Fresh Yeast Chocolate Chocolate Chip Espresso Egg Bread

I'm trying to work my way through all the fresh yeast I bought, so I'm converting recipes with dry yeast into fresh yeast loaves.

BBC Radio Food Programme Podcast: Yeast

I'm a big fan of BBC Podcasts. This came down my podcast subscription last week, it's very interesting!

From the BBC website:

Yeasts, mysterious members of the fungi kingdom, are an essential part of our food production. They play a critical role in baking, brewing, wine-making and much more.
Dr Bill Simpson is the Managing Director of a company in Leatherhead that has hundreds of samples of yeasts, old and new, frozen in liquid nitrogen. By preserving different yeasts from around the world his team are able to recreate ales and lagers from the past.
Vincent Talleu stumbled upon baking by chance but is now consumed by a passion for good, tasty, healthy bread. Working with a twenty-year-old Swedish yeast 'starter' in an artisan bakery in London, he believes that 'real bread' must be made as it used to be; slowly. This allows the yeast to work its magic.
Andrew Whitley is a food educator who started the Village Bakery with a yeast sample he brought back to the UK from Russia. For Andrew, there is absolutely no reason why natural yeasts cannot be used much more widely in bread-making, so that loaves with no synthetic additives and longer production times can be available to all.
John Downes pioneered the Australian sourdough revolution in the seventies, and is now working daily with yeasts, recreating the indigenous loaf of the British Isles: ale-barm bread.
Producer: Rich Ward.

Related Links

• BBC Food Blog - John Downes and ale yeast
• John Downes - Personal Blog (sourdough.com)
• Real Bread Campaign (www.sustainweb.org)

Link to download podcast, http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/foodprog/foodprog_20110801-1630a.mp3

Jamie Oliver's Fresh Yeast Semolina White Bread

The best looking loaf of the two

I have been looking for fresh yeast for a few months now, never being able to find it in any of the stores I frequent. Then, in the space of one week I find two locations that have it! I'm rolling in fresh yeast!

Jeffery Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough

Playing with sourdough starters, I knew at some point I wanted to try making Vermont Sourdough. Well, actually, I was planning on making Susan's adaption, Norwich Sourdough, over at Wild Yeast. However, I wound up making a 125% hydration sourdough starter instead of her 100% hydration starter, so I just went with the original. Next time it'll be Norwich Sourdough.

"Spent" Sourdough Crumpets - 100% Dark Rye

One of the things that bugs me about growing sourdough starters is the need to discard starter to refresh it. If you bake everyday and use it, then you have no problems. I can't keep up with that much sourdough bread, or bake everyday. So I'm left with throwing out cups and cups of perfectly good starter. Not anymore!