Yeast

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 Now here’s a HUGE challenge for those of us in South Texas – we can’t get the required yeast down here. I can order it as a business through Sysco, but it costs around $60, weighs a pound (and I only need an amount about half the size of a pea per batch), can’t be frozen, and lasts only two weeks!!! So, I have adapted to dry yeast (which I’ll address in the recipe later).

So, what is this elusive yeast of which I speak?

As recently as ten years ago we were able to get this for about 50 cents a pack in the dairy section at the grocery. It came in little foil block about 1” square by ½” thick – but no one was buying them (due to the short lifespan) and opted to use readily available, storable, dry yeast, so the local grocers quit carrying it all together.

Ideally, you want to use compressed yeast, biologically produced, solid, soft and beige, and with a low degree of acidity. The actual strain of yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae – significant as there are all sorts of fungi out there for all types of applications.

Can’t find the cake yeast and don’t want to do dry yeast – you can always use natural yeast (or sourdough) as that is permitted; however, that’s going to take some experimentation and a lot of work, but I have heard of some very excellent results.