No More Yeast at the Supermarket! Now What?
Have you noticed while grocery shopping? In most supermarkets, both dried and fresh yeast are completely sold out. Normally, they probably sell only a few packets a day, and now people have apparently raced to the parking lot with bags full of yeast. Now what?
The Central Bureau for Foodstuffs reassures everyone: there is enough, stockpiling is unnecessary. Still, you may occasionally miss out on certain groceries, such as yeast. Not so strange, because stores are normally supplied based on algorithms developed around normal spending patterns. The logistics chain needed a moment to adjust to bags full of yeast suddenly disappearing from the shelves.
Start a sourdough starter
Don’t have any yeast but still want to bake? Then you could start a sourdough starter. A fun project when you’re spending a lot of time at home anyway. It isn’t complicated, but it takes an average of a week or two before you have enough starter to bake with. You can find plenty of recipes online, such as this one from Weekend Bakery. You can start a starter with rye flour, regular flour or even whole-wheat flour. According to experts, sourdough gives your bread an extra delicious flavor. Do keep in mind that you can’t replace starter and yeast on a one-to-one basis in bread recipes: you need much more starter to make the dough rise sufficiently, and it also takes more time.
Make soda bread
You can also replace yeast with baking soda. Combining the baking soda in the dough with something acidic makes the bread light and airy. Bread made with baking soda is called soda bread. The advantage: it’s ready much faster than bread made with yeast, because it doesn’t need hours to rise. The result is a rustic loaf with a distinctive aroma. Don’t like the smell? Add some fresh herbs to the dough.
Let them eat cake
Of course, you don’t need yeast for every baked good. Cream puffs rise because of the eggs in the batter, while cake rises with baking powder. Do you still have self-rising flour at home? The baking powder is already mixed into the flour, so you can get started right away.
Or: just don’t
Last resort: don’t bake. There is plenty of bread and cake available at the supermarket, and the shelves are fully stocked. Another option: treat yourself to fresh bread from the bakery around the corner, because this is a difficult time for local businesses. If you want to keep some in reserve, put your bread in the freezer or store some bake-off rolls in the pantry, but it really isn’t necessary.
