more than 5g of yeast (~1% - no butter, no eggs in the ingredients). To use active dry yeast you need to divide 5 in 4 (or in 3 for instant dry yeast). It could be ~1g of dry yeast or even less. Does't matter what was written in 1964 year' book - yeast is different also now.
Tell me please what that book advice to work with the dough like? I mean, is it a proper yeast dough: fermented, rising etc. If not, that reminds me a hungarian pastry, in that pastry the yeast used in the same manner as soda.

[firehorse]

My cream is fresh from the cow-I buy it from a neighbor who has a couple of house cows. I don't usually splurge on it-it's spendy-but for something that has so much in it, I did. I like my neighbors. :)

Yes, this is treated like a yeast dough. "Mix into a soft dough, knead until smooth and springy. Shape into rolls; cover and let rise until doubled." Then brush with butter, bake, etc...

It also says it makes 4-5 dozen, so I'm thinking they're going to be fairly small rolls. But I'm thinking they won't need much butter on them!

[firehorse]

I remember, waaay back, when you could still get white oleo, and it came with a little pack of food coloring so you could make yours as yellow as you wanted it.

I saw my friend's grandmother's recipe for tomato sauce. It started "fill the blue bowl from the hutch 2/3 full of nice Romas..." My MIL has a 'receipt book' meant for new wives that has a chicken recipe that includes instructions on how to choose a likely chicken and properly wring its neck and pluck it. Old recipes are fun, but definitely require some modern reinterpretation occasionally!