So the Daring Bakers put an end to May and the Opera cake, and as always there were a few days of anticipation for the upcoming challenge. What can it be? What will June hold? For those not in the know, the suspense between one month’s reveal and the next month’s challenge post is truly “Hitchcockian”. Finally, “the drumroll please”….
Courtesy of Kelly and Ben, Danish a ‘la laminated yeast dough…immediately my response was “Oh SHIT!!!!”. Ya see, I am an Italian with a mutant bread gene, unlike my fore “fathers and mothers” yeast does not flourish in my presence!!! Ciabatta, foccaccia and plain ole white bread are not items that roll out of my kitchen in abundance. Hell, I have been known to screw up those frozen, thaw, raise and bake bread doughs!!!! So kids…..I was SKEERED!!!
I read and reread…”what am I gonna do?”. Some more reading…..”laminating I can do, I’ve done puff in the past, this is the same”, all but the damn yeast, that is!!! Reread a final time…what are my options?
- Hit the lottery and hire a personal chef to do the deed!
- Claim employ by the CIA and that there is a covert mission I am involved in and that I must bow out of this month’s challenge.
- Bite the freakin’ bullet and tame the yeastie beastie!
I am still po’ and I am sure as hell not Maxwell Smart, so I guess it’s biting the bullet. So on with the show and what a three ring circus it was!!!
There was not much to think about with this challenge (aside from how to not kill yeast), fillings came quickly and I decided on no added creativity, make a braid and get it to rise!! End of story, NOT!!
So in my travels through DBerdom, I have met some really interesting, talented and downright funny folks. As luck would have it, a group of them were having a sunday morning chat/bakefest and they invited me along. Yeehaw, maybe I can get some yeast pointers. Well, the evening before I made my dough and did my turns, I figured I would have just the proofing and baking stages to deal with during our chat session and I could get some good tutoring. That morn, I awoke earlier than expected, so I took one step more off my list and rolled, cut, filled and braided my dough, all that much more time to absorb the wealth of knowledge coming my way.
9 am est, finally chat/bakefest time!!!!! The conference began and the greetings flew, a joke or two and then….here comes the knowledge!!!! Well, I learned alot that morn…especially that a party hat emoticon on Skype is actually very pornographic!! Now really, it wasn’t all bad and bawdy, just 95% of it was!!!
The remaining 5% of the time, however, I learned a couple very important things…
PATIENCE!!
BREAD MACHINE YEAST!!!
While I learned these 2 very important things and while the bawdiness was ensuing, my neatly braided dough SAT there!! More chat and more bawdiness and still my dough just SAT!! I was losing hope!! “No no no, all is well” were the many replies to my chagrin. An hour past the recommended proof time my dough was still sitting, proud as a peacock it SAT!!! Finally, to all I proclaimed, “my braid is rising slower than a 60 year old whose Viagra script ran out last week!”. Oh it was funny, flippin hilarious as a matter of fact! Still Mary, the voice of hope and all that is yeast, encouraged me to have patience and faith, it is as it should be. She actually got me thinking, all was well!!! So in the oven it went, 25 or so minutes later it emerged, neatly braided, slightly darker than I wanted (personally it is my thought that the yolks in the wash added this color, I tend to only use the white and a little water in my eggwash)but all in all it was very visually appealing. A little after noon I ended my session, I had grass to cut and a yard needing tending (BTW, Did I mention that it was 90 degrees and about 300% humidity at 9 am, so imagine the temp at high noon). After the yard was dealt with and I had cooled down, I went to check on my braid, it too had cooled. I drizzled it with a simple powdered sugar glaze and it was pretty, although something kept telling me things were amiss.
I sent out a “Thanks for Having me” email to all the morning chatters and hint of my suspicions that the braid had failed. Again, “no no no, all is well”, “we want pictures” and most of all “patience”. Finally, time to cut, uh huh it did raise a bit…it actually had a great taste but was much more dense than the flaky pastry I was anticipating. An end to the June Challenge, or so I thought….
Now, it is not as if I lost sleep at night over this but I kept thinking laminated dough is to be flaky and tender, I had dense! Tasty but DENSE!!! OK, so perhaps that is this particular dough, seems I wasn’t the only one in the group with similar results. The last straw was an email that went something like this, “am I always the oddball in the group, my danish was flaky”, so off to the kitchen I went. The only differences in batches were the weather on the first attempt (oppressive heat/humidity) and I didn’t add any additional flour to the 2nd batch (the first needed a bit more than called for), all else was the same. So once again I rolled, folded, chilled and so on and so on! And what did I get…….?
Two, beautiful, flaky, tender laminated yeast dough Danish Braids!!!!
So, lessons learned once again…
Bread Machine yeast- It’s pretty damned hard to kill. Although in my first batch of dough I used the active dry called for, even though I didn’t really kill it, I did manage to severely maim it.
Patience- Not only in waiting for a dough to rise but also patience in perhaps having to do it a few times more before one gets it correct.
And one thing I wasn’t told of that day but I certainly learned from it…When one gives guidance and encouragement it most definitely has the power to inspire another to overcome whatever it is that is before them.
Thanks Mary, I haven’t beaten the yeastie beastie but I got the lasso ’round its neck and I plan on reigning it in real soon!!!!
38 comments
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June 29, 2008 at 9:05 am
Zita
ha..ha… Congrat’s finally you conquered the “yeast” 🙂
June 29, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Laura Rebecca
You did a bea-u-ti-ful job! Isn’t it great that the DB challenges show us what we can *really* do?
June 29, 2008 at 12:16 pm
MyKitchenInHalfCups
Oh my yes John sometimes it does take more than once. There’s something about yeast (or is that Mary)? No it’s yeast.
