I've just made a huge mistake.

Two actually, and they're almost as bad as burning yourself on the cornballer. I actually made them yesterday. Fish would call them both "rookie mistakes", and appropriately so.
I've been cooking long enough to know that there are a few important rules to observe. On that list are the following:

- If it ain't broke don't fix it.
- Don't try new ingredients in a recipe that you are taking for other people to eat.
- Stick to your gut, especially if you've got padding a plenty.
- Yeast dies 140 degrees Fahrenheit. If the internal temperature of your baked good exceeds that, your yeast is dead.

I violated each one of those rules on Sunday. We had a bread & jam linger too long (if you're on the activities committee) and I signed up to bring some bread. I've probably made 40+ of those artisan loaves now, and it's pretty much idiot proof. In the words of AK, "I pinch a pretty good loaf."

It started on Saturday with the soaker. Chels brought home a 50 lb. sack of flour from the local Buy 'N Large. I noticed that it said "bread flour, bleached & enriched." I vaguely recalled that Peter Reinhart, the bread equivalent of Alton Brown, shunned bread flour like the plague. I asked Chels if she remembered reading about it in the book, and she didn't. I should have gone with my gut. I knew it was off.

We made the soaker with the bread flour and the consistency of the dough was not quite there. The next day, I fired up the oven to 450F and let it rise. I noticed that the crust was getting pretty brown pretty early. I left it in a little longer than the crust suggested I should because I didn't think it was done. I was right. The crust browned too quickly and the innards were not done. Not a goopy mess, but not all the way cooked. Furthermore the texture did not have the right mouth feel or any tooth to it. The crust was not crunchy. Disaster, and I had to be at the church in 30 minutes; no where near enough time to whip up a new batch, allow it to ferment, rest, rise and bake.

I knew we had an extra bag of Rhodes rolls and some coconut cream kicking around so I decided to make some pani popo, a delectable Samoan sweet roll dripping with coconut goodness. I opted for the fast rise method, and when that wasn't moving fast enough, I turned the oven up from 200 to 375F. In my defense, I know a Samoan lady who does these with the dough still frozen and they turn out fine. I remembered Paia's recipe and tried it out. I must have not remembered correctly. While they tasted great (really how can you screw up coconut cream?) they were not fluffy. In fact, they were about the same size as they were when they came out (frozen) of the package. I didn't respect the fact that 'ol saccharomyces cerevisiae likes to live and breed like bunnies over a range of temperatures from about 70-140F.

Chels mocked me pretty good for the pani popo. It was deserved.