Brick Biscuits

Tim has been dying to fry a turkey since last year, so he fried up a 16 pound bird for our Thanksgiving meal. Since he was preparing a bird, we had to have all of the fixings to go with it. Our families always made tons of food for Thanksgiving, and so this year's menu was no different. We cooked enough food to feed at least 10 people. I even made two pies (pumpkin and pecan). These didn't make the photo because they didn't fit on the table. The food was great--many of the recipes were my Grandmothers.

The only thing that doesn't seem to do well was the wheat bread. For whatever reason I can't get the yeast to rise like I think it should. I made another batch and made sure the water was exactly the right temperature before putting the yeast in, and it didn't rise much at all, so I put in another packet, and it rose, but only a bit. It took HOURS for the biscuits to rise! (even on a warm stove) It has happened with rapid rise and active yeast and I am starting to wonder if the yeast has changed since I was a child. I never had a problem having yeast rise before!

My mom mentioned that she has run into the same thing. (although the last time I checked, her wheat rolls didn't weigh about a pound) Luckily everything else that we made was delicious. Hopefully I'll figure out what is going on with the yeast, so I can make fluffy wheat biscuits instead of wheat bricks. :-)