Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Yeast and butter

It's always strange in a new country to find out the different types of food. Not that Switzerland is new to me, but I never baked here before.

The other week when I was baking cinnamon rolls I found out that yeast only comes dry. Not fresh that I was used to. And it comes in the measure of 7 grams per bag. 3 bags in one plastic cover. 21 g all in all. Many recipes have 25 grams needed. What's up with the 7 grams? Do Swiss people bake with 7 grams of yeast only?

And I bought two different kinds, thinking one of them was fresh. Not. So for 21 grams of the one kind I paid 90 rappen, and for the other 21 grams I paid 2.30. They were both dry. How weird is that?

A bit the same with butter. Where I come from the measurements are printed on the cover. 500 grams of butter are clearly marked each 100 gram. Here not. First of all butter seldom comes in more than 200 grams per box, and after you have used some of it, you have to guess how much 50 grams is (if that's what you need for the recipe).

I am not, repeat not, buying a weight machine! But clearly ze Swiss need to be educated on this topic.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fresh yeast is available in the supermarkets, either Migros or Coop will have it in the cooled goods section. Look for Backhefe.

And if you look for the butter 500grs pack in Coop named "Die Butter" has clear markings every 50grs.

Just sayin'.

Anonymous said...

Weight machine, aka kitchen scale?

Witchbitch said...

Really? Haven't seen, but thanks for the tip.

Yes, kitchen scale, was looking for the word in my head, didn't find it and couldn't be arsed to google.