Let it Rise

Before Jordan and I got married, I had an irrational fear of yeast.

My mom doesn't bake anything with yeast. She's an EXCELLENT homemaker (her pies are the best I've ever tasted), but she just never used yeast, so I figured yeast must be extremely tricky and scary, so I avoided it at all costs. If I found a recipe that had yeast in it, I'd find another one, no questions asked.

Well, things have changed thanks to my husband and his amazing family.

Jordan is NOT afraid of yeast. His amazing mom Laurie makes lots of delicious yeast-y things like breadsticks and rolls and the most amazing cinnimon rolls ever. This was a little intimidating, as I was a little concerned that I might not fit in with these yeast-wielding super bakers. The first yeast-filled thing I ever made (with lots of help, mind you) were the aforementioned cinnimon rolls. Laurie was very patient with me as I helped and I was quite proud of myself (and did you know that the best way to cut cinnimon rolls is with thread?! Wow. Life-changing).

Since then I've made lots and lots of breadsticks and cinnimon rolls all.by.myself. Although it took awhile--I made Jordan help with those for the first year of our marriage. I'm good with Laurie's tried-and-true recipes. But I'm still kind of terrified when I'm trying a new kind of bread. I made some bread bowls about a month back that didn't turn out great...

But I found this cheesy garlic pull-apart bread on Pinterest and I knew I had to give it a whirl.

Jordan's coming home RIGHT NOW (okay, in about four hours) and I called a few hours ago and told him about the bread.

Me: I found this delicious-looking bread on Pinterest and I want to make it for the Bachelor finale party...but I'm scared it won't turn out.

Him: So you're going to make it right now and have it ready when I get home?

Me: Um....yes.

And I did. And it is REALLY good.

First you mix up the dough and let it rise for a couple hours, then you break the dough into pieces and roll them in a butter-herb mixture and throw it into a bundt pan. Then you cover that in cheese (I subbed mozzerella for parmesan and it worked great). You do three layers.

Next time: more cheese

Then you let it rise for another half hour then it goes in the oven for 25 minutes. It comes out all pretty like this:

And then you flip it over so it's more like this:

Then you eat pieces of it so it looks like this:

And then you enjoy the deliciousness of it. I need to find some sort of garlic or ranch dipping sauce so I can bring that along to the Bachelor party along with some marinara sauce. Mmmmm.

Thank goodness I've gotten over my fear of yeast! Thanks Cline family for your help! :)