I have been experimenting in the scary world of yeast baking. Baking has always seemed liked some kind of witch craft to me. Mostly because baking with yeast felt like shooting in the dark. Sometimes the bread or dough would rise, sometimes not. And after you had spent hours prepping and anticipating for some lovely baked goods only to discover that nothing had happened in the greased bowl under a tea towel, there would be some serious epic mourning. The joy of a baked goods didn’t seem worth the sorrow of non risen failure.

I started off slowly with some pizza dough (which I plan on sharing some seriously awesome recipes in the days to come) and then just the other day worked my way up to a loaf of cinnamon bread. Melt in your mouth amazing. David and I love cinnamon bread, but it’s store-bought processed version is expensive and  mostly dry, only good for toasting. This version however was crazy good by itself or toasted and slathered in butter. Which by the way you should count the times Ree says to slather stuff in butter in this recipe. Seriously, no surprise why I cannot seem to lose a pound of flesh these days.

There are three tips I have to baking with yeast, just to help avoid failure.

1) Use the yeast in the jar, not the packets. It’s just easier and you can measure out exactly what you need as opposed to figuring out the fractions of what’s in the packet and how many partial packets you need. Packets are really only more convenient for bread machine bread which you use the standard packet quantity. I love jarred yeast.

2) Proof the yeast. This was a huge revelation for me. Take the liquids in your recipe warm them up to the point of being really warm (not lukewarm), but not scalding. I typically stick my finger in it and it should not be painful. Then pour the yeast in the bowl and gently stir. Let that sit for 10 minutes. You should be able to see the yeast expanding and you should be able to smell it. This process, I’m convinced, has made my dough rise much more consistently.

3) Don’t work in a time crunch. Yeast can feel when you are rushed, and it doesn’t like being rushed. I only bake when I don’t have a time table. As in I can let something rise for four hours if I need to. Generally when I’m home on my lunch break, I’ll prep everything and set up the dough for the first rise. So basically I double the rise time. This seems to work, when I’m in a rush the yeast will resist me at every level.

4) Also like Ree in this recipe, I have to create  the conditions in my house to make it conducive to the rising process. I turn on my oven when I start baking and while the bread is rising I set it in a metal bowl on top of my warm oven covered in plastic wrap and a tea towel. I’ll then open the oven several times before I leave it just to jump-start the process. Basically I’m trying to achieve a warm place for the yeast to do it’s work, and my home (kept at frigid temps so says the husband) is not normally warm enough.

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