29 April 2016

Yeast type bread

#AtoZChallenge
Yeast. Well, for those of you who’ve followed me or read a few of my other posts here and elsewhere already know about me cooking with yeast.  Well, I’ll not bore you with repetition.  Instead, I’ll regale you with stories of my sister’s efforts at mastering the art of making breads with yeast.  I’ve watched her over the years and she’d become quite the master.

Methinks she’s in the same canoe as I am when it comes to the clamoring that certain members of our family makes whenever they get a hankering for cinnamon rolls, or even her mighty tasty biscuits.  Both of these dishes come out of the oven and are devoured before they even have a chance to cool off.  Mmmm.  We like the accolades.  We just don’t want to stand there doing all that hard work.  At least, I don’t have to stand there and pound on that bread, lift it up, flip over here and there, find another good spot to punch, lift up and repeat.  I only have to make sure my dough is just sticky enough to work the flour in when I form the bread into it’s distinctive shape and fry it.  Cept, I don’t use as much oil, just enough to get the pan hot enough for the bread to rise as it cooks.

Whereas she has to let it rise, then go through that lifting, punching, lift, sprinkle flour, and punch it down dance, not once but twice.  Sometimes, if she really feels like it’s worth it, she’ll let it rise a third time before forming those rolls, cutting it into that yummy shape and letting them rise one more time before setting them into that hot oven.

Methinks she’s just like me when it comes to the amount.  Neither one of us feels right when we make just enough for who ever’s at the house at the time we are finally making that bread.  We use roughly five to ten pounds of flour.  Yep, that’s right.  We go by the pound when making bread.  None of this dainty cup by cup stuff for us.  It has to be that way if we want enough to have with our dinner, or lunch or whatever.

Yes, she’s tried to get me into the groove of making yeast bread.  However, I think I’d be the dainty one using just a few cups in one of those smallish bowls.  Sort of like when we make baking powder biscuits, which by the way, my son makes about as often as me and sister make our bread.  Once in a blue moon.  Oh, man, now I’m getting hungry just thinking about that bread and biscuits.  Not hungry enough to go and make some though.