As you may have notice, yeast has been making more and more of an appearance in the blog. I’m baking more breads and cakes that have this ingredient that can be a tad temperamental.  Here are a couple of tips that I learned along the way.  All of my tips are for active dry yeast.  I’m not so ready to venture into the other scary unknown called “fresh yeast” just yet.

Storing – once opened always store in a cool, dry place, preferably the refrigerator (a must for fresh yeast), but bring to room temperature before using.

Yeast needs both a warm environment and food to grow. The process is often called “proofing the yeast.” Yeast should be dissolved in warm water (100-110 degrees F), but not hot water or it will die. Sugar is usually added to “feed” and grow the yeast. You should see activity within 5 minutes, bubbling and expansion during yeast activation. If you see no activity, your yeast is too old, the water was too warm or too cold. Game over, and you need to start over.

Not all of us cook the same way. Some of us are super structure, some are on the fly, but at the end we all end up doing what works for each of us.  Case in point, the upside: Tom likes to cook – the downside: he is a mess in the kitchen! Every time he finishes cooking the kitchen looks like a hurricane went right through it.  For my compulsive self, this is just too much for me; I’m totally neurotic when it comes to how I cook and the state of the kitchen while I’m doing it.  The pre-prepping, the actually cooking, the cleaning.  At the core, messiness (for me) has no place in my kitchen, that is why I usually try to be as far away from then kitchen when Tom is cooking something.

Or my head explodes.

But regardless of how you utilized your kitchen, it has been proven that people who lurch from task to task become frazzled, get poor results and eventually abandon the task all together.  And for most frazzle first time cooks, after a kitchen disaster (which can totally be avoided) they simply announce that they cannot cook and loose the opportunity of experiencing such a gratifying talent.

Most recipe that calls for making bouquet garni, which is a classic French combination of herbs and spices used to flavor soups, stocks, and stews usually ask to use cheesecloth to wrap your herb/spice combo.  But, how many of us have cheesecloths laying around for this?

Not moi.

But! What I do have is lots and lots of coffee filters.