Dead yeast = chicken bread

Whew! That was some loaf of bread, or rather some two loaves of bread.

This week-end Carl set out to make bread, just as usual, but something went wrong. It just didn't rise like it was supposed to. He had some things to do outside, so he asked me to keep an eye on it and if it looked ready, to put it in the oven. I waited about an hour and decided it wasn't going to raise any higher, so started it baking.

I set the timer for 20 minutes, and when the time was up it still looked pasty white. So I set it for another ten minutes. Still white. Another 5 minutes... same thing, so I took it out of the oven.

Later I took the loaves up to my neighbor's chickens. Sure hope I didn't dent their beaks with it!

The trouble - our yeast was dead. We hadn't tested it because the package said it should still be good for another year, but it wasn't.

Before you waste flour and other ingredients, test your yeast. Start with the amount of warm water needed for your recipe. Add 1/2 to one teaspoon of sugar and mix it in. (Most recommend the water to be at 100 degrees.) Then add the yeast - if the mixture begins to bubble or foam within 10 minutes, the yeast is good and you can add the mixture to your recipe. If it doesn't, it's not. Get new yeast.

Bread baking can be a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of effort - and it's no fun to go to that effort only to be baking chicken food. (And really bad if you have no chickens nearby!)

Yours for good cooking,

Marte