Bread - Part 1

I spent 2 days reading about making bread. This morning I attempted to start the dough. It didn't go so well. I was following the Williams Sonoma recipe for Honey Whole Wheat Bread. The recipe said to warm the milk to 105 - 115 F. My milk was at 111. Perfect I thought. In went 2 envelopes of yeast. I set the timer for 5 minutes. The mixture should have started bubbling and foaming, notice I said should have. Mine did not. After almost 10 minutes with no bubbles or foam I gave up, threw the mixture into the sink and tried again. Maybe my milk was too warm? I stirred the yeast when I first put it in, maybe that's what went wrong. I checked the expiration on the yeast - October 2008. Huh? So I give it another try. 2 cups of milk and 2 more packages of yeast later - nuttin'. I was so mad. Went on line....one site says the yeast should be room temp. Well mine was in the fridge cause the package said store in the refrigerator! Great!

I got in the car and trekked my butt to Whole Foods. I bought a bottle of yeast. $7 for a little bottle of yeast. Geesh. I warm the milk, I put in 5 teaspoons of yeast and.....NOTHING! I went online and tried to troubleshoot what went wrong - again. Looks like I'm doing everything right. Saw a few sites that said I could put in some sugar to give the little yeast bastards something to eat. So in goes the sugar. 2 minutes later it is starting to look a little foamy. 3 minutes later it's foamy but there is still milk that looks like, well milk, in the bottom of the bowl. After another 3 minutes I decided that nothing was going to change and on to the mixer stand it went. In went eggs, salt, honey and flour. After 5 minutes in the mixer it looked like dough to me, smelled like dough too. Oh well, this will have to do. I have no idea how this will come out. I have a very bad feeling that I will be pulling 2 lead balloons outta the oven. It's resting comfortably in a big bowl now.