The Science of Yeast Cakes (+ Recipe) (2024)

Most cakes nowadays become airy thanks to the use of frothy eggs, or more commonly, by adding baking soda or baking powder. However, just like we can leaven bread with yeast, we can do the same for cakes! Though nowadays they’re not as common, yeast-leavened cakes have been around for a long time, longer than those made with baking powder and baking soda.

Yeast cakes may take a little longer to make since they need to prove, but, they have a few distinct features. Yeast enables the use of more flour and sturdier textures but does limit the amount of sugar as well as fat. As a result, these cakes tend to be less sweet and fatty than ‘regular’ cakes. But not less delicious 😉.

What’s special about a yeast-leavened cake?

Yeast works very differently than whipped eggs, baking soda or baking powder. As such, how you make a yeasted cake can be quite different than a ‘conventional’ cake. It’s all about understanding the yeast and letting it do its thing, in the right amount of time.

Yeast is a living microorganism, keep it happy!

First of all, keep in mind that yeast is a living microorganism. It can only leaven a cake when it’s alive and likes the conditions it’s at. Make it too hot and the yeast will die, so that’s a definite no-go. For most baking yeasts, temperatures well above 40°C (104°F) kill off (part of) the yeast cells, reducing the activity. Yeast cells also don’t do well when there’s too much sugar, and the same applies for fat.

Once it’s under conditions it enjoys, yeast leavens a cake batter by converting sugars into gas, carbon dioxide through a process called fermentation. The carbon dioxide bubbles this creates form little air bubbles within the cake, which lighten up the cake. Fermentation proceeds more quickly at higher temperatures and needs enough sugars to proceed at a reasonable rate. Nevertheless, fermentation will generally take an hour or more. During this time, the cake batter needs to be strong enough to hold onto the gas bubbles that were created.

Baking powder and baking soda are chemicals that react once heated. The warmer it is, the faster they go. It’s generally best to place a cake batter made with either of these in the oven as soon as possible to prevent them from being ‘finished’ before the cake starts baking.

Less sugar and fat, more flour

As a result, compared to a cake made using baking powder yeast cake generally contains:

• Less sugar: else the yeast would grow too slowly
• Less fat: same story, else the yeast would grow too slowly
• More flour: this is an automatic result of the other ingredients being present in lower quantities. But, there’s another reason. Flour is often the core structural component in these cakes. It ensures the cake batter and cooked cake can hold onto their own texture and are sufficiently stable.

This different ratio of ingredients impacts your cake’s overall texture. A cake made with baking soda or baking powder tends to have a light, slightly crumbly texture. However, by using yeast the cake will be less crumbly and a little denser.

Yeast cakes don’t need cake flour

Non-yeast cakes often benefit from being made with cake flour. This flour is ground more finely and contains a low amount of proteins, aka gluten. However, a yeast cake generally works best when made with a higher protein content flour, such as all purpose flour or even bread flour. The protein helps create that structure you need to hold onto the air bubbles created during leavening.

Nevertheless, there’s no need to extensively develop gluten proteins when baking a yeasted cake. Instead, regular mixing, as when making a regular cake is enough. The cake simply doesn’t need to rise as much as a bread and has all that sugar and fat to help create an nice texture.

Yeast adds flavor & moistness

Yeast doesn’t just bring air into a dough or batter. While it’s fermenting away, it also produces all sorts of flavor molecules. These aren’t necessarily very apparent but do improve the overall flavor profile of the cake, especially when left to prove for some time..

You might also know that sourdough bread tends to dry out less quickly than conventional yeast-risen bread. The same goes for yeast-leavened cakes versus conventional ones. They tend to hold on to moisture a little better and can be kept quite ok, although the difference isn’t as clear as for bread since both the high amounts of sugar and fat in cakes help increase its shelf life as well.

Uneven hole texture

Yeast cakes tend to have a different hole structure as well. You might end up with some larger and some smaller holes. This is due to the nature of fermentation. In some areas it might happen just a little faster than in other areas.

Types of yeast-leavened cakes

A lot of cakes leavened with yeast are location-based recipes, stemming from a specific (often European) region. To name just a few:

• Gugelhopf / Guglhopf / Kugelhopf: This yeasted cake stems from central Europe and may have originated in several different countries, people don’t agree on which. The different names all refer to a similarly shaped round cake with a hole in a middle (similar to cakes made in a Bundt pan). Nowadays you’ll be able to find plenty of “Kugelhopf” recipes though which use baking powder or soda. But since yeast does require a different environment to thrive, these cakes do taste different.

