Well, I haven't attempted to make any yeasty bread-product since then, until last night. I had recently heard of bread-making successes from multiple co-workers and friends and thought to myself "I can do that". So last night I tried to make a simple white sandwich bread.
First lesson learned: In case you didn't know, making bread from scratch involves a lot of time. I got this idea at 7pm. Next time I will start sooner.
Second lesson learned: Active Dry Yeast and Instant Yeast are two different things. The recipe called for instant, I used active dry. After making the dough by hand (since I don't have a food processor, as recommended in the recipe) I put it in a bowl to rise and did a great job of ignoring it for two whole hours (from 8pm to 10pm). I took a nap (thankfully) and talked on the phone with my mom for a while. Just as I was getting off the phone it was 10 o'clock and I went to finally look at the bowl. It had gotten only slightly bigger. There was hardly any noticeable change and this dough was supposed to double in size. This is what it looked like when I put it in the bowl and this is also (pretty much) what it looked like when I checked it two hours later:
Third lesson learned: Dough should rise in a warm place. After admitting my seeming failure to my mom she asked where I let it rise. I said on the counter. In my house that's about 65 degrees. So there's the problem. After getting suggestions from my mom and interrupting a friend's date night with a panicky bread-related phone call I decided to follow their advice and let it rise in a warm oven. At this point I had a "what do I have to lose?" kind of attitude. An hour passed and I looked in the oven. The dough was getting bigger! I decided to let it go a little longer (about 45 minutes). At this point, I decided it was time to put it in a pan and see what happens. I was only sort of following the recipe at this point. I punched it down half-heartedly, folded it into the pan and then put it on top of the oven to rise again. Forty-five minutes later (when SNL had ended at 1am) I checked on the pan and the dough had returned my effort by half-heartedly rising again. I brushed the top with warm water and threw it in a 350 degree oven. Fourth lesson learned: Never give up! 50 minutes later, close to 2am, I pulled this out of the oven:
I let it cool enough so that I could actually touch it and then I treated myself to two slices with just a little bit of butter and it was actually very tasty. I'm sure it was supposed to be a little less dense, but it wasn't a total failure by any means. And then I went to bed, exhausted but satiated.
3 comments:
You will definitely have to do it again after learning so much about making bread. I wish I could have a slice.
what a nice looking loaf! i'm glad it turned out all right :) and babette's feast is one of my favorite short stories. i really enjoy isak dinesen, but had never imagined whole foods would do a book talk and cooking demo based on it. sounds like it was a good time!
I got so frustrated with baking bread that required multiple risings. I don't get home until 7pm most days, IF that early, so it wasn't an option for me to waste 5 hours waiting for things to feel like being done. I found a few recipes that only need to rise for an hour, or ones that don't need to rise at all, and my life is exponentially better for it :)
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