I'm back to baking bread more lately. After an almost 20 year break to stay at home full time, I started working again. While I am able to work on days that work around my schedule with what the kids have going on - I love to keep doing extra special things to let the kids and my hubs know how much they are loved - enter homemade bread!
Today I'm making my husband's favorite Sunflower Whole Wheat bread and I was reminded again about a new trick I've been using the last several months.
When I started making bread again, I made a couple of "dud" loaves. So, I thought it must be my yeast - how long does yeast last? When did I buy this yeast?? So I did an experiment. I put some yeast in luke warm (temp'd on my wrist) water and I put some other yeast in hot (warm to my pinky) water. The yeast that was in the hot water activated beautifully! The yeast in the luke warm water barely bubbled. So. I've been using hot water and since I made that small change - all my bread recipes have turned out wonderfully!
We also remodeled our kitchen last spring and my top oven has a "PROOF" setting - so I use that exclusively - I feel like that has made a difference too.
