Raising the dough

Further to my adventures in baking, I decided that it’s time to stop squirreling around with little packets of yeast. During Amazon’s Prime Day extravaganza I blew $6.52 of my Whole Foods credit on a pound of instant yeast:

It’s what Alton Brown recommends, so I figured I should go with it. I tipped out some of it into a ziplock bag to go in the fridge. The rest I sealed up and stuck in the freezer. It should last a while.

Then I made Cinnamon Rolls 3.0, using a brioche dough. I have to say that I was a little scared about how runny the dough was—what with five eggs and half a pound of butter. Also, after the initial proofing, you leave it in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. I kept peeking just to check, and blow me if it wasn’t rising.

It’s really, really soft to work with, but this was the output:

A great leap forward from Cinnamon Rolls 2.0.

I was talking with a friend about this—about the sourdough, pizza and cinnamon rolls—and how I freeze the portioned balls of pizza dough and individual cinnamon rolls. And, of course, there’s starting to bit of a storage availability issue. She said, “[Bas Bleu]—I want you to call me if you start buying a chest freezer.”

You know—like an alcoholic staring at the bottle of 22-year-old whiskey.

She’ll run me through a reality check. If I can give cogent reasons for the chest freezer, okay.

Meanwhile, I’m going to tackle sourdough bread and actual brioche.