Ok Becky, I think I just fell in love. There is a brand-new Empire Red KitchenAid stand mixer sitting on my kitchen counter- after 5 years, I practically need to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. Oh, this isn't any regular stand mixer... I bought the 575-watt professional grade sucker that supposedly makes 13 pounds of mashed potatoes and 8 loaves of bread.
Speaking of bread- tried to make challah with my new baby this weekend and failed. The end result was dense and flat. After root causing, there could have been two issues: 1) over-rising the dough, or 2) pushing the dough at the last minute.
Possible Issue 1- Dough over-rose
The cause of my flat bread was not dead yeast... I've killed yeast before, which usually means it doesn't proof. Not only did the yeast proof, but the dough rose twice so much that it spilled out of the bowl. Upon shaping, the dough was warm, soft, and pliable. Yet when the bread rose after shaping- it expanded outward rather than up. So... maybe I let the dough rise too much the first two times, and the gluten broke down?
Possible Issue 2- Pushing dough
As mentioned above, my shaped challah expanded out rather than up. Meaning it expanded clear off the cookie sheet. Couldn't bake it like that, so gave a gentle nudge. Sadly, I think the nudge deflated the bread.
What do you think? I'm venturing to guess that a certain guy who is doomed to chew on pounds of deflated bread would be much appreciative of your opinion ;)
The Salted Lemon by Anna Fishman and Becky Ong is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
