My sister-in-law Heather makes this delicious homemade pizza. She gave me the recipe and it seemed super easy, and I felt pretty confident as I've watched her make it plenty of times before. I gave it my best go last night.
I filled the kettle and while the water was boiling, I measured out the salt, sugar and oil into the mixing bowl. I added in the two packets of yeast and once the water had boiled, I added 1 1/2 cups. Then I stirred it all together and set the timer for 10 minutes. Something about yeast needs to "activate". So I spent the 10 minutes smelling the wonderful smell of the yeast and watching the bowl carefully to see what would happen, just in case I could actually witness the activation process.
I didn't notice anything exciting happening, but the yeast did look interesting in the bowl, kind of like an opening scene of CSI or something. For lack of a better description, it looked like cellulose...
After the 10 minutes, I added the 5 cups of flour in until I had a nice, warm, delicious smelling ball of dough. I excitedly covered the bowl and left it to sit for an hour so the yeast could work its magic and the dough could rise.
An hour later, I ceremoniously whipped the towel off of the bowl of dough, only to see it looked excatly the same. Hadn't even risen 1/2 an inch.
Baffled, I called Heather.
Me: "I'm making pizza and I just took the towel off the dough and it doesn't look any different. Isn't it supposed to rise or something?"
Heather: "Yes..."
Me: "Well it looks exactly the same!"
Heather: "You probably killed the yeast."
Me: "WHAT?? You can kill yeast?!"
Heather (laughing): "Yes. I've done it before, it won't really effect the flavor of the dough, it will just be thinner."
Me: "HOW do you kill yeast?? I feel so bad! I didn't even know it was alive and now I've KILLED it!"
Heather: "Yes..."
Me: "Well it looks exactly the same!"
Heather: "You probably killed the yeast."
Me: "WHAT?? You can kill yeast?!"
Heather (laughing): "Yes. I've done it before, it won't really effect the flavor of the dough, it will just be thinner."
Me: "HOW do you kill yeast?? I feel so bad! I didn't even know it was alive and now I've KILLED it!"
Heather (still laughing): "You probably used water that was too hot."
Me: "I thought you boiled the kettle and used the boiling water?"
Heather (still laughing): "No! You definitely killed the yeast! I just use hot water from the tap, not BOILING water!"
Me: "Oh my gosh. I can't believe I killed two packets of that poor yeast. I didn't even know that was possible!"
Me: "I thought you boiled the kettle and used the boiling water?"
Heather (still laughing): "No! You definitely killed the yeast! I just use hot water from the tap, not BOILING water!"
Me: "Oh my gosh. I can't believe I killed two packets of that poor yeast. I didn't even know that was possible!"
I did still make the pizza, it did still taste great, but the next time I will be much more careful with the yeast. They should put a ***WARNING LIVE YEAST*** on the packet or something!
