The Bread Roll Blunder

OK, I can admit when I fail. I'd like to think I'm a pretty good cook. In fact, there was only one incident I could recall where something I made for the Lumberjack went horribly wrong before the Bread Roll Blunder. (I made some barbecue steak and onion quesadillas that burnt onto the pan because I didn't use enough butter. In my defense, I was using my mother-in-laws pans that are not Teflon. And, the Lumberjack ate them without hesitation.)

Last week, I decided it's finally time for me to try to make bread. It can't be that hard, right?

I overestimated the difficulty of making bread from scratch.

I started off with the ingredients and followed the directions to make Kitchen Aid Sixty-Minute Dinner Rolls.

Here are the ingredients:

1/2 cup low-fat milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons butter

3 packages of dry active yeast (This equals 6 3/4 teaspoons if you use yeast from a jar)

1 1/2 cups warm water (105F – 115F)

5– 6 cups all-purpose flour

And I followed the directions:

"In a small saucepan, stir milk, sugar, salt and butter together. Heat over low heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Cool until lukewarm.

Dissolve yeast in warm water in warmed mixer bowl. Add lukewarm milk mixture and 4 1/2 cups flour to yeast mixture, and using a dough hook, mix on low speed for about 1 minute. With the mixer still going, add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, and mix about 1 1/2 minutes, or until dough starts to clean the sides of the bowl. Knead on low speed for about 2 more minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic – the dough will still be slightly sticky to the touch.

Place dough in a greased bowl, turning it to grease the top. Cover the dough with a clean, dry dish towel, and let it rise in a warm place, free from draft, for about 15 minutes.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 24 equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball, and place in a greased muffin pan. Using kitchen shears or a pizza cutter (a knife will also work), cut each ball in half, then in quarters, and replace in the muffin pan. (Erin’s Note: Alternatively you can simply shape the dough into 24 balls and set them into a greased 9 by 13 baking dish. If you make the full recipe you will only be able to fit around 12 rolls in the baking dish at a time). Cover the muffin pan with the dish towel, and let the dough rise for about 15 minutes.

Bake at 425ºF for 12 minutes, or until the rolls are golden brown. Remove from pans immediately, and cool on wire racks."

But the recipe I used was copied from the original and missing two important sentences:

"1. Make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature before you start;

2. After you heat the milk/sugar/butter mixture, make sure that it's not hot, not cold, but LUKEWARM when you add it to the yeast mixture - forgetting or ignoring this step will result in bread that does not rise."

And that's exactly what happened. The rolls didn't rise at all. Instead of looking like this:

*Photo courtesy of The Bumbling Baker

I ended up with 30 rolls that were rock-hard dough balls cooked through. They only served one purpose: breaking windows. And, they were so horrible, I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of them.

Maybe I'll try making bread again sometime. But I may need some time to recover and prepare for the next bread challenge.