Prestige Turbo Yeast Vs. Instant Yeast

No matter if you’re whipping up cinnamon rolls or making pizza dough, yeast is the go-to leavening agent that ensures delicious baked goods have that delicious rise we all crave. But not all yeast is created equally – there are two primary types found on grocery store shelves: active dry and instant yeast.

Yeast is a single-cell fungus that acts as a leavening agent by digesting sugars in flour, producing carbon dioxide, and filling out gluten structures of dough with air bubbles that cause it to rise during baking. You can find fresh yeast at most grocery stores either as blocks or packets; however, its shelf life is very limited so most home bakers opt for active dry or instant yeast which both have much longer lives than fresh varieties.

Active dry yeast and instant yeast are both used for baking bread, yet differ significantly when it comes to their preparation process and how you add it into recipes. Active dry yeast must first be dissolved in liquid such as water before being added directly into recipes; instant yeast, however, requires no such steps and can simply be mixed directly with your ingredients without further preparation or proofing steps needed before its first rise occurs. Furthermore, instant yeast often comes marketed as “rapid rise,” making it suitable for recipes calling for two rises but which would benefit from an earlier first rise.