I practiced my beer cheese bread tonight. I think I have successfully made beer cheese bread approximately once, and never without help, because of my (formerly) gimpy arms. (Yay, pushups!)
Actually, I am not sure I have ever successfully made any yeast bread product without help. I am a terrible estimator, and that goes for temperatures as well as crowds, distances, etc.
I am serious now, though. I bought a candy thermometer. I read up on yeast on the internet. I proofed my yeast before I added it to the flour.
And the bread rose perfectly through the first rise. The only problem is that I can't bake it until tomorrow, but I want to bake it in the morning, so I have to put it in the fridge overnight.
I just checked on it. It's still rising in there.
Help?
...
I discovered, in the course of compiling bread, that the cupboard was full of ants. The almost-gone flour and the very-full sugar were, anyway.
It is very tedious getting ants out of sugar. Neither my roommate nor I have any sort of small sieve or sifter, so I had to take small bowlfuls and pour them slowly into a bigger bowl, stopping to remove ants when I saw one.
Fortunately, I also found, in the dough, the one that had made it into the yeast/water/sugar mixture. I thought I saw an ant in there, but I shook it off as just seeing bugs everywhere, which one does after living in the tropics for a while. This was before I discovered the depth of the infestation.
I realize that removing the ants from the dough, and from the sugar itself, makes me a bad missionary/ex-pat worker. I should have just left the ants and considered them protein.
The problem is that I only have white sugar for the purpose of baking, and I only bake when I am sharing with other people, and it doesn't really seem all that nice to offer anyone, on this continent or another, baked goods with ants baked in.
So I hand-sifted the sugar after putting it in the freezer long enough for the ants to die.
You can all thank me later.
Actually, I am not sure I have ever successfully made any yeast bread product without help. I am a terrible estimator, and that goes for temperatures as well as crowds, distances, etc.
I am serious now, though. I bought a candy thermometer. I read up on yeast on the internet. I proofed my yeast before I added it to the flour.
And the bread rose perfectly through the first rise. The only problem is that I can't bake it until tomorrow, but I want to bake it in the morning, so I have to put it in the fridge overnight.
I just checked on it. It's still rising in there.
Help?
...
I discovered, in the course of compiling bread, that the cupboard was full of ants. The almost-gone flour and the very-full sugar were, anyway.
It is very tedious getting ants out of sugar. Neither my roommate nor I have any sort of small sieve or sifter, so I had to take small bowlfuls and pour them slowly into a bigger bowl, stopping to remove ants when I saw one.
Fortunately, I also found, in the dough, the one that had made it into the yeast/water/sugar mixture. I thought I saw an ant in there, but I shook it off as just seeing bugs everywhere, which one does after living in the tropics for a while. This was before I discovered the depth of the infestation.
I realize that removing the ants from the dough, and from the sugar itself, makes me a bad missionary/ex-pat worker. I should have just left the ants and considered them protein.
The problem is that I only have white sugar for the purpose of baking, and I only bake when I am sharing with other people, and it doesn't really seem all that nice to offer anyone, on this continent or another, baked goods with ants baked in.
So I hand-sifted the sugar after putting it in the freezer long enough for the ants to die.
You can all thank me later.
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