More isn’t always more.
Early in the pandemic you couldn’t find yeast at the store…not anywhere. I forked over $20+ for some saf yeast from Amazon and about 3 weeks later found myself the proud owner of 1 pound (POUND) of yeast.
With all that extra pandemic time and plenty of flour, I set out to make frequent and varied bread. And bagels. And pizza dough.
Once I must’ve been partially zoned out because I interntionally doubled the recipe but haphazardly quadrupled the water on a pizza dough recipe.
More isn’t always more.
This was a bread machine recipe, and I own a high-end bread machine – a Christmas present from about 5 years ago. It’s a put-ingredients-in-pan-and-walk-away kind of breadmaker. But I checked its progress a bit later than usualy and found flour soup. None of the other ingredients were quadrupled, and the bread machine pan wouldn’t hold a quadrupled recipe anyway. What to do…
I am one of those people who uses the breadmaker quite a bit. Back in the late 90s everyone asked for one at wedding time, and I suspect many sat on counters or under shelves when the newness wore off. I use mine to make bagels and pizza crust in addition to bread. When I make bagels I run both the old machine and the new one for more yield for about the same amount of effort.
I would tell you I know what I’m doing here.
I added a lot of flour and pulled off a passing-grade pizza crust. Shaping even perfect dough takes practice and skill. These individual crusts looked like distored, drunk polygons. The family forgave me, knowing I’d do better next time, and, because, HEY, PIZZA!
We eventually used all of the yeast. At time of purchase, we put half in the freezer. When I bought my typical bread machine yeast jar in late 2021, it felt like victory. Like my grandmother would have been proud of me for all of that breadmaking. Even the botched pizza dough.