How to Make Bread Hockey Pucks

To go with my tzatziki, I thought I'd make bread hockey pucks. It's the newest thing in bread, you know. Those sandwich thins ain't got nothin' on these. I've had better success making homemade bread in recent times, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

 

Start by gathering all your ingredients.

Then add the warm water to the yeast. When it looks all foggy like this, you know it's woken up and is doing its thing.

Next, combine the flour, sugar, oil and yeast mixture. Be sure to use part whole wheat flour, even though the recipe does not call for it, since you know it will be fine and won't affect the texture at all. Also, use idiot's logic that having a baked good in the house that's all white flour is probably a directive from Satan himself.

Since you know that salt is a natural retardant for yeast, plan to add it after you dump the yeast/water mixture into the flour. Then forget to add the salt at all.

Stir until it all comes together, until it forms a misshapen (if I was going for a foodie description, I might call it "craggy") ball.

Then commence with the kneading. Usually, a fancy-pants Kitchenaid will do this for you with the dough hook, but if you're feeling especially ambitious as I was, hand knead your dough. It will take a lot of time, but if you're listening to music and working out your frustrations on the dough, it can be quite cathartic. Knead until it's smooth and no longer sticky. I went about 15 minutes, I would guess. 

Then cut the dough into halves and then into eight equal-ish pieces. Use this moment, while you're lovingly admiring your cute little dough balls, to realize that you forgot to add salt, noting the bread will now likely taste like newspaper paste. Curse silently. Or aloud, like someone* did.

Roll into balls. Place on a baking sheet, cover with a towel and let them rise.

They should double in size. Smile to yourself, thinking that, despite the salt mishap, you have succeeded with yeast again, bringing the total number of times to a grand total of three.

Press them down into discs (or "hockey pucks") and coat with olive oil. Add salt in an abysmal last-ditch effort to impart some flavor.

Bake until golden brown on top. They should puff up in the middle, creating a pocket. These will not. Instead, they'll stay flat and cracked on the top, and each weigh in at approximately three pounds. This is likely due to the errant whole wheat flour that some idiot knew wouldn't affect the texture at all.

Sigh. Note that your success with yeast has regressed back to two times.

But wait! Note the silver lining that your husband, bless his heart, will spread copious amounts of jam on these cute little hockey pucks as a snack, thus making them edible. He's quite the guy, that Cookie Monster.

And that, my friends, is how to make your own hockey pucks at home.

Captain Obvious says: These were supposed to be pita bread. The author just royally fucked them up.

*It was me. I cursed audibly. If you know me, this will not be a surprise.