Cooking with Active Yeast - FAIL

It's become a tradition that our small dinner group of women meets at Christi's for an Italian dinner and gift exchange one Saturday in December.  After a big carrot cake disaster a couple years ago that left me with only day-old Panera pastries to bring to the party, I decided to supply the bread and wine this year.  You know, like in the Bible.   

I consider myself a pretty functional cook, and wanted to set out to prove that the carrot cake incident was definitely isolated.  This seemed like a great opportunity to conquer my fear of cooking with active yeast, so I decided to tackle the "Melt in Your Mouth Yeast Rolls".  So yummy...if they turn out the way you want.

Marsh didn't have any Rapid Rise Fleischmann's yeast, so I went for the Take-Forever-To-Rise yeast.  Big mistake.

After almost 5 hours of setting on a warm cooktop (I kept my oven on pretty much all day just for those stupid rolls - what a waste of energy), the dough had definitely not doubled in size but it was time to go to the party.  I took a chance and baked them anyway...

Fluffy and light they were not.

I had considered jumping on the bandwagon and making the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls for my neighbors, but after this experience it may take me awhile to get back on the rolling pin again.  Good thing Marsh is on the way to Christi's!