I have only made yeast bread twice. The first time I was still a teenager and it was a disaster. The second time was maybe a year ago, and it just wasn’t worth the effort. I think my inexperience is the cause of my lackluster results so I figured I would try again. Again, this recipe came from Allrecipes.com. I followed it exactly. I don’t think I am cut out to be a bread maker. They were tasty, but not worth the effort. I found they tasted a bit like Bertucci’s rolls, but flatter.
Here is a picture from the Allrecipes website which enticed me to try making them (notice how round and shiny these are):
Here are my pathetic flat rolls:
I would welcome any tips on how to improve. I must be doing something wrong.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
- 1 Tb. active dry yeast
- 2 Tb. white sugar
- 2 Tb. vegetable oil
- 1 tsp. salt
- 4 c. bread flour
Directions
- In a large bowl, stir together warm water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
- To the yeast mixture, add the oil, salt, and 2 cups flour. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
- Deflate the dough, and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces, and form into round balls. Place on lightly greased baking sheets at least 2 inches apart. Cover the rolls with a damp cloth, and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
- Bake for 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.
I would say that it’s probably one of two things: you underproofed the dough, which can give you flat bread, or your yeast was bad.
What I would do is this: Put about 3.5 cups of flour into the bowl. Mix together the water, sugar, and yeast separately in a measuring cup. Make absolutely sure that it gets foamy on top. When you’re sure the yeast is good, mix everything but the salt into the flour and mix until you get a shaggy mass, then turn out onto a bread board, counter, or table that has been floured lightly with part of the remaining 1/2 cup flour and knead until you get a nice looking ball of dough. It’ll take a few minutes. Use the remaining flour as needed if the dough gets too sticky to work with. Put it back in the bowl, cover it, and give it 20-25 minutes to rest undisturbed. After the rest, pull it out, spread it out a little, and sprinkle on your salt. Knead the salt in. Should take, again, a few minutes. 7 or 8, perhaps. Then you’re ready for your rise.
I’d probably let it rise twice in the bowl, then form the rolls and let them rise again.
I wish I had a better camera right now. I’d do the recipe tomorrow and video the steps exactly as I do them. It took me a while to relearn how to do good bread. My great grandmother taught me, and she’s been gone now for 8 years. Almost 9.
Hang in there and try it again.
As a reply to what you posted on my blog.
It seems to me that it’s probably overproofed dough. How warm is your kitchen? This place stays pretty warm and I only have to proof for about 30 minutes before I get a good bit higher than the bread pan I use. With buns, I eyeball about double. Also, they look a bit under done. I tend to wait until I see good browning on the top before I take buns or bread out of the oven. I also use a thermometer. The bread I baked early this morning (very early) was left until the internal temperature reached 200 degrees. Another issue could be your oven. Do you have a thermometer in it? Was it reading at 400 degrees? That $5 item can save your butt. Go by that, not what your oven says.
I’ve found http://thefreshloaf.com invaluable as far as information goes on all kinds of breads. The real eye opening technique, though, came from a blog that I can’t remember. I was researching white bread recipes so that I’d have something to go on and came by a blog entry that detailed the technique I showed up there.
I’ll wash out my bread bowl and try the recipe tonight once I get everything ready. Just bought some new yeast and we can always use good rolls laying about. Mmm…rolls and heirloom tomatoes for breakfast.
Oh, and feel free to email me about it as well. I am, at this moment, doing the recipe and taking photos (using my ancient Minolta SLR so that they’re actually GOOD instead of crappy phone cam photos) and I’ll post on my blog tomorrow the exact way I did things.
[...] was pondering the problem mentioned here last night while trying to sleep and I’ve come up with a few other things that may fit the [...]