Yay For Frozen Bread Dough
A few weeks ago I lost my job. It has only been a short time, but already we are feeling the effects of losing that extra income and our ability to purchase food. So the thought of learning to bake and make more foods from scratch has really been on my mind. Specifically bread, which is a versatile household staple and pretty much a necessity when you have a toddler that lives off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Bread and I have a sorted history. I'm southern, so of course I grew up with biscuits as a staple in our home thanks to my father's skilled baking. He learned his biscuit making abilities from my grandmother, and I'm sure she learned it from her mother and so on. What I love most about the tradition is that it was not derived from a genetic lineage of culinary baking wizards, but from poor farmers who did things out of sheer necessity!
My grandmother, Irene Hicks, had 11 children. She and my grandfather both came from large families, and in order to feed so many people it was only practical to do biscuits since you can make a relatively large batch in a short amount of time. So aside from the store bought, pre-cut loaf, biscuits were my only exposure to fresh bread. I can eat biscuits with almost anything, and there is nothing on the planet better than my daddy's biscuits and gravy.
When my husband and I first married, being a new wife brought out the domestic goddess in me. I really started to embrace cooking and was determined to lavish my man with big southern meals. Especially biscuits and gravy. I had seen my father do it thousands of times, I had eaten it thousands of times, so how hard could it be? Well, we have been married for five years and I still have never been able to produce the biscuits/gravy that my father does and after countless failures just resorted to packaged gravy and frozen biscuits. Of course, my learning to make biscuits was not a necessity. My parents are not rich by any means, but their availability to food was better than their parents, as is mine.
I have attempted other scratch items before, such as the Parker House Roll. With the Joy of Cooking in one hand, and a flour sifter in the other, I took on what I thought would be the easiest recipe. I worked feverishly to make sure my measurements were spot on, and spent hours waiting for dough to rise, punching it down and letting it rise again until it was Parker House Roll perfection. I lovingly formed the dough into little rolls and lined my baking sheet with parchment paper. I had the oven set at just the right temperature. I picked up the tray to put them in the oven and thought, "Wow, these guys are pretty hefty for rolls I guess they will get lighter after they are baked.."
After staring at the finished product cooling on the table, and mentally retracing my steps as to what could have gone wrong, I decided to move them somewhere else when a roll indeed rolled off the pan and hit the floor. My husband then calls from the living room "Are you okay in there?" To which I answer, "Yeah, I just dropped a roll." Then I hear "That was a roll?" Looking back I could have covered for myself better and replied I had just dropped a baseball, a shoe or countless other hard hefty objects. Next time--if there is a next time--I will be better prepared. Shamefully, not even our two garbage disposals (also called dogs) would touch them.
So I took a vow right then that baking is just not my strong suit and listen to God's wisdom in that man does not live by bread alone. I don't like failure, but I'm also a bit lazy and don't have the time or patience to give to bread making that it needs. Not when I discovered I can buy frozen bread dough and can bake a loaf off, form it into bread sticks, bread bowls for soup/stews, or roll them in sugar and have cinnamon rolls, sweet bread, etc.
In fact, I will never again buy hamburger buns now that I can fashion them out of the premade dough. The taste difference is miles apart and the price is about the same. Yes there is more work involved in it, but it gives me the false sense of accomplishment that I desperately need at this point in my cooking/baking progression. I can also get the dough for a bit over a dollar a loaf and keep it in the freezer until needed.
There is a beauty, a purity and an art in making bread from scratch. Some of us have the knack, some of us don't. There will always be that pull in me to get into the kitchen and try baking bread again, and I really do want to bake fresh bread from scratch and have the satisfaction of saying "I did this." One day I will get there, but until then, viva la frozen bread dough!
Bread and I have a sorted history. I'm southern, so of course I grew up with biscuits as a staple in our home thanks to my father's skilled baking. He learned his biscuit making abilities from my grandmother, and I'm sure she learned it from her mother and so on. What I love most about the tradition is that it was not derived from a genetic lineage of culinary baking wizards, but from poor farmers who did things out of sheer necessity!
My grandmother, Irene Hicks, had 11 children. She and my grandfather both came from large families, and in order to feed so many people it was only practical to do biscuits since you can make a relatively large batch in a short amount of time. So aside from the store bought, pre-cut loaf, biscuits were my only exposure to fresh bread. I can eat biscuits with almost anything, and there is nothing on the planet better than my daddy's biscuits and gravy.
When my husband and I first married, being a new wife brought out the domestic goddess in me. I really started to embrace cooking and was determined to lavish my man with big southern meals. Especially biscuits and gravy. I had seen my father do it thousands of times, I had eaten it thousands of times, so how hard could it be? Well, we have been married for five years and I still have never been able to produce the biscuits/gravy that my father does and after countless failures just resorted to packaged gravy and frozen biscuits. Of course, my learning to make biscuits was not a necessity. My parents are not rich by any means, but their availability to food was better than their parents, as is mine.
I have attempted other scratch items before, such as the Parker House Roll. With the Joy of Cooking in one hand, and a flour sifter in the other, I took on what I thought would be the easiest recipe. I worked feverishly to make sure my measurements were spot on, and spent hours waiting for dough to rise, punching it down and letting it rise again until it was Parker House Roll perfection. I lovingly formed the dough into little rolls and lined my baking sheet with parchment paper. I had the oven set at just the right temperature. I picked up the tray to put them in the oven and thought, "Wow, these guys are pretty hefty for rolls I guess they will get lighter after they are baked.."
After staring at the finished product cooling on the table, and mentally retracing my steps as to what could have gone wrong, I decided to move them somewhere else when a roll indeed rolled off the pan and hit the floor. My husband then calls from the living room "Are you okay in there?" To which I answer, "Yeah, I just dropped a roll." Then I hear "That was a roll?" Looking back I could have covered for myself better and replied I had just dropped a baseball, a shoe or countless other hard hefty objects. Next time--if there is a next time--I will be better prepared. Shamefully, not even our two garbage disposals (also called dogs) would touch them.
So I took a vow right then that baking is just not my strong suit and listen to God's wisdom in that man does not live by bread alone. I don't like failure, but I'm also a bit lazy and don't have the time or patience to give to bread making that it needs. Not when I discovered I can buy frozen bread dough and can bake a loaf off, form it into bread sticks, bread bowls for soup/stews, or roll them in sugar and have cinnamon rolls, sweet bread, etc.
In fact, I will never again buy hamburger buns now that I can fashion them out of the premade dough. The taste difference is miles apart and the price is about the same. Yes there is more work involved in it, but it gives me the false sense of accomplishment that I desperately need at this point in my cooking/baking progression. I can also get the dough for a bit over a dollar a loaf and keep it in the freezer until needed.
There is a beauty, a purity and an art in making bread from scratch. Some of us have the knack, some of us don't. There will always be that pull in me to get into the kitchen and try baking bread again, and I really do want to bake fresh bread from scratch and have the satisfaction of saying "I did this." One day I will get there, but until then, viva la frozen bread dough!
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