Gordon Ramsay's Secret To Better Donuts Starts With The Type Of Yeast He Uses

Yeast is one of those ingredients you buy in the grocery store for baking without thinking twice about it. Sometimes the small packets sit unused for months in the cupboard, until the desire to bake a fresh loaf of bread or a tray of donuts strikes. While most of us are accustomed to these dry packets that sit on shelves, this is not the only option for baking. In fact, when it comes to donuts, Michelin-starred chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay explains on his YouTube channel, "When you make fresh donuts, you need fresh yeast."

While chef Gordon Ramsay is known for useful cooking tips, dishes like beef Wellington, and creative insults — he has a point here. In the video, Ramsay demonstrates his donut-making tips, which include using fresh yeast over dry. To activate the fresh yeast, he first crumbles the cube. Ramsay then adds it to warm milk, and explains that active, fresh yeast helps the dough rise for soft, fluffy donuts. 

If you've never worked with fresh yeast before, you won't find it on a shelf; It will be stocked in the refrigerated section, typically near the butter. It's packaged as a small cube or cake, and has a light brown or grey color. The biggest difference with this yeast is its moisture content — It contains about 70% moisture and is noticeably wetter when working with it. 

Many professional bakers use fresh yeast over dry with the idea that it provides more of an aromatic and sweeter flavor in bread and other dough-based recipes. It's less common for home baking simply because it doesn't keep for long — only about 2 weeks — meaning you can't store it in the pantry for months. For this same reason, it's not as common to find in grocery stores. 

According to a mini donut recipe from Ramsay's website, using fresh yeast and allowing it to fully activate for 15 minutes results in a lighter donut texture. Note that while Ramsay activates the fresh yeast in warm milk in his donut-making video, it's commonly activated in warm water between 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Without proper activation, neither fresh or dry yeast will help donuts rise. Yeast donuts are different than cake donuts, the latter of which use baking powder.

The main benefit of fresh yeast is the potential for enhanced flavor and better texture. But there are plenty of donut recipes that call for active dry yeast, which are the shelf-stable packets. For some, these differences are so slight that it's not worth trying to track down fresh yeast. Other celebrity chefs and bakers, including Alton Brown and Jamie Oliver, supply recipes using basic dry yeast. So if you can find fresh yeast, great. But if you can't, don't fret. You'll still end up with some great donuts, as long as you allow the yeast to fully activate.