I knew this morning's menu was going to be a toughie, so I got started on the dough for the Yeast Cinnamon Rolls last night:
Sliced Orange
Hard-cooked Egg
Yeast Cinnamon Roll (from stored dough)
Coffee
My 1945 recipe only measures yeast in cakes. Fortunately, the packets of "dry yeast" I purchased had a conversion formula printed on the back. 3 packets = 1 cake of yeast. I can't remember the last time I made any kind of raised dough, so my kitchen felt like a chemistry lab as I set to work softening the yeast in warm water and scalding milk in a pan. This was at about 6:00 yesterday evening. By 6:20, the dough had been kneaded and set in a covered bowl in a warm-ish spot to rise. Two hours later - nothing. The dough was still the same size it had been when I placed it in the bowl. My heart sinking, I checked my cookbook for tips - nothing there except the suggestion that I had probably killed the yeast. So I looked around online and luckily came across a website with step-by-step instructions - and photos - on making a raised bread dough. At the very bottom of the screen was just what I had been hoping to find:
"Bread Problem Solving
1. What if it doesn't rise?
Your liquid was most likely either too hot or too cold and you've killed the yeast. Don't despair, this bread can still be saved! Dissolve 1 tablespoon yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar in 1/2 cup very warm water (110°F). Mix in 1/2 cup all purpose flour. Let this mixture stand in a warm place for about 10 minutes. It will turn foamy and spongy. Beat this mixture into your un-risen dough then knead in enough flour to correct the consistency. Cover this dough and place it back in a warm place to rise. Proceed as normal."
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/index.php?option=com_resource&controller=article&article=19904&category_id=223&Itemid=&pagenum=1
Thank goodness. Whoever put this website together saved my dough! And this morning's breakfast. My "lab" looked like a hurricane had swept through it by the time I took the Cinnamon Rolls out of the oven at midnight, but at least I didn't have to throw away the ingredients. I can't imagine how a housewife during the war must have felt if her dough didn't rise - or "lighten," as the cookbook describes it. Throwing away rationed ingredients must have felt so unpatriotic. Then again, she'd probably have been working with yeast-raised dough since she was a teenager.
5 comments:
These are the dilemas I come up against, as well. Where I am attempting somthing, it goes a little haywire, and then think, "I would have been taught this at mother and grandmother's knee and reinforced in H.S. Home Ec and possibly went to 'junior college' with a degree in Home Ec. I think a WWII wife would NOT throw it away, but most likely have found some way to reuse it, or just plug her nose, be thankful for the calories and gulp it down with a cup of chicoree coffee (as she probably was down on coffee too) I love your site. It is really making me want to try some 1940s' things in my project. I am in 1955, but I got here thru the 40's.
i've found my coffee machine with the cup warmer is the best place to 'prove' the yeast... plus if you put the bowl of dough in a sink filled with hot water it keeps it at a pretty good temp to raise the dough...
good work though at rescuing them, were they tasty?
Meh. They're okay, but not worth six hours of my time. Part of the problem is definitely that the dough never rose completely. Even with the extra shot of yeast. And by the time I had cut them into cinnamon rolls, I didn't have the patience to let them sit for very long. Plus I was worried I would just fall asleep! After my initial scare, I was too worried about losing the dough completely to let it rest overnight - which was my initial plan.
50s gal, I think you're absolutely right. She would have reworked it into something else and eaten it - even if she had to eat it herself. It makes me realize though that a woman with a mean husband or a husband who kept her on a short budget, shall we say, would have been scared to let him find out about kitchen disasters. Making a mistake in the kitchen would be like making a mistake at work and having to hide it or 'fess up to the boss.
What a great site!
I generally just suck up the kitchen failure and eat them myself. It's like some weird penance I feel I have to do to make up for the mistake.
"There are starving children in Ethiopia who would be happy to have that," rings eternally in my ears. If my mother had only known! I still have trouble leaving the table without cleaning my plate.
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