I’m caught up on Yakitate. The latest subtitled episode (35) presents the characters with a challenge- create a bread in under an hour. What’s that, you say? Make a quick bread? No dice. This has to be a yeast bread (well, they said it had to be “fermented,” which I’m guessing means yeast, not chemical leaveners). What could they make? I’ve been thinking about this. I really have no clue. Instant yeast means you can cut out the five to ten minutes of blooming. The “solar hands” thing cuts down on… I guess some of the rising time. (“Solar hands” and “solar gauntlets” never seemed to be a big advantage to me, personally. It seems particularly ill-suited for pastries in which the butter has to stay cold, like biscuits, scones, pie crusts, and croissants. [Although Suwabara negated that effect by plunging his hands into dry ice, the big weirdo.]) I wonder if using beer would be allowed. I mean, it’s natural yeast.

Here are a couple of relatively quick fermented breads found in Mediterranean Street Cooking, which I took out earlier from the library.

Ramadan Bread with Dates. It takes seventy minutes and uses active dry yeast. Take out the ten minutes of blooming, and you have a sixty minute bread. The description, however, says it “ends up more like a cookie than a bread,” which I guess would throw it out. Smaller seems better for this time limit though. Smaller things bake faster.

Moroccan Flat Bread. Prep time for the dough is fifteen minutes, and then they are shaped and filled. Cooking takes 6-8 minutes in a frying pan. That’s totally under an hour-able. Sadly, I think this also doesn’t work. Naan, tortillas, crepes… do these count as breads?

Argh! What is it?!