Dear Reader,
I am calling on you for help. Recently I have moved from Orem, Utah to Kansas City, Missouri. While life here has been good, there is one unsolved mystery that I'm currently trying to solve. Making bread is much more of a hassle than enjoyment. I loved baking loaves of bread, bread sticks, rolls, etc. But since my move to Missouri I can't make a good bread to save my life. I have researched the internet, tried to make some adjustments, and I can't figure it out. I'm hoping that you, my diligent readers, may have an insight to my ever-frustrating dilemma.
What is different?
1. My yeast will rise and amazingly rapid rates. While I'm used to waiting 5-10 minutes for yeast to be bubbly, I'm finding that after 2-3 minutes my yeast has almost turned into a soft pillow of bubbles.
2. The same thing happens when rising...its SUPER rising. I've never had dough rise this fast. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe this is a bad thing.
3. Then when I transfer my dough to the pan to cook in (say for example my bread sticks I attempted last night....I let rise the first time in a bowl, then transfer to a pan in the shape of bread sticks) for some reason its deflated so much that it doesn't fill the pan size that it would normally have filled if I were in Utah. Its as if the same recipe makes LESS in Missouri than Utah.
4. During the second rising time, it SUPER rises again (but in the case of the cinnamon rolls I made) since it didn't seem like there were ENOUGH cinnamon rolls, they seemed to grow out and almost a little melty on the bottom.
5. Then when cooking it looks nice but when out of the oven it flattens and denses and overall doesn't taste the same, not NEARLY as good. Just sort of...tolerably OK.
Could this be the fault of the over-excited yeast? Maybe the new kind of flour I'm using? Is it the altitude change? Is it temperature of the oven? Is it the amount of time I let it rise? Do I need to knead it extra or less? I may just give up making any kind of bread while here in misery...I mean, Missouri.
Hoping to find answers,
Misery in Missouri
7 years ago
3 comments:
That's so weird. I have no idea what to tell you. Does Eliza or anyone in your ward make bread? Maybe they know what to do. I think that means you need to come back here! :)
I am NOT the person to ask. It took me 2 years to master the art of bread making here in Utah, I'm going to say I have no clue how to make it out there in "misery." Good luck with that.
So, to have fun, I decided to research why yeast could possibly change behavior (school hasn't started for me yet, I really have nothing better to do right now) and came to a few conclusions. If you are using the EXACT same recipe, the different flour types could affect the yeast a lot still. Some flours produce more gluten, which traps the air bubbles from the yeast in better, causing the bread to rise. Difference in salt can also affect the rising (salt kills the yeast-sugar reaction). The temperature of your home can also make a difference (I tried to look up if humidity makes a difference, which I think it does, but I couldn't find a credible source on that), where the warmer your home, the more active the yeast will be.
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