…or how I (sort
of) rescued my bread.
This is the story of a near disaster – not as disastrous as
the Titanic, but it did give me that sinking feeling. Here’s what happened…
… a
day like any day, I started after lunch and had two loaves of bread risen and ready
to bake. Earlier, I had put the loaves
in the oven to rise, and the display showed its usual 100° as it always
does when it starts out. Because 100° is just about the proper temperature for
rising I never noticed, when I did turn of the heat, that the temperature never
got any higher. It was a mild day, so the loaves rose nicely in their
draft-free spot.
Loaves risen and
out of the oven, I entered 450°, the starting temperature, and wandered off to
do something else while I waited.
Eventually I realized that the oven hadn’t beep…beep…beeped to let me
know it was up to temperature. Oh, swell
– the thing was on the blink. Now what?
Knowing that
yeast is forgiving, I dumped out the dough – it immediately deflated – and put
each in a bag and popped them into the freezer.
Then I called the repairman. Long
story short… and over $250.00 for a new igniter… two days later I was back in
business.
I had other
baked bread in the freezer, so when I did decide to bake up the frozen dough I
did it one loaf at a time. I took out
one loaf, kneaded it nicely, formed it into a boule, and baked it. It was excellent! It had even ‘aged’ a bit
and had just a hint of sourdough flavor.
I don’t think I want to go through all that again, but the outcome was
good on the first loaf.
The second loaf
was another story – and let this be a lesson and a reminder to any bread bakers
out there – because dummy me, having a Senior Moment, I just formed a loaf and
put it in a pan to rise. I never thought
to knead the loaf as I had the first one.
Yeast is forgiving, yes, but it needs to be kneaded (don’t we all?) in
order to recapture the gasses that were lost when it was deflated. The loaf baked up nice and brown, but it was
very, very dense. I cut it into
croutons, and they did taste fine, but they were a bit ‘chewy’, for want of a
better word, in a bowl of soup.
This saga rounds
out this National Bread Month of baking essays and recipes. I do hope you’ll try your hand at making
bread. These coming winter months will
be a great time to start. The initial ingredients don’t cost very much – much
less than for store-bought bread – and the taste of the final product, not to
mention the divine aroma as it’s baking, will be well worth the effort.
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| THIS IS THE FIRST LOAF - THE SECOND LOAF WASN'T WORTH A PHOTO! |
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