Bread – compensate for non-working yeast with baking powder in bread

breadyeast

I am used to baking with fresh yeast like this:

fresh yeast

Where I live now I can't buy this, so I have to make do with this:

not yeast

In accordance with the instructions I use 2 g of the "yeast" per 500 g flour.

How I tried using it:

  • Mix it with the dry flour before adding water
  • Dissolve it in water before mixing with the flour
  • Dissolve it in water with a teaspoon of sugar before mixing with the flour

I none of my attempts I got the dough to rise.

So before I bake my next brick bread, I wanted to ask: is it worth trying to add some baking powder?

Best Answer

No, it is not worth trying baking powder. If your yeast is not working, it won't start working because you added baking powder, so you will get the same result as leaving out the yeast and using pure baking powder. Recipes meant for yeast cannot work properly with baking powder, so this is not a solution. You need a source for working yeast.

You seem to have concluded that dry yeast never works, but this is not true. You must have happened upon a bad brand, or maybe even a bad batch from an otherwise OK brand. Dry yeast works very well, and is even lower risk than fresh yeast, because it is less sensitive to bad storage. Just try a different source of dry yeast.