May 31, 2007 - 9:41am
Rise, I say!!
I never thought I'd see the day when I would get excited about a lump of dough. I just finished kneading a basic recipe and now I have to wait a very long 90 minutes for it to rise before kneading it again. It's very warm and humid here today so I wonder if that will affect the rising time. Any thoughts? My wife is going to be very surprised when she gets home because I've been talking about doing this for months. Her first clue will be the fact that it will be very warm in the kitchen even though the air conditioning is going full blast. No, wait a minute. Her first clue will be when she opens the front door and the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread massages her olfactory nerves. Yeah, that's it.
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Hope your wife appreicated your efforts.
I have a neighbor who lives downwind from me and about 20 mins after bread goes in the oven, my phone rings. She wants to know what I am "making". Of course, I have to invite her over to get her share of my "goodies."
Old Camp Cook
I guess it'll depend on how good your air-conditioning is, I'm not being facetious. If you set your dough in a warm humid environment you can pretty safely assume, given healthy yeast, that it will be happy and buoyant, much more so than if it's chilly or downright cold. Your dough's performance will reflect primarily the temperature of its immediate surroundings, though I'd never swear that it doesn't peek out the window sometimes. Since this is your 'maiden' batch, I think whatever happens will be something to learn from-- your very first basis for comparison with whatever you bake in the future.
Thank you browndog. It almost seems that ending up with a nice loaf of bread is somewhat of an anti-climax so to speak. So far, I'm having fun just anticipating how it is going to turn out. I'm beginning to understand what my brother has mentioned to me in the past - it is the act of baking the bread (the journey) that is adventurous and exciting and not necessarily the end product (the destination) that is so satisfying. I'll keep you posted.