Lesson Learned

These rolls are a family staple and I've actually tried to make them before with mediocre success. I found about 10 versions of this recipe in my great-grandmother's collection, all entitled Agnes Young's Yeast Rolls.

I'm not sure if I choose poorly among the many versions, my yeast was old or it was simply user error - but this recipe was kind of a disaster.

Everything was going swimmingly at first. I melted my crisco, dissolved my yeast and added in sugar and flour. Thanks to a quick consult from my grandmother, I learned that I should let the dough rise overnight before trying to roll them out.

Well, the next day the dough had risen, but it was an impossible-to-work-with, gooey mess. I made the best of it, forming sticky balls and dropping them into melted crisco per my grandmother's instruction. About 10 rolls in, I realized the futility of this endeavor and threw the whole mess into a loaf pan and hoped for the best.

After letting the dough rise another two hours, which didn't improve its appearance any. I threw it into a 400º oven with very low expectations.

The loaf tasted great warm out of the over and was gone within the hour. But it wasn't anything like the rolls I was craving and expecting.

Lesson learned - many of these recipes are simple road maps. They haven't been tested and perfected in a professional kitchen. They are quick sketches that are going to require adjustment, advice and repeated trial in order to fill in those finer details. I should use them as guides rather than rule books.

I'm going to have make them more than once, learn from my mistakes and hopefully be a better cook in the end for all of my failures.