The Dough Almost Rises

The Oregonian Food Section ran an article a few months ago that I found oddly intriguing. It was a recipe for and description of “no-knead” bread. While I read the first part of the story and accompanying recipe, I found it intriguing due to the memories it raised in me of baking with my mother.
From the time I could see over the counter, about five or six years of age, I helped my mom with the cooking and baking on most afternoons. This went on for six or seven years until she had to take a job outside of the house due to divorce. That was the last time I did any baking for over 30 years. But something about baking bread has always appealed to me. I think it has something to do with using my creative side, and being able to eat the result. This lingering urge to bake caused me to go to the store, buy a five pound bag of flour and a package of yeast. I was ready to bake.
I fully intended to read the entire article and measure everything carefully, but once I opened the bag of flour, assembled measuring cups and spoons, my inner urgings forced me to plunge ahead into the process. Nothing could be simpler, I thought. Measure 3 cups of flour, 2 ½ tsp. of salt and ¼ tsp of rapid rise yeast. Add 1 ½ cups of warm water, plus 2 tsp. and let rise for 12 to 18 hours. Without a moment’s hesitation, I got out the bread board and started in. I also noted that in my mind, what I had called a cutting board for 35 years, I now referred to as a bread board. It is odd how some things stay in your memory, unused for so many years, but it takes only a smell or sight or sound to bring it all back.
I sifted the dry ingredients into a bowl, added the water, mixed it well and set it aside for 18 hours. I then floured the board, opened the container and smelled the sweet and sour smell of rising yeast dough. I turned this out on the board and kneaded it a few times, covered it and let it sit for 15 minutes. Feeling the wet dough between my fingers and the way it firmed up when covered with flour brought back more memories of baking Christmas cookies, bread and donuts with my mom.
After the 15 minutes was up, I placed the dough in a floured kitchen towel and allowed it to rise for two hours. In the last ½ hour, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees with the baking pan inside. Finally, I baked the bread for ½ hour covered and 15 more minutes uncovered. This part of the process brought back memories of Thanksgivings past and the sweet rolls that we would bake for breakfast and the dinner rolls we prepared for later. These dinner rolls were far more satisfying than warmed up brown-n-serve rolls from the grocery.
Unfortunately, while these memories and emotions were welling up, the rest of my brain was riddled with doubt due to the fact that when I took the lid off, the bread had hardly raised during cooking. When it was cooled enough for slicing, the bread was a dense and flavorless mass. Something must have been wrong with the yeast.
This failure was greatly disappointing due to my increased anticipation. I had to find out what happened, so I read the entire article that I had been too eager to finish. It turns out that the food writer for The Oregonian had made the same mistake that I had. We had used regular yeast instead of rapid-rise yeast. Again memories of my mom adding yeast to warm water, or proofing it, came to my mind. Well, at least I was not alone in my mistake, although if I had bothered to read the entire article, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time. A valuable lesson was learned. Don’t just leap into something because you think you know what you are doing. Fortunately, there is a happy ending to this cautionary tale. Once the rapid-rise yeast was substituted, the bread turned out just as I had remembered from my childhood, thick, tasty and filling, or rather as fulfilling as I remembered.