June Daring Baker's Danish Braid - Preactivation Required.

Oh my great expectations. Ohhhhhh my great expectations. This was my inaugural baking experience with the Daring Bakers. It was one of the deciding factors in the purchase of my beautiful mixer.

This was to be my baking coming-out party.

If this had been a party, it would have warranted a tropical storm or avalanche theme :)

Here's the thing. As a baker and cupcaker, I rarely have to work with yeast. I'm more used to baking powder and baking soda. Still, I wasn't too worried, because one medium can't be that far from another...right? I mean, it's similar...right? I mean, shit yo, people have been working with yeast for hundreds of years...I can do this...right?

Wrong.

Saturday morning dawned grey with a low ceiling of clouds and a damp feel in the air. It wasn't great baking weather, but with the persistence of wet, cool weather in the area as of late, it didn't seem to make sense to wait for another day. I was so excited! I laid all of my ingredients out on the counter and began with great solemnity. I had read the instructions through three times. I had debated my ingredient choices with purpose. I had bought my mixer.

I knew it was meant to be a challenge, but I felt prepared. Like a student sitting an exam, I had studied and I was ready to write.

After following all of the directions, even waiting the full hour to patiently chill my dough, I turned it onto the counter and waited for the proofing time (the time you spend allowing the dough to rise before baking it). There it sat on the counter - it wasn't very pretty, but it was good, it was mine, and I was proud.

However, as I waited, I noticed something. Actually, I noticed a lack of something. My dough wasn't moving. There was not elegant rise. No puffing. Nothing danish-y at all. Just the same, poorly braided loaf.

I was confused. I called my Mother. We sat and stared. And sat and stared. This was worse than watching the grass grow, or paint dry. There was nothing. We sat. And stared.

Finally she asked me - hesitantly, cautiously - "Did you activate the yeast?"

I turned slowly away from the loaf and looked at her like she had two heads. "What do you mean?" I scoffed "I followed the whole recipe from start to finish. I swear I followed every single, instruction!" (I was rather offended, really, that she would suggest I had missed a step. I knew these instructions inside out). She asked to see this recipe, and as she looked at it, a look slowly crossed her face that merged sadness and pity. It was a pained look, and I felt my stomach sink like a stone.

"Maria," she said slowly, "when they say to add a tablespoon of yeast, you have to activate it".

Here's the thing. It turns out that in the world of baking, there are some things you are just supposed to know. A simple instruction like "don't forget to activate the yeast" wouldn't even cross their minds as a mandatory sentence to a group of good bakers. I mean, it turns out that to some it is common sense. To some, the idea of activating yeast, is second nature.

To the rest of us unlucky bakers, the yeast gene is not as strong. Some, like me, thought it came preactivated. I mean, like baking powder...or baking soda. They asked for a tablespoon so I poured one in there!

Heartbroken, I slammed it into the oven anyway. My mother slunk out of the room to verify her queries with an old friend, and bread baker. She confirmed that the yeast was indeed not preactivated, and also cautioned my mother that eating baked goods with unactivated yeast would result in nothing but sore stomachs.

When my flat, hard, danish left the oven...it went straight to the trash.

What a waste. Mom suggested I just take pictures and submit them and pretend it all went well, but I was not about to give up and I sure as shit wasn't going to pretend that my danish had been a success when I hadn't even had the chance to try it. As soon as the first danishes were out of the oven, I plugged in the mixer.

Determined. Maybe stupid, proud, and stubborn are also apt descriptors - but I'm going to just say "determined".

This time the ingredients were not laid out in an arc on the counter, they were grabbed from all corners of the kitchen. However, this time I activated the yeast. That includes mixing the yeast into some warm water and letting it double in size. Then the whole mess gets poured into the batter. Ta-da!

I also had used all my cardamom so I switched to some chai tea powder I have. It is a combination of cardamom, cinnamon, all spice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg...etc. and was a dreamy substitute.

As for my filling, the first time through I had filled the braid with Vanilla Custard (from a can) and Orange Marmalade (from a jar) to offset the spicy, orange-y seasoning in the braid (it was soooooooo good - it tasted like a warm orange creamsicle danish!). The second time through I also tried some blackberry syrup in one of the braids (also good, but the orange really was divine). Then I chilled them overnight (just to be safe) and greeted them Sunday morning.

Well when these puppies proofed, they proofed. They proofed so hard that they squeezed filling out of their edges. They proofed so hard they expanded right off the edges of the board. They proofed so hard that I was fearful of the yeast's potential and quickly shoved them into the oven - worried about their franken-danish properties I did not feel in control of!

But the smell. The heavenly aroma. They came out of the oven and I made an orange glaze (with orange extract, water, and icing sugar) with pecans and drizzled it over the top. It wasn't the beautiful braid I had seen in the instructions from the DB Kitchen. It wasn't elegant at all - but I had done it.

Now I have read a lot of people's rave reviews about the dough being flaky and light. I've read that it was beautiful even after beating the crap out of it.

So I don't know...maybe I jinxed it with my angst. Perhaps I'm still fending off some bad karma from resorting to a cake mix instead of baking from scratch a few weeks ago. Chances are I am jut a novice and such is life. But the braid wasn't really as lovely and flaky as I hoped it was. The best laid plans of mice and men, you know?

But I did it. And I seriously thank Kelly and Ben, this month's hosts, because without them I would never have tried a recipe like this. And frankly, although it will probably take another month's challenge to rouse the desire to work with yeast again, I'm glad to say I've done it. Check out Kelly's site or Ben's site for the recipe (should you be a Daring Baker in the making yourself) and don't miss the blogroll where some very talented bakers have done much more appealing braids than I.

You know what, forget this self-defacement. I made a Danish Braid. Lumps and all, it was mine. And although I might not yet be a great baker, I'm a daring baker - and that's a pretty darn good first step.