Market research firm Nielsen reported sales of baking yeast surging by over 600% when the coronavirus cooped up most of America in March. It seemed like a good idea to pass the time. However, as I can attest, getting a loaf to rise can be frustratingly hit-or-miss. The Wall Street Journal described botched breads as “hockey pucks”—my words exactly when describing too-frequent failures with machine-made bread.

“We’ve all decided to bake bread, but a lot of us are ending up with hockey pucks.”

Annie Gasparro and James R. Hagerty, “We’re All Baking Bread Now (And Many of Us Are Failing at It)”, Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2020 (updated web post)

It turns out that multifactor design of experiments (DOE) provides an ideal way to troubleshoot baking problems. See in this show-and-tell* how I successfully applied DOE to rise above (pun intended) the hockey pucks. that provided.

All the best for your baking. We all need some levity nowadays, which can be accomplished with the proper leavening (dough!). Enjoy!

*Published by Quality Progress: “Augmented Ruggedness Testing To Prevent Failures”, Vol. 36, Nº 5, 2003, pp. 38-45, and posted by them for subscribers-only in this archival site.