Should I decrease the amount of yeast I add depending on how much sweet I add (I use jaggery) while making sweet bread?
I understand that sugar (and by extension jaggery) helps yeast multiply at a very fast pace, faster than the rate of multiplication in flour alone.
So is there a rule or ratio by which I must decrease the yeast for every unit of sugar added?
Best Answer
This is only partly true. Yeast is a living organism and can only live under certain conditions, including a certain osmotic pressure.
If you start from pure bread dough, then adding a bit of sugar to the dough (or to the preferment) can make it rise faster. But adding sugar in quantities sufficient to make the bread taste sweet will slow down the yeast growth, as opposed to making it quicker. There is even an upper limit for how much sugar you can add per 100 g of flour, and it's not recommended to use recipes which prescribe more, as they turn out poorly.
So I wouldn't change the amount of yeast, unless you make the empirical observation that your yeast is overfed (recognizable by speed of raising and the changed smell).