Making bread... Did I mess up?

Question

The direstions say this:

In a large bowl, mix warm water, yeast, and 1/3 cup honey. Add 5 cups white bread flour, and stir to combine. Let set for 30 minutes, or until big and bubbly.

I added the yeast to the warm water. I realized I ran out of honey so I went and got some and added it. By this time the yeast and water had been mixed for 10 minutes. I added the flour when Iadded the honey. Then 5 minutes later I realized that I had only added 2 c of water instead of 3, so I added the third cup.

Have I messed up? This is my first time making bread.

Answer 1

It will probably turn out okay. If at first you don't succeed....................

Answer 2

What Kind of bread is it?  Is it a kneaded dough?  Are you making a sponge for the bread?

Answer 3

First and foremost whenever your trying a new recipe read it, all the way though before you begin. Make a shopping list of  the ingredients you are missing and go and get then. Finally weight and measure all of the ingredients and place them into plastic containers.  That way as you begin to follow the recipe if you get flustered, you can't make a wrong measurement or second guess yourself.

Making bread is a far simplier thing than most people think.  Their anxiety comes from the fact that most of us do other forms of cooking much more often.  

The purpose of any sugar or honey (besides adding to the taste) is to quicken the process of the yeast. Similarly the warm water (in some recipes milk) also speeds up the proving process.  If I was you I would just keep practicing one bread recipe, until you  were happy with the result and branch out from there.

My professional guess is your bread should still double in size, it just may take longer because the honey wasn't starting the proving process sooner.  The yeast needs the sugar to feed on, likewise the salt in bread recipes is there for flavour and to stop the fermentation process.

Always remember you learn more from your mistakes than if you did it right first time.

Best of luck

Kevin