Background:
The purpose of me cooking today was for a dinner that Scott's ASME is putting on. I'm supposed to be there at 6 with dinner rolls. The recipe I chose to do is Scott's mom's oatmeal dinner rolls which are delish. I've never made them before, but how hard are rolls? The key to making her rolls is that you need to make sure the oatmeal you cook is completely cool (so it doesn't kill the yeast).
Well I was totally confident at the start of the cooking. I did the oatmeal and took the bowl and set it outside our door. I did that because it is extremely colder outside than in my freezer. Well I had no problems with that, I brought the oatmeal in and it was really cold! Perfect.
I continue with doing my yeast, water, sugar, flour, and salt. I see a problem. My dough doesn't seem right. It's almost as though there is not enough water. So I call Shirley, Scott's sister. We talk about it and she mentions butter...well butter is on the ingredient list but never mentioned in the directions. No biggy. I soften some butter and put it in. It still doesn't seem right.
Problem solved...right? Wrong! I realized that when I did my oatmeal, my slightly dyslexic mind switched the "4" in "4 cups water" instead of doing 2 cups of oatmeal. So as I retrace my steps, my confused mind got worse when I was reading the directions on the oatmeal container. I had planned on doubling the recipe, so I converted the 8 cups of oatmeal. However I'm still special when it comes to reading recipes, and I did 7 cups cups of oatmeal.
WOW. So I tried recovering my mistake...ya, well, it would have been a lot easier if I hadn't already added my other ingredients. Long story short, I said screw it and started to multiply everything by 3.5 (that was my conversion rate that I had done...). It was going well until I realized how much flour I needed. Ready....at least 64 cups. Ya right. So I finished adding all my other ingredients and used another bowl and poured the majority of my concoction into another bowl. I then continued adding flour to the smaller portion and went until the consistency looked right.
As of right now my smaller portion is in the process of rising. I really don't think that I'm going to have them done by 6. The pictures I have here are of my bowl filled with most of the stuff, and the other is what I have rising. Updates coming with my results. I am officially special!
4:55 Update:
I might have saved myself...but man this is the worst I've done it when it comes to reading recipes. I went back into the kitchen to see if my smaller portion was even rising. It didn't look like it was progressing. However, the smaller bowl with the rest of it (pic above) was definitely rising, it was almost overflowing. So I had to go into saving mode. I switched the dough and liquid in the opposite bowl. With the big bowl now having the most of the disaster, I decided to try adding flour and see what would happen. I think I really helped it when I added wheat flour. But we shall see.
My dad needed to see the final product! This is what I brought to the dinner. They were delish, even though a tad doughy in the middle, but not bad from how it went.
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