Watch Your Dough Man!

Release me........

In my unending quest to promote home bread baking, I want to show you what happens if you forget that you have dough rising for a couple of extra hours. It's not ruined, it just gets big and climbs out of the bowl. Ooops. I punched this batch of dough down and put it in the pan for it's final rise and it turned out great. If you're running a bakery, consistency is really important, people want to buy a consistent product. If you're making bread at home, you can ignore a lot of what you read about baking bread. Too much water? It'll be fine. Too stiff? Probably be okay too. Too little yeast? Things will just take longer. Too much yeast? Things happen faster. First rise too short? Second rise will take care of it. First rise too long? Punch that sucker down and forget about it. It turns out that baking bread at home isn't as precise and demanding as all of those bread books will have to believe. All you need is some flour, water, salt and yeast (either tame or wild) and you're good. Everything else about bread can vary quite a lot and it'll still turn out fine. There's some sort of allegory for life and parenting here, but I'll be darned if I know what it is. There are lots of different routes to great bread, and great kids, and a great marriage, sometimes you've just got to give it a go and be happy with great results, even if they're not quite what you expected when you started.