Victorian bread recipes without commercial yeast and without sourdough starter – you don’t need commercial yeast to bake a loaf of bread! In the Victorian era it was quite common to make yeast substitutes at home. Here you’ll find 8 recipes for homemade yeast substitutes: hop yeast, fruit yeast, grape must yeast, flour yeast sponge, pea yeast, bark yeast & salt rising bread.

I often make homemade sourdough bread, but since I made Victorian Graham bread (with commercial yeast) for the Historical Food Fortnightly two month ago, I was interested in historical homemade bread recipes which were made without commercial yeast. So here I compiled Victorian bread recipes which are all made without commercial yeast and without traditional homemade sourdough starter.

‘Home-made liquid yeast is exceedingly easy to prepare. It simply requires a mixture of water and some material in which the plant cells will rapidly grow.’ (A Handbook Of Invalid Cooking, 1893)

In the Victorian era, yeast was usually made at home with boiled hops and mashed potatoes. But nearly all Victorian yeast recipes made with hops say to add some commercial yeast as well; but finally I found two Victorian yeast recipes without commercial yeast, which you’ll find below. There are also recipes for Victorian salt-risen bread, Roman bread made with grape must, Turkish pea bread and Siberian bark bread. Continue reading 10 Victorian Bread Recipes Without Commercial Yeast →