Cyril may never “speak” to me again. I have betrayed him. Today I baked an onion herb white bread…with…COMMERCIAL YEAST…in…my BREAD MACHINE!
I’m going to have trouble looking him in his bubbly fragrant alive goo again. Oh, the pain. Oh, the tragedy. The bread is delicious. Makes the betrayal even worse.
Go ahead, whip me with Irish butter. I deserve it.
Leah
Leah why feel like a traitor, you’re giving Cyril a day off. As baker’s we have a lot of options to raise bread, why feel limited to only using one method? Commercial yeast sure, yeast water why not, sourdough starter yes please. As long as you like the bread then it is all good. I know you posted this in jest 
@Benito Benny, I did post it in jest. Believe it or not, making a bread in my bread machine yesterday was a bit of an experiment. I was digging through my refrigerator and lo and behold I found a bag of yeast; not just any yeast. NO! It was an open bag of SAF Instant yeast sealed in a zipped storage bag. I had purchased the yeast at the beginning of my bread journey back in 2018. Awesome yeast. Worked great. But I decided to try sourdough for both nutrition and medical reasons, so I sealed up the SAF yeast and tucked it away in the refrigerator. I meant to put it in the freezer, but summarily forgot. Out of sight, out of mind. Imagine my surprise finding it tucked away in my refrigerator yesterday, years later. Now I know that usually yeast doesn’t have much of a life expectancy in the refrigerator beyond about 6 months and this had been there over 2 years. I decided to do a “is my yeast still alive” test. Alive? Good grief! This bag of yeast was still kicking! After 2 YEARS! I decided to make a bread in one of my bread machine cookbooks that I’d never made before because it was certainly different from my breads I’ve been baking and I had the ingredients (I big plus 
) . I made an onion herb white bread. I even had to modify the recipe first to accommodate my husband’s dietary restrictions of being low sodium and non-dairy. I reduced the salt to 1/3 the amount, then I used plant butter instead of dairy butter and unsweetened almond milk instead of dairy milk. The bread came out delicious and you’d never guess I had made those changes!
In a way, this post is a testament to the staying power and longevity of SAF Instant yeast! I could have just thrown it away, thinking it was no good. But it turned out to be awesomely alive! On hindsight, when using it I may use a bit more than the recipe calls for, just because it’s older, to compensate for its age. But to think it can still raise bread after 2 years! I never expected THAT!
Leah
Leah, I know what you mean! 
I sometimes feel the same way since I very frequently bake yeasted breads, even though I am currently maintaining 3 different sourdough starters, each with its own subtle differences in leavening strength and flavor. I really enjoy the nuances in flavor between each of those starters (Pam, Basil Raisefoam and Sherlock Foams) and commercial yeast. You can also modulate the flavor of each starter by varying hydration levels, feeding ratios, feeding frequency and temperature to fine tune overall acidity and the ratio of lactic to acetic acids. And of course, you can also use the “big hammer” of adding different grains to make greater flavor changes. Its pretty cool (in a geeky sort of way)!
And @Benito makes a valid point about giving your starter a rest. I few years back I came across an article that talked about starters needing a rest every so often to keep them at peak performance. The article was about Matt Tinder’s quest to make the perfect panettone. He found that every so often, his perfectly strong, well fed starter would inexplicably peter out. He found that he needed to give his starter a rest every so often to keep it happy. Here is a link to the article in case you are interested.
Take care and happy baking (sourdough, yeasted, with bread machine or by hand)!
@djd418 Dan, to think I strive just to keep Cyril happy and you are maintaining THREE different starters! Now that’s true baking dedication.
It’s funny because I hadn’t used my bread machine in years until a number of weeks ago when I decided to use it on the manual cycle to knead dough so I could attempt to make some sourdough pita bread. My hands aren’t what they used to be so I’ve been totally loving the no-knead method and sourdough has been its own revelation. Loving making no-knead sourdough doesn’t even describe it. The machine took all the “work” out of kneading that pita bread dough and those pitas came out wonderfully. At the time I thought, “Good. I’ve resurrected my bread machine. I can use it to knead dough!” BTW, my bread machine is a 30+ year old Welbilt that is completely shaped like R2D2 from Star Wars! In fact, I named him R2D2 because of his striking resemblance to the droid. At the time I bought him, he was pretty much state-of-the-art. Now he’d be considered antiquated since his functions are simplistic and relatively few. But like my happy little starter, Cyril, and apparently my SAF wee beasties, there’s a purposeful reawakening in R2D2 also. Good grief! What a similarity my bread machine has to the Star Wars saga regarding R2D2. He “slept” for a while too before reawakening to fulfill his purpose!
Leah
You are not alone in using a bread machine to mix bread dough. My Mother-in Law also has some challenges with hand-kneading and routinely uses her bread machine to mix the dough when she bakes bread, since she does not have a stand mixer. Hey, whatever works, right?
And I have fond memories of the bread machine I received as a gift from my Mother back in the early 2000s. It was the the thing that nudged me toward bread baking. I had been intimidated to make bread by hand, even though my Father baked bread for many years and his father had a family bakery back during the Great Depression. But that bread machine was the catalyst that activated my dormant bread baking gene and the rest is history! Happy Baking!
@djd418 Dan, I do have a stand mixer BUT it’s 47 years old with only a whisk attachment. It doesn’t have a dough hook or other accessories like new stand mixers do now. Mine works marvelously. It’s just not equipped to handle heavy-duty mixing or kneading; just what I would call “normal” baking. I think your mother-in-law discovered how “handy” her bread machine was for kneading dough long before I figured it out. Tell her “thanks” from me. Apparently great minds do think alike.
Leah
@djd418 Dan, I totally forgot to mention how much I love the names of your sourdoughs! Extremely creative. Elementary, my dear Watson!
Leah
