Let’s Talk About Yeast

I live in Scandinavia, and here we almost always use fresh yeast. Yeast is commonly sold in 50-gram blocks, and you’ll typically find it in the refrigerated section of your grocery store.



We have two main options available: fresh yeast and dry yeast.

In all of my recipes, when I mention yeast, I personally prefer using fresh yeast. It’s just a preference—it gives such a nice rise and flavor—but you can of course use dry yeast if that’s what you have available.

If you’ve made sweet dough before, you might have read that dry yeast needs to be dissolved in warm liquid to activate. That’s true in many recipes, but not in mine. Whether you’re using fresh yeast or dry yeast, I use cold liquid—I always use cold milk or cold plain yogurt.

Why cold milk? Because the kneading time in my recipes is quite long, and if the dough gets too warm during kneading, it can actually kill the yeast. Cold milk helps keep the dough at the right temperature.

Here’s what I use in my sweet dough recipes:

20 grams fresh yeast if I let the dough rise overnight in the fridge

25 grams fresh yeast if I’m baking the dough the same day

If fresh yeast isn’t available in your country, you can use dry yeast instead. Just follow the conversion chart below to get the correct amount.

Fresh Yeast to Dry Yeast Conversion

5 gram fresh yeast = ½ tsp dry yeast

10 gram fresh yeast = 1 tsp dry yeast

15 gram fresh yeast = 1½ tsp dry yeast

20 gram fresh yeast = 2 tsp dry yeast

25 gram fresh yeast = 1 tbsp dry yeast