Dinner Rolls

Bread is something I was always hesitant to try making. I don't have experience with kneading dough, I don't own a bread maker, and I've only tried making something with yeast once -- and I don't think it went well.

Today I wanted to make a brioche. A fluffy, tall, and soft brioche. I saw a picture and it just looked soso good. The idea of making a nice brioche to enjoy with my morning coffee was the romantic part. The execution of it... not so much.

It all started to go wrong with the yeast. I had those pre-measured packets of dried yeast and figured that most standard recipes involving yeast would follow a 'standard' measurement (1 packet of yeast) but I was pretty wrong. I didn't realize this til I already started an attempt at multiplying the yeast. Notice the word attempt... yeah. I couldn't find my thermometer so I figured, hey.. how hard would it be to just guess what 100F would be? So I measured out some water, put my little packet of yeast in and waited. 5 minutes later, still nothing! I made a hot water bath for the original container that held my now, non-bubbling yeast with my not-warm-enough water. 5 minutes later, I see a hint of bubbling. I figured something was still wrong. At this point, most pictures indicate you should have a fluffy bunch of yeast bubbles beginning to climb up and try to escape your cup. That's when I realized I completely forgot to add sugar and was starving the poor things! I promptly added the sugar and the yeast started finally doing their thing (hallelujah!).

Now with my yeast multiplying, I figured I should bring out my other ingredients and begin prepping. Unfortunately, I found out at this point I only had 3 eggs. Brioche needed 6 eggs, plus one for wash. ....now what? At this point, I also realized I used too little yeast since the package came with 2 1/4 tsp and I needed 4 tsp. I panicked.

After a good 15 minutes or so, I was very luckily able to find a recipe for a bread that used exactly 2 1/4 tsp yeast and only needed 1 egg. But the fun doesn't end here.

In the middle of kneading my bread, I was thinking to myself, "Wow! This is so easy and not sticky like I remembered it to be! In fact, it seems a bit... dry." I had to look at the recipe again to find out that I, for some reason that I cannot even comprehend, read 1 cup of milk as 1/4 cup of milk. I panicked, again. I warmed up a 3/4 cup of milk and stood there thinking.. is it okay to put the milk in now? Would it ruin the dough? Should I just try baking this and see if it comes out okay?! In the end, I put in about 1/4 cup more of the milk and kneaded. It looked like pancake batter. It was watery and mushy and the dough wouldn't absorb the milk. I was about to give up... but decided, maybe if I knead a bit more... I kneaded for almost 20 minutes and somehow my dough ended up looking like dough! I proceeded as if I didn't do anything wrong and buttered my ball of dough, let it rise, and eventually baked it. This is the result of the panic inducing bread fiasco in my kitchen today, where a brioche turned into dinner rolls.

Ingredients
15 g sugar
2¼ teaspoons (1 pkg.) active dry yeast
¼ cup warm water
3/4 cup warm milk
1/2 stick melted butter
50 g sugar
1 egg (lightly beaten)
1 teaspoon salt
 560 cups flour

1 egg beaten with 1 tsp of water and a small pinch of salt -- for the egg wash.

Instruction

1. In a small bowl/cup, combine warm water, yeast and 15 grams of sugar and allow to multiply for 10 minutes.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine warm milk, melted butter, 50 g sugar, egg, salt and yeast mixture. Gently stir everything together.
3. Add 420g flour to the bowl and stir everything together with your hands and proceed to knead. Once solid enough to lift, take the dough out and knead on a lightly floured flat surface. Continue to knead for 10 minutes adding more flour if needed, until dough is shiny and no longer sticking to the sides. Use the ball of dough to get excess dough/flour from the sides of the mixing bowl.
4. Place the ball of dough back into the bowl. Grease the top of the dough with melted butter or olive oil in order to prevent dough from drying out. Cover with a damp cloth (make sure there is no water dripping out, wring the water til no more comes out) and set in a warm place to rise. I turned my oven to 350F for 2 minutes, turned off the oven, and placed it in the middle rack. Allow the bread to rest and rise for 60-90 minutes until about double in size.
5. Punch dough in the center and move to flat surface. Separate dough into approx. 24 even round balls and place on cookie sheet with parchment paper.
6. Whisk your egg, water, and salt mixture to create the egg wash and brush the tops of each ball.
7. Cover again with damp cloth and allow to rise again for approx. 30 minutes.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes in 350F oven.