Wednesday Food: Conquering Yeast

After last week’s post I continued making cinnamon rolls and attempting to overcome my yeast anxiety until they’d bent to my will and produced satisfactorily risen dough.  Jms’s recipe was my most successful.  I came out of the cinnamon-sugar bender with a few lessons learned.  Then, I moved on to bread.  Pictured on the right is this fantastic no-knead bread, and on the left is this excellent low-fat banana loaf (no yeast required).  If you undertake baking with yeast make sure that you are wiser than I am and these points are already second nature.

• You can’t deprive yeast of their heat.  I live in a very cold apartment.  Leaving dough to rise in the kitchen when it’s 61ºF will not do.  Find a radiator to keep it company, or set the bowl of dough in a bain marie.
• Don’t compromise rise time.  When the recipe says “let the dough rise for __ hours,” they say it for a reason.
• Active Dry and Instant Yeast are quite different.  They are interchangeable but proofing, quantity, and rise time change.  Red Star calls it “Quick-rise” for Fleischmann’s it’s “RapidRise.”  These are the only products I’ve used so far, if anyone has thoughts on starters/ live/ wild cultures, please advise.
• The difference between all-purpose and bread flour is worth knowing.  It’s all about protein, and it means a lot to the little fermenting buggers.  It will also improve your gluten window.
• THIS is a gluten window.  And this generous person provides us with visuals.  Having proper elasticity has everything to do with resulting texture and density.
• Finally, never leave your dough unattended or at least unprotected when you have gluten-addicted felines.

And don’t forget you don’t always need yeast, but sometimes just a bottle of beer for bread baking.