Why You Dissolve Active Dry Yeast in Water

Whether you’re making pandesal, donuts, or coffee buns, bread needs yeast to help the dough rise. If you’re using active dry yeast, most recipes will require you to activate or proof it first.

What is Yeast?

Yeast is a living single-celled organism that makes bread rise and gives beer its carbonation and alcohol content. The species we use in the kitchen, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, breaks down sugars and starch into carbon dioxide and alcohol through the process we call fermentation.

Activating vs proofing yeast

It’s easy to mix up activating and proofing since they share the same step: dissolving yeast in water. But there is a distinction between the two.

Activating yeast means to dissolve active dry yeast in water. Active dry yeast is made out of yeast that’s been dehydrated to prolong its shelf life. Water wakes up those dormant, dried out yeast cells, warming them up for baking.