Excellent question. I’ve often wondered myself zbout this. Just to be safe, i always add a bit of sugar.

I always proof in water with a little sugar of some sort. Fatty liquids like milk seem to coat the yeast and keep it from dissolving properly - I think fat content may be a factor too. Maybe next time, leave out the milk when proofing and add it after?

Was this an online recipe? I feel like messed up recipes are more common online than in print.

Thanks for the responses! Interesting anout the milk. The rolls rose fine, came out good but not as I was looking for.

https://www.mashed.com/437579/traditional-german-brotchen-recipe/

I think, if you're not using sugar, you can mix a little flour into the water for proofing...?

And maybe 'proof' is the wrong term - I do think active dry yeast does need to be dissolved in liquid before adding.

“Proof”, an indeosyncratic version of the word ”prove”, means to demonstrate the yeast is alive. That's why some bakers refer to the rising of the bread as proofing, because with fresh granulated yeast they don't proof the yeast prior to mixing up the dough (and some just imitate the lingo and say the word to mean rise without thinking about the yeast at all). Good, hearty ADY will only work when dissolved, but it will dissolve eventually even in an enriched, low hydration dough. Dissolving it in the recipe's liquid (grape juice is liquid that makes yeast happy, unlike milk) helps distribute it evenly, get it started before it meets the salt, which can inhibit the rise, and just reduces the wait immensely. Really active ADY will also prove when you dissolve it, even without carbs to eat, but the proof is much more subtle. I always use flour to proof yeast unless there's sugar in the recipe anyway. It works fine.

I keep most of my yeast in the freezer, because it stays dormant, with a bit in a jar in the fridge for convenience. When I baked less often, and just kept a little Fleishmann's jar in the fridge, it would sometimes die before it was used up, and at a certain point, I had to proof it before I got a new jar. Before granulated yeast was easily available, and of questionable quality, both it and the better cake yeast absolutely had to be proofed every time. One didn't know if it had sat in the sun, or otherwise been killed in transit. Nowadays, fresh cake yeast seems quaint for the home baker. :) The yeast is so reliable now, I really don't have to bother.

Yes, I did mean that most active dry yeast these days doesn't really need to be 'proven' and can be counted on to be viable - unless you've had it a very long time. I keep mine in the fridge. Purchased yeast usually has a date on it, mine (Fleischman's) is stamped for Oct. 2023.

I haven't proofed yeast in months....I only do that when making a sweet rich buttery dough and i haven't done that recently.

I make lots of bread very often...in fact I have the dry ingredients measured out ready to add the liquid for tomorrow's bread and I never proof the yeast....I just mix it with the flour and add the liquid.

I do find that yeast unless it's dissolved and fed a bit of sugar is slow in a dough that is milk based and had eggs and butter and sugar added.

I keep a jar of yeast handy in the refrig, and the rest of the bag in the freezer. A couple of weeks ago I finished up a 2 pound bag of yeast that was 2 years old and a year out of date. During the pandemic when I was baking 5 loaves a day and yeast was hard to get and people gave me yeast....I guess in hopes of getting a loaf or 2 of bread!!

I stopped proofing yeast in water a few years ago. I mix it in with the dry ingredients; except the salt, which I dissolve in the water.

I never thought of making a well in the dry and adding the water and yeast to that as Plllog mentioned.

This is also the first time I learned that flour can make yeast work. I thought it was just sugar.

I'm thinking of trying these rolls. There's milk in the recipe, but it's not mixed with the yeast.

https://www.butterandbaggage.com/fluffy-dinner-rolls/

Oh, I hope you do an report back! I've never seen or done the like. Some guesses--making the heated paste with the flour and water is probably a way to get the results of a soak in a quick time. Soaking, or "autolyze", gets the water absorbed into the flour which helps it rise higher and, in certain circumstances, can make the bread taste better. It also affects the behavior of the water as it steams out, and is generally a good thing altogether.

The rolled up rectangle is something of a head-scratcher, but my guess is that it's a way for people who don't really know the tricks of baking bread to get a good shaped texture. There are some full sized loaves that call for a similar process, usually when baking in a loaf pan, so it may have something to do with how it rises with high sides, though, IME, it's more about making the shape fit the pan with an even thickness from end to end.. It's the bloggist's declaration about fluffy that's the head-scratcher and makes me think it's for the texture. When some people make rolls, they just cut sections and kind of moosh it into a ball. Like a boule, however, free rolls should be pulled several times, drawing the edges down under the bottom, forming a tightly stretched top and giving a round directionality to the crumb. For pan baked connected rolls, it makes sense to make them even across the top to begin with.

This is all speculation--just me trying to figure out the why's. They look nice in the picture. :)

Like Jasdip, I dissolve the salt in the water and mix the IDY in with the dry ingredients. I do this because I use coarse salt, and the salt stays in crystals while I am kneading, but the yeast has no problem dissolving. Salt crystals come out of the dough if the salt is not dissolved in the water. I use coarse sea salt and always weigh it rather than measure by volume.

I buy yeast by the pound and keep it in the freezer.

I never use the word "proof" or "prove" to mean rise, but the British seem to like to do this. It just sounds wrong to me, or at best inaccurate and confusing. Once the yeast has risen once, there is nothing more to prove.

Maybe not in Texas, but it's been ”proof” all my life, here in SoCal. :D

Jasdip's recipe sounds like it's using a tangzhong, which King Arthur Flour used in its 2021 Recipe of the Year: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/perfectly-pillowy-cinnamon-rolls-recipe More background is available here: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2021/01/04/introducing-our-2021-recipe-of-the-year-perfectly-pillowy-cinnamon-rolls

"With origins in Japan's yukone (or yudane), tangzhong is a technique popular across Asia that involves pre-cooking some of a yeast bread recipe's flour and milk. This step lends long-lasting softness to any kind of bread — and these rolls are no exception. Pre-cooking just a small amount of the recipe’s flour pre-gelatinizes the flour’s starches, which increases their ability to retain liquid — thus enhancing the resulting rolls’ softness and shelf life."

I’ve made them once, and they are divine, just as good one or two days later as the first, and still good after being frozen. “Pillowy” is in their name for a reason!

The starch in flour is a carbohydrate like sugar. Our bodies break starches down into sugars, don't they?

And Instant Dry Yeast doesn't need dissolving first, but I like to activate the regular kind (ADY) before adding it. I bake a loaf of honey wheat bread every week, and mix the honey, water and yeast first and allow it to bubble up before adding it to the flour.

Maybe not in Texas, but it's been ”proof” all my life, here in SoCal. :D>

All the cookbooks I have from the 1970s (when I was a professional baker in San Francisco) use the word "rise" instead of "proof" :D

I learned to proof my yeast so the bread would rise. It's only in the last decade I've heard ”proof” for rising dough.

After your dough is mixed, it's proofing to prove that you didn't forget toa dd the yeast. I have done that and just kneaded the dry yeast into the dough. Took several extra stretch and fold operations, but it did work!

I was scrolling l,ike mad to add that the cooking the four and milk is the tang zhong method.

I made FOAS's rolls yesterday, The German buns. The recipe calls for 4 cups of flour but I only used half. No way would 4 have worked for me.

They're chewy which is what I was looking for, and heavy. I had 2 small ones this morning with cheese. I made one into larger one for a sandwich.