The Elusiveness of Yeast Dough

 

(Click for larger. Why Mom wrote in water-soluble ink I don't know.)

The above recipe was bequeathed to me upon my taking leave from the Minnesota Homestead where I grew up. My Mum raised me on fresh sweet corn and canned tomatoes from the garden, backyard chickens, and homemade bread – the aforementioned “Shaker Daily Loaf.”

I have tried numerous times to recreate the scene from home – a giant (at least it looked to me at the time) plastic mixing bowl, cup upon cups of flour,  my mom beating the soft dough for what seemed like ages with a wooden spoon, poofs of flour everywhere on the kitchen table, her apron, the floor, counters. Then waiting as the bowl sat in the oven, with the interior oven-light on to warm the dough and cause the “yeasty-beasties” to make it rise. After an hour or two (time was an illusion as a child), we’d peal back the towel draped over the bowl and punch down the fluffy pile. Little in life has the consistency of bread dough at its firs rise. I guess the interior of a warm marshmallow might be close, but the bread was not as sticky. Then the magical work of kneading. Again, I have no earthy clue of how long it took to knead dough; as a kid it seemed to go on for a good long while, mom pushing the dough, spinning it, folding it, pressing it down again, flipping it over, sprinkling more flour on it, repeat.  Finally, it sat for a few minutes as she prepped the baking pans. Something happened and the lump of dough became rounded little oblong loaves, about the size and shape of sleeping puppies. I guess we set them to rise on top of the stove at this time, covered with a dishcloth. Then, another hour or so, the oven was turned on and in they went. Before we knew it, the smell of baking bread washed over everything. Even after I went to high school I believe Mom still baked, and coming home from the long bus ride to fling open the door to that scent was awesome. Always peckish around 4:30 or whenever the bus dumped me off, a slice of warm freshly baked homemade bread with honey and butter was the perfect snack.

That’s not to say I always admired the bread making skills my Mom possesses, nor the time she devoted to making something from scratch. When I was young, I hated the crusts, and wasn’t too fond of the way homemade bread can easily fall apart when in sandwich form. Bought bread was a “treat food,” like sugared cereal or Velveeta, in our house. It wasn’t until I was off on my own and decided I’d rather know the ingredients of my food and be in charge of deciding how much sugar, white flour or salt I was going to put into my body, that I realized just what a process making bread is.

I said I have tried numerous times to make bread, and apparently I should have paid closer attention to the nuances of each step, because let me tell you, I have baked up some mighty flat, salty, sunken, doughy, hard-as-rocks bread in my time. Much like my attempts to brew a decent cup of coffee (here), baking bread turned into a comedy of errors, every guffaw most probably related to the variables associated with each step. Was the yeast too old? Did I feed it too much sugar? Not enough? Did I use too much wheat flour? Did the fact that I keep my wheat flour in the freezer (to keep from getting stale) have any bearing on the fact my bread is not rising (short answer=yes)? Am I using too much wheat flour? Do I need to add wheat gluten? Did I knead it enough the first time round? Did I let it rise long enough? Is my oven too cold? Is my house too cold? Did I knead it enough the second time round? Can I rise it the second time inside the oven, and then turn on the oven to bake it? Once, I rose the loaves the second time round in the oven, took them out of the oven to preheat it, and in the intervening time, the loaves collapsed.

So yeah. For a long time, I’ve been buying fresh whole grain bread from the co-op. I eat a slice of peanut butter toast nearly every morning, though, and while I have yet to be able to grow my own peanuts, or find as satisfying a spread that I can make myself, it really did irk me that I couldn’t bake my own bread; something that kings and peasants (well, maybe not the king himself, but the king’s bakers) have been doing all over the world for literal centuries. When I was a theater major, I had a prop assignment (loved those) to make stage food based on historical research. I found a photo from Pompeii, the doomed city in Roman times smothered by a volcanic eruption. On the table was a loaf of bread which I went on to recreate for my class.

I could make fake food, just not the real thing.

Actually, that’s not true. Being who I am, I ate my mistakes, if they were at all edible. In the recent past, I tried to make a multigrain bread in my bread maker which failed to rise and became a focaccia-esque melting pile of dough. Still, I baked it and it tastes good soaking up soup.

Then, one day, I made bread.

Who can say what planets aligned, or what domestic deities were suddenly sated, that allowed me to make bread. I think it was mostly Time, that illusive of chaos lords, which we Waste and Spend and Lose and try to Save.  I had time one day – probably a Sunday. I woke up and for some reason realized that I had one packet of yeast left in the freezer. After my focaccia-failure, I thought for sure the yeast was to blame – it was old. But that bread had at least tasted ok, so I thought, “well, even if it doesn’t work out, I’ll still eat it.” I dug out the recipe for Daily Shaker Loaf, gathered my ingredients and cleared some counter space. Using Time, I allowed all the ingredients to come to room temperature.  I proofed the yeast (my mom told me later this is called “making a sponge”) , where I added the yeast, warm water, and sugar / honey in a plastic glass and allowed the beasties to start foaming away. I was a little nervous that I started my sponge too early, and that the foam would be spent by the time I added it to the flour, but for whatever reason, the gods were smiling.

I used half white, unbleached flour, and half whole wheat. I mixed everything together, but didn’t mix too hard, and only added enough flour to just get it to not stick to my fingers(I’m thinking the past some of my rock-hard experiences came from adding too much flour). I then started a kettle of water and, when it whistled, poured the hot water into a pan set in the oven to create what I hoped was a nice warm sauna-like atmosphere for my bread dough’s first rise.

It seemed to like that, the marshmallow-y pillow I punched down later lead me to believe.  I then had to knead it. Again, I tried not to add too much extra flour, and pretty much kept to 5 minutes of kneading. Then I let it rest. I didn’t have any Crisco to grease the pan, so I used butter, even though I know sometimes butter burns.  I then set the pan of water on the stove top and reheated the water. I put a wooden board on top of the board and set the newly panned loaves on the board to rise one more time.

This was the make or break moment. Either the loaves would puff up in the next hour, or I would have two very solid sleeping puppies to bake. I sprinkled some oatmeal on top and draped a cloth over them (remembering the time my loaves had risen, but they had been sticky and when I pulled the cloth away, it ripped the tops off my bread and <flump!> they collapsed).

They rose.

Ok, only a few more steps, a few more variables to get through. I preheated the oven. The cloth didn’t stick. I caaaaarefully opened the oven, pulled out a rack, and gently picked up the pan, setting it into place, and then sliding the rack back and shutting the oven door. I watched them get golden through the window in the door.

I may have taken them out just a bit early, but holy Cow! I was so freakin’ excited! Bread! Bread! Breeeeaaaddd!

Ok maybe it wasn’t that amazing, but I did post a photo of them to Facebook. I was somewhat stunned actually. I had made bread. Wow. It could be done.