Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

This Week's Bread: School Cafeteria Yeast Rolls (Third Try's the Charm)

I finally nailed down what I was getting wrong and it was a lot:

Scaling down to 15g carbs per roll was too small, and left me with yeast pebbles.

I've been activating my yeast in 95 degree water. That's great for some yeast, but I'm using Active Dry Yeast. I didn't realize there was a difference and that active dry yeast needed to be activated at 105 degrees. And boy did it activate. Hopefully this will translate to my constantly dense struan bread.

Finally, I let the dough rise in a warm oven each time and oh, boy, did it rise.

But finally, school cafeteria rolls like I remember!

# School Cafeteria Yeast Rolls

Plain Chicken
24 rolls

2.5 Tbsp yeast
0.75 cup warm water
6.5 cups bread flour
11.0 Tbsp instant non-fat dry milk powder
6.5 Tbsp sugar
1.0 Tbsp salt
6.5 Tbsp vegetable oil
1.25 cups water

1 - In a small bowl, combine yeast and warm water. Set aside.
2 - In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, combine flour, sugar, salt, and dry milk powder.
3 - Add vegetable oil and water. Mix on low for 3 minutes.
4 - Add yeast mixture and knead on medium speed for 8 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
5 - Loosely cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm spot until double in size, about 45 minutes.
6 - Punch dough down.
7 - Lightly spray a 9×13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
8 - Divide the dough into balls and place in the prepared baking dish.
9 - Loosely cover the dish and let the dough rise in a warm spot until double in size, about 30 minutes.
10 - Preheat oven to 400ºF.
11 - Bake rolls for 15 to 20 minutes.
12 - Brush baked rolls with melted butter and enjoy!

#thisweeksmeals #baking #cooking

@spottyfox - LoooOOnng LoooOOOnng MAaAAAaAAaaaaAAaaAaAn!

They're perfect. I did it! Another childhood fave recreated! 😃

@MsUppity - soon. Soon....

Thoughts Before Bed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_gwnFSFzv0

I THINK THIS IS IT, Y'ALL! The tops look perfectly brown, the sides are perfectly crumbly, and even the bottoms look perfectly toasted. We might have finally got the yeast rolls down!

I'm not even upset that I burned my fingers by grabbing the 190 degree glass sides of the pan with my bare fingers!

Oh. Oh my. They rose! THEY ROSE! We might have a winning set of yeast rolls, folks!

@filby @ami_angelwings - I do know that in earlier drafts, the character much more serious and spoke normally. There was still some slapstick, but it was toned down.

@ami_angelwings - I have a response to a fan theory with my own Fan Theory.

I'm a big believer trhat Jar Jar Binks had a far bigger role to play in the prequel trilogies, but that was scaled back after the backlash about his character. BUT..he wasn't a secret Sith Lord.

I believe Jar Jar had the role Senator Organa had through Episode 2 and 3.

I'm a big believer that Jar Jar was going to be a goofy character in Episode 1 (which he was...faaar too goofy), and in Episode 2 going to be the senator that gives Emergency Powers to Palpatine. He still does, in Episode 2, but I believe his part was cut far far far back. Imagine Jar Jar being the one who sees the Clones being sent off to war and banging his fist on the ship instead.

If you swap Episode 3's Organa with Jar Jar, you have a redemption arc for him. He's trying to help the Jedi during the massacre (and the cut "start of the rebellion" scenes in ROTS), and it makes a nice redemption. Organa would take Leia at the end, of course, not Jar Jar.

I think the backlash against Jar Jar was so harsh and so loud that Lucas cut his role down to the bare minimum in 2, and then just left him to two miniscule cameos in 3.

@Polychrome @socketwench - My Dirty Pair OVA crashed while compiling it. :(

My last three months:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14v0tMQuWeo&t=16s

A little something for Star Trek day.

During the heyday of Star Trek Fan Productions, I considered doing a webcomic called "Star Trek: Redskirts."

The idea was that there were an elite team of women Starfleet Marines (based from the team sent down in the TAS episode, The Lorelei Signal), who had absolutely nothing to do because Starfleet missions tend to be peaceful. Idle hands are the devil's playthings.

It would also explain Chekov's absence in TAS as he joined to the group to get a start on his security career which is where we see him in ST:TMP. No gender change for Chekov (at least not past the first episode), but he was in the red minidress because the Redskirts were proud of...well...their red skirts.

I'd started work on the first episode, and since it was going to be a love letter to TAS, I'd started work on making some high resolution plates of Filmation backgrounds to use in the comic. Then Paramount came down on Fan Productions and given that I remember how Paramount came down on Star Trekker in the 90s I kind of abandonned it.

It wasn't all for naught, though. I recycled some ideas in the Lower Decks spec script I wrote a year or two back. Which was at least something nice to do on a weekend.

A little secret about Madison (the blonde on the left). She was originally going to be written as trans. Not in the closet, but not really outting herself. Why? Doesn't really matter in the future. The only clues that she would be trans is a certain amusement at Chekov being self-conscious of the uniform on the team.