• Panettone: Is it a cake or a bread? In any case, it’s risen using yeast and it’s sweet, filled with fruits. It has its origins in Italy and has a distinctive dome shape.
• Bara brith: This is a typical Welsh cake (or is it a bread?) risen with yeast. It also commonly contains fruits.
• Savarin: The savarin has its origins in France. It has similarities to a brioche, but it turns out relatively dry, requiring a soak in syrup to soften up again.

A fine line between bread and cake

There’s a fine line between calling some a bread or a cake, especially when those cakes are made with yeast. Brioche and babka are often referred to as breads, but some may call them cakes. Banana and pumpkin bread on the other hand, might actually have more in common with cakes than with bread. Since both are made with similar ingredients, be it in slightly different ratios, it’s hard to distinguish the two.

Here, we’ll call something a cake if it doesn’t require extensive kneading to develop gluten, tends to be on the sweeter side and if you’d generally regard it as being a snack, as opposed to part of a wholesome meal. The definition isn’t perfect, but neither is the world, so it’ll do.

Interestingly, the world of donuts also knows of the difference between yeast and cake donuts! Both styles make slightly different donuts, which one you prefer depends on your preferences.

Yeast and baking powder cakes are not interchangeable

Yeast cakes are fundamentally different than cakes made with baking powder/soda. As such, you can’t simply replace these for one another. The overall formulation of the cake will have to change and most likely, you’ll still end up with a cake with a different overall texture and flavor profile.

Kugelhopf - Yeast Cake

Yield: 1 large cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 55 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Yeast cakes require some patience since they need time to proof. But, their moist texture and firm bite make it an addition to your cake making repertoire.

The recipe started out as a Backen macht glucklich recipe.

Ingredients

• 22-24 cm Bundt/Kugelhopf pan (or different design, same size)
• Butter or oil for coating pan

Filling

• 250g raisins*
• Water

Dough

• 150g butter
• 140g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 500g all-purpose flour
• 280ml (plant based) milk or water

Instructions

Preparation - 1 hour in advance

• At least one hour in advance, preferably earlier, soak the raisins in enough water to cover all raisins. Do not skip this step. Soaking gives the raisins a chance to rehydrate and greatly reduces the chances of them accidentally burning in the oven.
• Optionally take the eggs and butter from the fridge to warm them up slightly.

Making the cake

1. Coat the cake pan with butter or oil spray, this will help to prevent the cake from sticking.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix the butter and sugar until hom*ogeneous (e.g. using the beater attachment on a stand mixer, or a hand held mixer). Next, add the eggs and mix in completely. Then, add the flour and yeast and mix through until just mixed in.
3. (Optional) Slightly warm up the milk in the microwave or in a pan. You want it to be warm to the touch, no warmer than 30°C (86°F).**
4. Add the milk to the rest of the batter and mix until incorporated hom*ogeneously. There is no need to knead the dough, just mix until it's all mixed through. The final dough should look like a thick cake batter, but be more liquid than a bread dough.
5. Remove the soaking water from the raisins and gently mix the raisins through the batter with a spatula. Do not mix more than necessary, you do not want to break up the fruits.
6. Cover the cake pan with a cover to prevent the top from drying out. Leave to rest for at least 1 hour. It should increase in size and lift up a couple of centimeters. If it hasn't risen enough, leave for another hour. The exact proofing time will depend on the temperature of your batter and the room it's proofing in. It's generally better to proof a little longer than too short.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (355°F) for 35-45 minutes.

This cake is not exceptionally sweet. It eats well with a little bit of jam or a slight sugar syrup.

Notes

*Instead of raisins, feel free to use other dried fruits. Cranberries work great, but so do mango, prunes, and apricots. If you're using larger fruits, make sure to cut them into smaller pieces, similar in size to raisins. If you have some soaked Christmas cake fruits left over, those work great as well!

**You can skip this step, but, using warm milk speeds up the leavening process, creating that comfortable environment for your yeast cells.

See Also

Baking with Buttermilk, Milk and Sour Cream | Imperial Sugar

Sources

Development of baking powder, ACS, link

The Oxford companion to food, Cake, p.129, link; goes back to Roman times to understand how bread & cake have developed over the centuries

Bakery product, Elementary food science, p.299, link; mentions that cakes aren’t made with yeast, but chemically leavened

Yeasted cakes, Classical German baking, p.95, link; on the origin stories of Gugelhopf, this book contains a lot more recipes for yeasted cakes!

The Oxford companion to sugar and sweet, p. 92, 225-226, 286, 311-313, 387, 589, link; a great book if you want to learn more about the history of cakes and other sweet goods, it has extensive sections on different countries all around the world

Road to pastry, Savarins, link; nice summarizing article on savarins and related products (e.g. baba au rum)

Yeast-risen pound cake, Food52, link

Ruby Tandoh, The hard-won pleasures of a yeasted cake, Aug-7, 2022, link