Loafing Around

It seemed like everything went awry. Yesterday, I started to make dough for pretzels and pretzel dogs again, but interruptions and delays made a mess of it. All day, I would see the dough had risen, but only had time to knead it again and set it aside for later until I simply ran out of day and ambition altogether.

This morning, it had risen yet again to monstrous proportions, and just didn't feel right for rolling out into pretzels. I don't know whether I messed something up while mixing the dough, or the long wait time changed the dough too much. What to do? Throw it out and start over? Seems like a waste. It's just flour, water yeast, salt, and a dash of oil and brown sugar... that's still basically bread, right?

I kneaded it into a rough loaf shape, set it on a small stoneware pan, and sliced the top open to give it room to expand while baking. This isn't sourdough, although it was behaving more like that than a regular yeast dough by this point. I preheated the oven to 350°F (about 175°C), wiped the top of the loaf with olive oil, and baked it for 30 minutes. I tried tapping on the crust to see whether it sounded "hollow" and baked, and decided it was done.

Oh, boy, did the loaf expand. The snapshot doesn't do it justice. This was huge! Lesson learned: slice the top deep, as in half-way through, before baking.

I waited impatiently for the loaf to fully cool before slicing it for a taste. It also settled a bit as it cooled. It was... good? Yes! It tasted ever so slightly of sourdough, too! I would guess the life cycle of yeast for 24 hours imparted a bit of that flavor. It certainly wasn't off, and while the center seemed slightly under-baked, it isn't doughy.

I made a sandwich with the last leftovers from pulled pork I had made a couple nights ago, and decided to write a post about the good outcome from those misadventures to encourage you to just try stuff and see what happens. Roll with the punches when things don't go to plan. Improvise, adapt, and overcome!