Tag: Yeast

Coronavirus: fresh yeast is almost impossible to find – Italian Cuisine

The yeast is not "made": it is cultivated. It is not the product of an industrial process that can intensify with increasing demand. Here's how it was born

In time of lockdown, the Italians have rediscovered the pleasure of kneading and baking. So that purchases of flour and yeast have rocketedin recent weeks, by + 205% and + 203%, as noted by the Coop Research Office. So it can happen that on the shelves of the supermarket it can really become a business to find these ingredients.

In particular, fresh yeast is almost untraceable, despite the fact that the companies that produce it are at work non-stop, as confirmed by Piero Pasturenzi, president of the Assitol Sugar Yeast Group, the Italian Association of the oil industry representing the sector. "Our goal is to respond to consumer demand, ensuring the high quality of our products and, at the same time, the health of our workers." But the yeast does not does: Yes cultivates. It is not the product of an industrial process which can intensify as demand increases, but a microorganism that comes to life from a by-product of agricultural origin. «Companies create the most favorable conditions for them to reproduce in the presence of oxygen; basically everything is based on the fermentation of sugar, a process that has nothing artificial and which obviously has its time. " That cannot be contracted.

How yeast is grown

Welovelievito.it, the Assitol website created to dispel false myths and promote correct information on yeast, explains it well. Brewer's yeast is a living organism, belonging to the mushroom kingdom, fed and reproduced in a completely sustainable way using products of natural origin, such as sugar molasses.

If we looked at the yeast under a microscope, we could find that it is made up of single-cell microorganisms of spherical shape: a 1 gram cube contains over 10 billion yeast cells. Each of these small cells, like all living organisms, must feed, reproduce and, above all, breathe, and need air for its development. The name "brewer's yeast" refers to the production methods of the past centuries (when it was obtained from beer), but today it is cultivated starting from the sugar component of molasses, a product obtained from the processing of beet and sugar cane: the yeast, in fact, is greedy for sugar. Before coming into contact with the yeast, molasses is sterilized.

At this point the yeast cells they can begin aerobic "breathing": are exposed to the action of oxygen. In addition to oxygen, molasses and nutrients (vitamins and trace elements) are added, which are used for good cell growth. These, starting to feed on molasses and other nutrients, begin the breathing process with which the demolition of glucose takes place.

At the end of the fermentation process, the yeast is washed with cold water to eliminate any residue from the molasses-based culture medium. The compound obtained is subjected to centrifugation in order to obtain the yeast cream which is then stored at a temperature of around 4 degrees.

At this point, the processing of the yeast cream depends on the type of final product to be obtained. In the case of liquid yeast, the process ends here. To obtain fresh or dry yeast, the cream is subjected to further processing, such as filtering, in the case of fresh yeast, and also dehydration, in the case of dry yeast.

As the Welovelievito.it team explains to "La Cucina Italiana", the timing depends a lot on the companies but, in general, from when you start the process at the end it takes at least a week. So let's put some patience.

Mother yeast: who makes home delivery – Italian Cuisine

Buy a pizza and receive the mother yeast as a gift with Berberè pizza, or there is the Calabrian start-up Mulinum and the Rome Levain bakery. They'll send the mother yeast straight home

Finding the yeast is difficult, the sourdough is impossible, and here the solution arrives at home.

From Berberè, pizza and mother yeast

After these weeks of quarantine, in which Berberè, the brand of pizzerias created by the Aloe brothers, all the premises of the brand have resumed the delivery of pizzas and bread. Thanks to the collaboration with the delivery partners, home delivery has been reactivated every day from 18.30 to 22.30. TO Milan, but also a Turin, Florence Santa Croce, Bologna and and Rome. Furthermore, given the difficulty for consumers to find the yeast these days, together with the order of the pizzas and the bread, some of the live sourdough used by Berberè, perfect for preparing bread, will be delivered as long as stocks last. and pizza at home. Information on their website www.berberepizza.it

The Calabrese start-up

It is called Mulinum, born thanks to crowdfunding in 2016, and is an agricultural strat-up in Calabria that produces wholemeal, stone-ground flour, bread – according to ancient recipes and with the use of mother yeast – and sweet baked products and salty. To make up for the lack of yeast, they decided to pay homage to it in the packaging of their kits, on sale on their website, www.mulinum.it

In Rome, Levain's kit

Le Levain is a French boulangerie in the Trastevere area and invented the kit for making homemade bread. The package contains a sack of type 1 flour, Camargue salt, sourdough and the recipe for making bread, as well as instructions for refreshing the sourdough. You can buy it on Cosaporto.it

For the recipe of the pizza with sourdough and the instructions to refresh and keep the sourdough alive, here are some ideas:

Fruitless yeast cake, the recipe of Aunt Anna – Italian Cuisine

How to make a cake without yeast with fruit such as peaches, pineapples or strawberries to be covered with sweet tufts of cream

I found the recipe for fruitless yeast cake, written in pencil and discolored, on a slip of paper inside the telephone diary that belonged to Aunt Anna. I immediately remembered our holidays in Croatia when, his guests, on arrival he greeted us with his delicious cake on the table. She he proposed it with peaches, but it can also be done with other fruit such as pineapple or strawberries. I propose your recipe, just like she did, but be careful: after the first slice it is impossible to stop!

The recipe for fruitless yeast cake

Cake ingredients:

6 eggs, 180 g of icing sugar, 120 g of sifted flour, 20 g of diluted butter, juice and grated peel of 1 untreated lemon, a pinch of salt

Peach cream ingredients: 3oo ml of milk, 6 tablespoons of sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour (or starch), 4 large peaches (or 5/6 if small)

Method

Separate the egg yolks from the egg white, put them in a bowl with the sugar and, with a whisk, work them so that they become swollen and spongy. Add the grated peel and lemon juice to the mixture. Beat the egg whites until stiff stiff and keep them aside. Add a pinch of salt to the bowl. Gently pour by mixing the sifted flour and the egg whites in several stages from bottom to top. Bake a buttered cake pan in a preheated oven at 200 degrees (if ventilated at 180/190) for about 40 minutes. Check the cooking with a toothpick and allow to cool.

For the peach cream

Warm the milk and take a little to melt the flour. Blend 3 peaches with the sugar (leave 1 or 2 aside for the garnish), add them to the milk and cook them gently for 5 minutes. Remove them from the heat and add the melted flour and continue cooking for 10 minutes on low heat or alternatively in a bain-marie for 15 minutes. Add the previously melted and cooled butter.

Cut the cake in half and fill with the peach cream, cover it with the peach cream, decorate with the peaches in thin slices. Finally, if you like, add tufts of whipped cream.