Excellent advice from Mr. Rockefeller. I put it to good use this morning while trying to work on that Cinnamon Raisin Bread I was baking up to appease the weather gods. Since we have around 3 inches of snow and more on the way, they obviously are aware of the mess I made of the whole process.
It all began with researching and planning the recipe last night while watching basketball with Pops, fielding text messages and phone calls and sipping an adult beverage. Possibly some errors in calculations or transcribing. It continued when I decided to get a jump on things early this morning and began to assemble the dough at 7 am, no coffee on board, Pops providing commentary and the thought of more snow on the way.
Let me start by telling you that dumping 4 1/2 teaspoons of active yeast into cold milk will not work. And when you take into account that there's no way a recipe for one loaf of bread would call for 4 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in the first place, it only compounds the problem. Unfortunately, that little gem of wisdom escaped me until I was brewing up the second batch of warm water and scalded milk and realized it only after adding the third teaspoon of yeast. At this point in time, I just stopped at 3 and figured I'd see what happened.
What happened was realizing while mixing the dough, I appeared to have something the consistency of that sticky glue stuff that holds labels on those disposable plastic storage containers in the local grocery. I stared at it, poked it, pondered it and read over my scribbles on my legal pad and finally came to the conclusion that in no world does 2 + 1 1/3 + 1/3 = 2 1/3. So a mere extra cup of flour.... why not.
At this point, I gave up trying to knead the bloody mess and tossed it in the bowl of my trusty Kitchenaid, Ruby, stuck the dough hook on and turned her loose. I then began to pour milk into the mess until it began to morph into something closer to dough, then more flour, then more milk, then just walked away and left it kneading for about 10 minutes while I began to slam cup after cup of coffee.
After the marathon kneading episode, I poked the dough again and it actually felt a little like bread dough should. So I decided to grease up a bowl throw it in there, cover it up and let it rise. If it would. Feeling much better about it at this point in time, I turned to head into my office and start the day and walked right by a lovely bowl of raisins. Raisins. In the bowl. Not in the dough. Whatever....as Pops is so fond of saying. I'll shove them in there later if it raises.
It raised. Again I'm somewhat amazed. I managed to shove, twist, push and knead some raisins into the dough. Roll it out, brush it with egg wash, throw sugar, cinnamon and chopped pecans on it. Rolled it up, let it raise and baked the sucker.
Looks like bread. Smells like bread. Feels like bread. So, does it taste like bread. Yea, it actually does. "Not bad at all, there, Lori," is the official word from Pops. Toast it up and slather it with butter and it's nearly palatable.
So is it the best thing I've ever baked. Not hardly. But it's not the worse thing either, by far.
And so in conclusion, dear readers, there will be no recipe tonight. I have no earthly idea what's in the beast. But I will be repeating the process using the correct recipe and technique in the very near future and will happily share it at that time.
This post is dedicated to my darling stepdaughter, Melissa. She is thoroughly convinced that I never completely screw anything up in the kitchen. Let this be a lesson that with enough determination and butter almost anything can be rescued.
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