Skip to content
FriendsPantry

Baking essentials · Leavening

Fresh yeast

Moist, crumbly, beige blocks of live yeast; perishable but favoured by bakers for flavour and vigorous rise.

Also called: compressed yeast, cake yeast, baker's yeast

A kind of dried yeast

What it is

Fresh (compressed or cake) yeast is living yeast pressed into a soft, putty-like block with a clean, slightly beery smell. It contains about 70% water, so you need more by weight than dried yeast: roughly 2.5–3 times the weight of instant or twice that of active dry. It is crumbled into lukewarm liquid or rubbed into the flour. It should crumble cleanly; if it is dry, brown, slimy or sour-smelling, discard it.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae

How it’s used

  • Bakery-style breads and baguettes
  • Enriched doughs such as brioche, babka and panettone
  • Pizza dough
  • Doughnuts and buns

Characteristics

Aroma
Pleasant, yeasty, slightly beery.
Texture
Moist and crumbly like soft putty.
Sold as
fresh
Cooking uses
Used for leavening, Suitable for baking

Storage

Refrigerated. Keep wrapped in the fridge and use within a couple of weeks; it can be frozen, though it loses some vigour.

Diet, allergens and safety

No major allergens in typical versions.

  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan
  • Dairy-free
  • Egg-free
  • Gluten-free
  • Nut-free
  • Soy-free
  • Caffeine-free

Nutrition per 100 g

Energy
105 kcal
Protein
8.4 g
Carbohydrate
18.1 g
Fat
1.9 g
Fibre
8.1 g
Sugars
0 g

USDA FoodData Central: Leavening agents, yeast, baker's, compressed.

Substitutes

Optional — what works if you don’t have it, and how it changes the dish.

  • Instant yeast — Use about one third of the fresh yeast weight, mixed into the flour.

Related ingredients

Recipes with fresh yeast

No recipe in the catalogue uses it yet.

More leavening