Yeast Bread is for Lovers

If I was a pioneer, I would be dead. My children and oxen might have survived a river crossing in a caulked wagon, but they would have starved waiting for me to make bread.

The story:

After having some measure of success with muffins and cakes and cookies, I decided I was ready to tackle yeast bread. Monday morning dawned full of promise. I had a packet of yeast. I had what seemed to be a fairly simple recipe from last month's Vegetarian Times.

3/4 c. of honey (I'm not the kind of vegan that eschews honey; I don't like bees)
1 pkg. of yeast
1 stick of butter
2 tbs. of salt
6 cups of whole-wheat flour
1 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

More importantly, I had hope. Foolish hope :)

Failure #1: It is aparently too cold in my apartment to properly make bread. Though I mixed the yeast and honey with warm water, the mixture never foamed meaning the yeast never fully activated. It is best to bake bread in a warm kitchen (80-85 degrees). My apartment averages a balmy 55 most of the time. Money's too tight for heat.

Failure #2: In my excitement to begin kneading the dough (for me, the most attractive part of making yeast bread is the zen-like massaging of the dough), I forgot to add the butter and the salt. My error only dawned on me after the kneading, while I was waiting for the dough to rise. This made me quite sad. I was failing my first attempt at making bread! I would therefore never be able to make bread and thus must be lacking in some important female hardware or hardwiring.

Thankfully "them internets" was around to partly assuage those fears. Salt and butter are non-essential parts of the bread making process. They simply add flavor and shelf-life. I wasn't failing at bread-making; I was succeeding at making flavorless bread that would soon go rotten!

Failure #3: The dough never really rose. Again this was probably due to the low temperature of my apartment - though I did move the dough ball (and later the loaves) to the top of the dryer in the laundry room. I remember my mom and gramma making bread for Easter. A little ball at the bottom of a towel-covered tupper-ware popcorn bowl would rise and bulge into the towel. My dough, not so much.

Failure #4: Burnination! Despite the set-backs, I formed two little loaves and stuck the first in the oven, my mom's IM, "sometimes bread rises while it bakes" giving me a glimmer of hope. The recipe called for baking in an oven at 400 degrees for an hour. Because of my finicky oven, I bake everything at 350 no matter what. Even so, 40 minutes later, a burnt-brown, slightly smoking, un-risen loaf is my reward.

All was not lost though. The inside of the bread was actually quite good. A little bland but some vegan butter and a side of garbage-barley soup fixed that. The second loaf only baked for half an hour and turned out far better. Still dry and dense, but I expected that from my inactive yeast. At least the crust wasn't black.

So am I deterred by my 4:1 failure to success ratio? Hell no! If anything I am eager to try my hand at yeast bread again soon. My roommate says we should just buy a bread machine. I say bread machines are for people without a sense of adventure.