Keeping It Real

If any of you still believe I am perfect, here's a dose of reality. ;-)

True, funny story:

Yesterday afternoon I started my bread dough so it could soak overnight. This morning all I had to do was add the final few ingredients, mix it and let it rise.

So I got up this morning and in between sorting and starting laundry and cooking breakfast, I got the bread dough going.

First, I needed to "proof" the yeast which is mixing it with water and a little sweetener and letting it set for 5 minutes while it bubbles.

Meanwhile, I busied myself (like I always do) with adding the other ingredients to the soaked mixture: salt and gluten.

The bread recipe I use calls for 2-4 tablespoons of gluten and for whatever reason, I simply could not remember how much I usually use. So I thought that I would put 3 1/2 in for good measure.

Well, that would have been fine....

Except after I put the large amount of "gluten" in, I looked over and saw the box of gluten still sitting quietly waiting for its turn.

I had just added 3 and 1/2 more tablespoons of yeast to the dough.

Too little yeast and your bread doesn't rise properly. Too much and your bread tastes and smells extra yeasty and it rises too much too quickly.

I hadn't added the yeast/water mixture yet so the soaked mixture was quite clumpy and non-liquidy, which was a good thing, since the first thing I thought to do was to turn the mixing bowl of dough upside down over the sink and dump the excess yeast out.

A lot came out.

A lot was still in the bowl, stuck on the dough.

I wasn't sure what to do. Should I redo the yeast mixture and try to recalculate the yeast amount accordingly? Would that work? Or should I dump the whole thing out and start over?

In the end, I didn't change anything but added the yeast mixture just like I had planned originally and hoped for the best.

I did add a bit more flour and water hoping that it would even itself out.

The bread dough rose faster than it ever has before. :-) It baked up beautifully. The texture is different but my husband reports that it tastes ok.

So glad!