Failing at the Staff of Life

Breadman inspired me to take up once again those little yellow packets of Fleischmann's yeast and try my hand at baking bread.  He makes amazing bread - cheese bread, olive, and my personal favorite, plain old white bread which is fabulous with Vermont Cabot butter and orange marmalade.  On our first date he brought me a loaf of bread, and I thought that was incredibly sweet.  I had been given Burdick's chocolates before on a first date and thought that was quite the gesture, but yes, the homemade bread did top that.

At one time I made amazing cinnamon bread for Grampy.  I used a cookbook from the 1960's, and the recipe was perfect.  The cinnamon would just ooze out - just the right amount - as you had a piece of toast.  It wasn't like the new cinnamon bread from Sally Ann's where the cinnamon gets all over your hands and ruins clothing.  Oh no no!  (I still love Sally Ann's bread, though.  Yum!)

Each time I've tried my hand at making bread lately it's been, as Kidlet A and B state, an "epic fail."  Kidlet A will eat it, and proclaim it good, but the loaves look more like quick breads.  They don't rise. I wait and wait for the second rise. So, here's my entry on my latest endeavor about my war with the flour and yeast.

Things always start of good.  I followed a recipe from Fleischmann's Yeast Beginner's section for Basic White Bread.  Sounded easy enough - easier than the cinnamon bread I used to make.  I even used a thermometer to make sure my water was THE PERFECT TEMP FOR THE YEAST!  Yes, I'm doing all caps because I'm yelling.  Here is my perfect rise yeast in the bowl.  Doesn't it look like an egg?  Hee-hee:

Next, I put it in with the water, milk and butter - again, USING THE THERMOMETER TO MAKE SURE THE TEMP WAS RIGHT!  I know that too high a temp can kill the yeast, right?  I was using my Kitchen Aid mixer to GENTLY mix everything up as I put in the flour as well.  Mix, mix, mix.

Here's the bad part.  I forgot to take a pic of the incredible rise I got after I put in the flour!  Please take my word for it - it was rising out of the bowl above.  I greased the bowl first, turned the dough, yadda yadda yadda.  And it rose.  It was beautiful.  I wanted to eat it right then (ok, maybe not).

I followed the directions, and here's where I heard Breadman's advice as to where I was going wrong with my bread.

Tension.

Tension.

Tension.

So, I folded those little loves of dough again and again and put them into the loaf pans.  There they are above before being put into the oven, after resting for four hours.  Yup, they never rose much.  So much for tension.  I must just not understand tension.  I used to find baking bread relaxing - the kneading let me release a lot of stress.  Hmm...  I feel a poem coming on.  Tension. Bread. Stress.  Where is that fountain pen?

The final product?  I threw the above loaves in the oven regardless, in the hope that they would have a final rise and look like something the Breadman made.  A girl can have hope, right?

Meet Mausi Gal's original FlatBread!  Well, Kidlet A loves it, so who cares, right?  I think I may give it one more try - this time instead of folding the second half I'm going to throw the dough back to the throes of the Kitchen Aid mixer and let it grind.  Muwahahaha.  Take it, Mr. Loaf!  You want tension?  I'll give you tension!

I'm going to go enjoy some of that white bread with Vermont Cabot butter with marmalade.  I need energy to gear up for my last foray into the world of bread!