Pesto Braided Bread: Where Is the Rise

It always confused me how it was possible for some food bloggers to take "step by step" photos of baking projects. My hands are always covered in a fine layer of grease or powdered stuff, making my constant swipes at my laptop to check the recipes, rather dangerous. Add a really fancy camera with tiny knobs and adjustments, I may as well dunk my camera into a bag of flour.

After my little adventure in attempting to overcome my fear of yeast and get rid of some left over arugula pesto, I've had to come to the straight up conclusion that these bloggers have someone taking pictures of them while they are working. I even have evidence-- in one picture, you can clearly see two hands being held aloft in the background of the perfectly braided raw dough. Unless you have Mrs. Weasley-like magical abilities, you-dear blogger-have a friend in yo kitchen. Since I don't have that sort of life-partner or whatever who will take pictures of me while I attempt to figure out how to braid sticky dough, you'll have to deal with subpar "final" pictures since my iPhone/super fancy camera cannot be sacrificed for a casual baking/rambling blog.



Now, in huge bold letters, let me just say, this is a work in progress. I have yet to attain satisfactory bread from yeast. So technically my fear of yeast continues, but in different ways. I'm no longer scared of killing it, but rather figuring out how to let it rise and attain optimal fluff in bread. I'm unfortunately a stickler for using at least some whole wheat flour in any bread recipes (thanks mom and your whole wheat banana bread), so that makes my life slightly more difficult.

an extra artsy shot just for kicks

It turns out that proofing yeast before adding it to the flour mixture reduces a lot of my initial anxieties about yeast. It gives you solid evidence that your yeast is in fact alive and bubbling, and honestly, it smells amazing and looks awesome. Yeast is actually not as unforgiving as I though it would be. I used the old house-wifey-stick-your-wrist-under-the-spout method of testing the water's warmth, and while I have no idea how warm a baby bottle should be, my yeast did not die. I guess that means I can keep a baby alive! Not.

I ended up trying two recipes for this, one from Baked By Rachel, and the other from A Bread A Day. Since I made both on different days that ended up being very different temperatures, I think that also played a role in the results I got.

Version: Baked By Rachel

Day 1: Baked By Rachel

• Cooler day. Not much sun. Bread had a strugglebus attempting to rise.
• Dough was too sticky and I failed to add more dough till the 2nd rise, which may or may not be kosher.
• Failed to understand what kneading meant. Ended up pulling and breaking the dough while kneading, which it turns out is a big no no.
• Sticky dough meant very serious struggles rolling and braiding bread.
• In the end, dense, but successful swirls!

Version: A Bread A Day

Day 2: A Bread A Day

• Warmer day. Lots of sun. SO MUCH RISE. But I left for ice cream towards the end of the 2nd rise, and apparently there is such thing as letting your dough rise for too long because when I came back, the dough looked sad. The final result out of the oven confirmed the sad dense state. 
• Dough was less sticky! Must easier to successfully knead, and it actually felt like the gluten was doing things!
• The braiding technique for this recipe was more complicated. Ended up pulling the dough quite a bit as I tried to braid, but it turned out OK.
• Overall rise slightly higher than yesterday, but still dense.
• Successful swirls. 

At the end of the day, as several bread baking websites and my roommate assured, bread, no matter how dense or off, is still bread, which makes it delicious.
Recipes from Baked By Rachel, and A Bread A Day

TL;DR

• Proofing yeast= SO MUCH FUN
• Making fluffy bread= still a struggle
• Read lots of bread making websites like, The Fresh Loaf
• Apparently dough can rise for too long, and then it makes you very sad.
• Bread is still delicious