Yeast bread is a many wondrous thing..... I agree, cake yeast may be the key, but it's nearly impossible to find these days unless you can find a place of business that uses it and they are willing to sell you some. Most restaurants and bakeries use SAF-Instant yeast around here for their fresh breads because that's what is available from the restaurant supply store. Active Dry Yeast and Instant Dry Yeast brands don't have the same yeasty flavor that Fresh Cake Yeast has. Restaurants could also be using recipes where they have more yeast in them to make rolls faster. I have used a recipe from "Whole Wheat Cookery - Treasures from the Wheat Bin" by Howard and Anna Ruth Beck for 30-Minute Hamburger Buns, which is a good example of this method. It uses 6 T. of yeast for 10-1/2 cups of flour, and it literally takes you 10-minutes to mix and knead the dough and then you form the buns (eliminate the first rise), 10-minutes to let the formed buns rise, and 10-minutes to bake them. They DO taste yeasty, but it's not the "best" bread recipe, but it works when you need rolls or buns quickly. This type of recipe makes sense for a restaurant who may need fresh rolls quickly. You could switch to recipes from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" and "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoe Francois - where the dough is quickly mixed by hand, allowed to rise and then stored in the refrigerator and see if you like the flavor of those breads. Pizza dough is refrigerated in most places, where it has time to develop flavor. If dough is frozen first, it has more yeast in the dough than a regular recipe will because a percentage of yeast dies when frozen, so more is used in order to have it rise when thawed. A good recipe designed for freezer dough will have more yeast in the recipe. When dough is refrigerated (aka retarding the dough) bacteria produce wonderfully tasty acids in the cool temperatures. The cold forces the yeast into dormancy so it's not consuming the available sugars. Now the bacteria can feed and produce flavorful acids. You may even find a difference in flavor of your yeast breads if you have a cold kitchen temperature in the winter, and the dough takes longer to rise, than in the much warmer summertime kitchen. There are also tradeoffs from retarding the dough - it reduces ovenspring and loaf volume. Chilling the dough also influences the texture of the dough and you will get a slightly more open texture. A little tip if you use an overnight chilling method. After chilling, you can dissolve a little yeast (1/2 t.) in a few tablespoons of warm water and knead this into the dough before shaping. This will help compensate for the reduced volume. For every rule there is for making yeast breads, there are exceptions, and it's often the exceptions that make a great deal of difference. -Grainlady

Happyday, I agree that you are overproofing your bread, probably. If you let it rise too high it will collapse on itself and you'll get that sunken lump. Ask me how I know. (grin) Ann T, I do bread dough overnight and it's good, I've done it up to two days in the fridge and it's good, but I keep it more than that I it seems to develop a flavor that I find similar to mild sourdough. Elery loves it, so he's always hoping that I don't have time to bake that dough, LOL. jasdip, you won't find a consistent yeast amount in bread recipes. Some have more and some have less, depending on the flavor the originator of the recipe was shooting for and liked. As has been mentioned, bread is simple and forgiving, you can use more yeast or less, you can use whole wheat or white or off brand flour, oil or butter or none, milk, water, coffee, whatever and it will usually come out just fine. I just made a loaf for Elery that took a cup of liquid, I used 3/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of Sriracha sauce, along with a bit of dry mustard and some black pepper. White whole wheat in place of all purpose. He loved it, I'm not even tempted to try it! I had seen a similar recipe on the internet, but I didn't feel like looking it up, so I made it from what passes for my memory and it was still just fine and an absolutely beautiful color. Annie

Most rapid rise yeast has Ascorbic Acid added to make it rise faster, it is basically vitamin C. I'm fine with that. I don't know if the funky smell and too rapid rise (for active dry yeast ) was from the additive or the new process they are using. I don't think they are adding corn syrup, but from the article Robin quoted above, it sounds like they are actually using the corn syrup to make the yeast. "Yeasts are grown in the industry in big tanks with sugary water in the presence of oxygen. When the desired amount of yeast is reached the liquid is pumped out, and the yeast is then dried. Nothing else is added in the production of yeast." I found this after searching on the Internet. So I would guess instead of using a sugar/water solution, Red Star now uses corn syrup to grow their yeast. I just can't understand why they felt they needed to add an emulsifier. I can't say I have ever had a problem with my yeast staying solid. If it worked for so many years I can't see why they would change it. I'm guessing the funky smell is from the corn syrup base they are growing the yeast from, and the undesirably rapid rise is from the emulsifier.

Hi Everyone~!! After reading all of the comment's on this thread I thought I would add our experience in hope's it will help someone. This happened several years ago with our 4 month old G.R. Murphy, we started noticing red rashes on his abdomen, after bathing him and trying simple things we took him in to our vet. We were told it was just a basic skin allergy that he had more than likely picked up from the Lake water and with medication and bathing it would clear up. It did not......after 2 year's of doing everything humanly possible to clear his skin including sending skin scraping's to U.C. Davis in Calif. , 3 different vet's, and a constant stream of extremely expensive medications, potion's and lotion's I intensified my research. I found an article that described everything Murphy was experiencing perfectly, I found a few more and all of them led to dog's being put down with no cure. Well I never give up so the one thing I found similar in every article was that it may be an internal parasite, so comparing all of the different medications came up with a list and started researching internal parasites and the medications that would kill them. After the process of elimination I found one Medication that neither I or any of the others had tried..........Interceptor. Unfortunately all of my research was lost with the computer I had done it on but the research paid off. I got the medication gave Murphy the chewy tablet and within 6 days his skin was beginning to clear, it is a once monthly treatment and by the 2nd. month all open sores had cleared, we were able to wein him off of all of the medications he was energetic and happy again. They have improved the medication and it is now called Interceptor Plus. Unfortunately all of the medications had taken a toll on Murphy's Liver and we lost him a year later. 6 years ago we brought a New Member of the Family home another G.R. , I had ordered the new Interceptor but it had not arrived yet and we saw the same rash..................................at that time they had stopped producing it while building a new plant so I was so desperate I had to order it from Australia told them the situation and they had it to my home within a week, gave Hunter his chewy and All is well. In closing I hope this info will help someone and remember Never Give Up~!!!!! Here is a link. Love to All. Jan. http://www.interceptorplus.com/