I always love going from “no way” to “wow look at me now” and you took that over the top, your braid looks gorgeous!!! Can’t wait to bake with you again!!
June 29, 2008 at 12:28 pm
HoneyB
Congrats on taking the challenge! I just read your comment on my post and I was finally posting my challenge as you must have been reading my post about my grandmother!
I think your braids look great despite your beastie yeastie fears!
June 29, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Gina
I understand being skeered. I was too! Your braids look absolutely amazing and thanks for the compliment on my filling. 🙂
Gorgeous!!
June 29, 2008 at 2:05 pm
The Sour Dough » Blog Archive » The Daring Bakers Do Danish...
[…] resulting in a very delicious apricot preserve danish. Again the next day with Kelly, Ben, Sara, my yeast weedhopper John, Lis, and Chris (who just chatted with us) when the dough made a hugemungous raspberry cream cheese […]
June 29, 2008 at 2:09 pm
breadchick
Ah you killer of yeast you (KNOT!!!) I’m so glad you were able to get a nice looking danish there. And you said you couldn’t….. HAH!!!
June 29, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Lori
yeastie beastie ha ha- Well yah did just fine anyhow! Looks great!
June 29, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Joel
Darn yeast! I usually don’t have trouble with it. The week before we made this though, we were to have pizza for dinner. After three dead packets, We made a trip to the “Top of China” buffet instead.
June 29, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Em
OMG I’m LOL over here. Love your writing and congrats on lasso-ing the yeastie-beastie!
June 29, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Meryl
Yay! Way to conquer the yeast!
June 29, 2008 at 4:34 pm
BC
Maybe you do have a little Italian yeast gene after all.
June 29, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Ben
I am really frustrated that I missed that session (stupid Vista) but I am happy you learned from our talented friends. Those girls are like the greatest bakers ever and I love to chat/bake/laugh with them. Congratulations on your braid and thanks for baking with us 🙂
June 29, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Lorrie
wow, you did a great job!
June 29, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Clumbsy Cookie
You’re funny, I enjoyed reading your post and of course your braids look great!
June 29, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Fran Z
Hmm, mine didn’t rise greatly either. I will have to try again in the winter when the humidity isn’t so high. Great job!
June 29, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Anne Coleman
They look AWESOME! So much for ‘yeast-killer’ – you pulled it off beautifully.
June 29, 2008 at 7:23 pm
madcapCupcake
I was very afeared myself at the outset of this challenge 🙂 I loved reading your witty post…and the danish looks delicious!
June 29, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Ruth
Your braid is fantastic you totally conquered the yeast
June 29, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Jade
Awesome work! And way to conquer the “yestie beastie”. I was actually surprised at how not-scared I was this month because I’ve never dealt with yeast before. Sorry my post wasn’t there when you went to check…I was late…again.
June 29, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Leslie
That damn yeast! But your braid looks divine!
Thanks for stopping by my blog!!!
June 29, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Tiffany
Just wanted to thank you for the nice comment you left!!!!! And hey, I never knew you cold swap Bread Machine yeast for Active Dry….so thanks for the tip! See you next month….
June 29, 2008 at 10:06 pm
jasmine
tee hee…yeast maimer.
Glad you got to work with yeast–it’s not all that scary. Your braid looks good.
j
June 29, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Jade
I too promise to visit more. Less time ebaying…more time reading!
June 29, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Mary
Funny! Your braid looks fabu–unwarranted trepidation. Woohoo!
June 29, 2008 at 11:24 pm
SpeedbumpKitchen
Congratulations! The dough fairies were in your kitchen making magic…treat them right and maybe they’ll stay!
June 30, 2008 at 2:34 am
Tartelette
See….and you thought we would be a calm and collected proper bunch , ahahahah!!! The braids turned out gorgeous! You are the yeasty daddy now John! So, what’s next?!!
June 30, 2008 at 5:53 am
Aparna
So you finally tamed the beast (I mean yeast)! See, all you needed was to have patience and coax the yeast to do its bit.
Your braids do look pretty good.
July 1, 2008 at 6:58 am
pea & pear
Now that my first challenge is over I really understand that anticipation to find out what the next month holds. Your Danish looks perfectly divine.
You one, Yeast nil!!
Ali
July 1, 2008 at 10:32 am
Renee
Your braid looks fantastic. I, too, was worried about the yeast. I guess we just need to roll up our leaves and dig in. Nice post.
July 1, 2008 at 3:52 pm
shellyfish
Congrats on rocking the yeast! Your braids look so good!
July 1, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Judy (Judy's Gross Eats)
Glad that the second time was the charm. I just had a gut feeling that the yeast was unhappy with all the chilling — cold milk, cold this, cold that, chill, chill, chill. So, I used the instant yeast second time around, ’cause that stuff is potent. I hope I get my photos, but today’s braid was gorgeously flaky. Good luck for July!
July 2, 2008 at 1:42 am
Amelia
Great job on taming the fickle yeast beast! Your braids are gorgeous :D.
July 3, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Kevin
Your braids look great!
July 4, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Barbara
Looked like you did a good job at taming the yeast beast. The braid looks great!
July 4, 2008 at 8:40 pm
aprillins
sleeping bear oh sleeping bear..
aprillins
July 7, 2008 at 10:46 am
Jeni
I still get afraid of yeast .. lol – but you did an amazing job with this!
July 9, 2008 at 10:36 am
JennDZ_The LeftoverQueen
Well it turned out great! I think that is the best part of joining the DB – stepping outside your comfort zone and challenging yourself! I am glad you bit the bullet because it looks great!
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