You guys. I thought it looked good the first time:
First attempt 
Second attempt
I don’t think my active dry yeast is very active. The quick rise yeast is a lot more fun.
Am I cheating? Discuss.
Tag: yeast
Actual Pizza
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!
More yeast bread!
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!
My first time (baking yeast bread)
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:
- If you like watching Dr. Pimple Popper, you’re really going to like the part where you squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins.
- There is no easy way to separate thyme leaves from their stalks. But, as I kept reminding myself, slowing down to pluck tiny thyme leaves and place them in a measuring spoon is exactly the point.
- Either I had no idea what I was doing (fact) and/or no-knead bread dough is not meant to be handled without the parchment paper in between it and your hands. So sticky!
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!