Home Cooking Stories Part 13: What to do? Recovering from an unexpected major failure

Hello.
I am Mihoko Takakubo, a home cooking researcher specializing in proper shortcut methods and the magic of dashi.

It is October and the weather hasn't been consistent, and today is another disappointing day.
Let's hope for better next week!

Anyway, this week has been quite hectic.
While cooking and doing other things, even though I was doing everything as usual, I made a huge mistake that left me thinking, 'Oh no!'

Today's story is about how to recover from this kind of experience, which I'm sure everyone has had at least once.

The bread dough isn't rising... Could it be?!

It happened yesterday.

I was baking bread while doing administrative work at the request of my daughter, who is in the middle of exams.
The first batch baked successfully and we ate it for lunch, but since there was a request for more, I decided to bake another batch.

I hurriedly set the ingredients in the bread machine before a meeting after lunch, left the kneading to the machine as usual, and after it was kneaded, I moved the dough to a bowl to let it rise slowly...

But even after waiting two hours, it didn't rise as usual...
Hmm...

That's when I remembered.
I was so flustered that I forgot to add the yeast.

The blunders of a flustered person continue

Oh, what should I do!
For now, the kneaded dough—it would be a waste to throw it away!

Okay, I'll dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water and knead it in.
Then, I'll knead another batch of dough.

I must make sure not to forget the yeast this time.

Even though I thought that, I was so focused on kneading the dissolved yeast into the failed dough that I forgot the yeast again, even though I had told myself so firmly not to.

This time, I realized it halfway through, so I thought it might still be okay and tried adding the yeast directly to the bread machine, but I was so flustered that I added it without dissolving it first—an unbelievable, careless mistake.

...Oh, I've done it now...

I, who managed to forget the yeast for two batches of dough, did something unbelievable.
It's a careless mistake for which I cannot use the excuse that I was distracted by various meetings and negotiations.

I don't want to throw away the dough here.
If I knead in the dissolved yeast, will it rise properly?
More than that, what should I do about the dough with the undissolved dry yeast...

Now, here is the question.
How on earth did I recover these two batches of dough?

Taking advantage of the brain's tendency to move in only one direction to dig up the knowledge you need

What I did here was to take advantage of the way the brain's thinking moves in only one direction.

I wrote about this in detail in Home Cooking Stories Part 12, so please take a look.

I was given two challenges.

The recovery for the first one, the 'dough with dissolved yeast kneaded in' was...
I already know that bread made by kneading dough in a bread machine doesn't rise enough in the time specified in the manual's recipe.
That's why I always make sure to take my time and wait for it to ferment before baking.

Applying that, I moved the 'dough with dissolved yeast kneaded in' to a bowl, confirmed it had fermented at room temperature for about two hours, then put it in the refrigerator to ferment slowly overnight, and this morning, I shaped it and successfully baked it.

It rose properly! 😀

And for the second one, the 'dough where the dry yeast hadn't fully dissolved' was...
I remembered what a friend who is a pro at bread making had written on FB about 'high-hydration bread dough,' so I added water up to the limit where the dry yeast would dissolve and the dough would still be soft enough to shape, dissolved the dry yeast completely, let it ferment at room temperature, and although it was late at night, I successfully baked it.

I was so flustered that I forgot to take a picture of this one! 💦

In this way, the two problems caused by my own major failure were successfully cleared.
Here,the important thing is not to let your thinking stop with 'I can't do it' or 'What should I do?', but to move your brain by asking 'Can I do something about it?', 'Is there anything I know that I can apply?', or 'Isn't there something I can do based on my past experience?'

This isn't just about cooking.
You can always find a way to recover from other things as well by 'moving your thinking' in that way.
Sometimes you can do it on your own, and sometimes you may need to ask for someone's help.

But you can do it.
As long as you can properly organize information and connect it in your head, the problem will be cleared and the solution will become visible.

Thinking that such a way of thinking might be useful to others, I also talk about thinking methods in the method curriculum.

Once you understand the habits of how your brain works, you will also understand how to use it.
Because of that, your preconceptions about cooking and your problems will easily disappear or be cleared up.

The mechanism is exactly the same for everything! 😀

Look forward to the next Home Cooking Story.