a blog about making things, and also probably goats
After the horror that was Strom-pizza, John suggested that I try again with instant yeast, so I did. And woo-eeeee! The dough turned out great!
The recipe I used said it makes 4 dough balls. We used two for making our pizzas and froze the other two. Once we tried it, we thought maybe we should split the recipe into 3 dough balls instead so the crust would be a little thicker in the middle.
Yum!
Apparently I’m a little stuck on baking.
So stuck, in fact, that in one short week I have used up these kitchen staples:
And before you say anything, chocolate chips *are too* a staple.
I used them today when I decided to bake cookies.
I’ve been making a lot of new-to-me stuff this week (beginner’s mind!). But this is different. I’ve been baking chocolate chip cookies FOREVER. They were basically my specialty as a teen. (I do cookies! If cookies aren’t appropriate, you’re out of luck!)
To point is, I have a lot of nostalgia around making chocolate chip cookies.
That said, here’s my setup:
So, the mixer.
This was my mother’s mixer.
It wasn’t the mixer I used when I was a teenager. She got it much later. I don’t know exactly when, but she was very proud of it. After she died, it came to me.
I mean, it’s a mixer. But also, it’s THE mixer.
So I’m in the kitchen measuring chocolate chips, swirling in late 80s nostalgia and a growing amount of anxiety at using my mother’s mixer.
Even though she’s dead.
WTF.
By the way, I didn’t technically have enough chocolate chips and had to halve a recipe I’ve followed 5,000 times on the fly. There’s nothing like trying to measure 9/8 cups of flour to give a girl confidence in the kitchen.
For all these reasons, the one baking project that should have been the easiest for me…wasn’t.
I made cookies!
They turned out okay. They’re a little flatter and browner than they were in 1987. Probably because of all the math.
Still delicious though.
This morning I made sandwich rolls. They are the simplest thing in the world and they’re SO much better than anything I’ve ever found in a plastic bag.
They didn’t get as brown as the photo in the recipe, but they are twice as delicious.
How do I know? It’s magic!
This recipe calls for instant yeast, which I learned is not the same as active dry yeast, so I had to proof mine. But it went totally fine. The little yeasties got all hot and bothered right on schedule.
I was surprised that these only took a total of about two hours to make, including the rising. Only 20 minutes in the oven, which was a lot faster than I expected.
Go bread go!
For the last year, I’ve eaten oatmeal for breakfast pretty much every day. I love it with fruit and almonds and cinnamon and a splash of milk. Yum!
But recently, I switched up my eating schedule and bam! No more breakfast, which kind of meant no more oatmeal (or at least not every day since John cooks for lunch and dinner and I am NOT missing that).
Suffice it to say that I was in need of an oatmeal fix. And what has oatmeal in it?
Say hello to peach and strawberry crumbles, a.k.a. last night’s dessert.
I mean, they’re ugly. But I did this in response to a legit craving and, as we all know, responding to a craving is done in these stages:
And finally,
6. Crumbles
The last step is all that mattered. Get in my tummy!
When I decided to make my life about making things instead of thinking things, it was inevitable that I would eventually arrive at baking.
Honestly, I’m pretty obsessed with food. I don’t cook often (one of the perks of being married to a retired chef), but John doesn’t really bake and I thought, hell, I can do this.
For my first loaf, I decided to make roasted garlic and herb no-knead bread. Here’s what it’s supposed to look like:
Okay, easy peasy. I’ve got this.
First I had to do the shopping. John has a well-stocked pantry, so the only thing I really needed was a jar of yeast. Then I raided our herb garden for rosemary and thyme. Done and done.
Keep in mind I’ve never done this before, and I didn’t even study the pictures too closely, because I like to fly by the seat of my pants at all times.
Nah, let’s just call it “beginner’s mind.” That’s better.
Anyway, I mixed up the ingredients and let the dough rise. Meanwhile I roasted the garlic and organized the herbs. A few observations:
My unbaked loaf looked like this:
You guys, may I never forget the aroma of raw bread dough covered in roasted garlic and fresh rosemary and thyme. It was amazing.
After some mixing and more rising, I dumped the dough into our cast iron dutch oven and this happened:
When I say there’s magic in the world, this bread is what I’m talking about. Gather a little flour, a little salt, some cooperative yeast, and about 10,000 thyme leaves, and 6 hours later you get this.
Here’s a shot of it sliced, which accidentally looks almost exactly like one of the photos from the recipe!
I slathered some butter on there and went wild.
It didn’t turn out exactly like the photos in the recipe, but when does it ever? Pretty good job for a first time baker. Now that I’m armed with a little jar of yeast, no bread recipe is safe!