A First: Baking With Yeast

This past year or so has been a huge year of “firsts” for me. Some have been bizarre, some have been average. One of the most recent has been within the past week.

I’ve been into baking & cooking for quite some time. At times, I bake so frequently that I memorize the ingredients & way to properly bake a recipe. Cooking is something I’ve done quite a bit of, yet in this same past year I’ve done even more of it, & plenty has been “for the first time”. Examples are cooking soup from scratch & cooking in a stock pot an entire chicken, which I’ve also made two of in one day.

Something I’ve always found myself backing away from cooking with is yeast. Every time I’ve come across a recipe which calls for yeast, I have basically passed it on by. I’ve also always wanted to learn to make my own pizza from scratch. I’ve further known that learning to make pizza from scratch would require my learning to work with yeast.

I’ve now done so, & I’ve also done it on. my. own. I’m so excited & so proud.

I learned how to work with this kind of yeast (link to Amazon as well as the image link in the top left) originally back at the beginning of the year, in January when a buddy, who’s learned to make several items from scratch, at my request, took the time to walk me through how to work with the yeast, the proper amounts to use (& the flexibilities that exist within the amounts that are used), & the necessary techniques such as with proper kneading.

Knowing it was important to me to retain all of what I learned that day in mid-January, I’d planned to make the pizza again, very soon afterward, yet things just kept on coming up & my intimidations greatly pressed on my psyche, & well, it never happened again until just a few days ago where I got myself to revisit it again; this time on. my. own.

Fortunately, I also happen to own a pizza stone (like this one on Amazon), which made the actual pizza production all that much simpler.

After the dough’s in place on the pizza stone, this pizza was topped with a thin layer of ricotta cheese followed by a sprinkling of arugula pieces & diced cremini  mushroom heads, one (or if those who’ll be enjoying the pizza are ambitious, two) fresh minced garlic cloves, diced dried tomato pieces all topped by fresh mozzarella balls, pressed open into a splatter.

I’d really thought that the yeast wouldn’t form with the flour & the process correctly. I really thought that the dough wouldn’t bake properly in the oven, &, even after putting this all together that I’d cut the slices, bite in, & encounter pure disappointment. As if attempting to eat cardboard or something. This definitely didn’t happen.

Gee whiz, I became a yeast using success story!