Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Rise and Shine

I woke up early this morning.  I lay there under Polly trying to decide what time it was...no clock near me.  I finally decided it must be nearing 6 a.m.  I had been dreaming of baking bread, perhaps a left over from that article about artesian bread that I mentioned a couple of days ago.

I decided I was thirsty and so got up to get a drink of water.   When I looked at the clock, it was about 3 a.m.

3 a.m.  

Naturally when you wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about baking bread there is only one logical thing to do:  you bake bread.

I figured that if I dumped everything in the bread maker I could set my alarm to get up in 2 hours to put it into a regular bread pan and we'd have fresh bread for breakfast.

I must say that yes, you can bake bread in a bread maker.   That's kind of why they call them bread makers.  but I have one of the older models that is tall and bake a square loaf and, call me fussy, but I like my bread to look like an old fashioned loaf of bread, so I have taken to using the bread maker to mix the dough and then I transfer it over to a regular bread pan.

It only took a few minutes to toss everything into the machine, set the timer on my cell phone and get into the recliner.  Getting back to sleep was more difficult.  I finally chose to watch the new PBS Sherlock Holmes and, as I figured it would, it put me right to sleep.  An hour later, the timer was beeping.

I got up and put the bread in the loaf pan and set it to rise and then 45 minutes later put it into the oven.

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By the time Walt was coming downstairs for breakfast, I had just taken the freshly baked bread out of the oven.

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I was so pleased that it turned out so well, because my last few attempts had been disastrous, which I finally realized it was because the yeast was old.   But this is brand new yeast and if you have fresh ingredients, it's amazing what a difference it makes.  It all worked out so well, I made garlic-cheese rolls to have with spaghetti for dinner (but they tasted too good and I had eaten two before I thought about taking a photo).

By mid afternoon my mid-night baking had caught up with me and I was really ready for a nap.  While I normally turn on an NCIS marathon and collapse in the recliner, the sun streaming into the livingroom and onto the dogs was looking mighty inviting, so I took back the couch and when the warm sun rays hit me, I turned into melted butter and just sank into that couch and slept for two hours.  When I woke up, Sheila was lying on the floor right next to me, Polly was on one chair and Lizzie on the other.   It looked like I had wandered into a canine sleep study.

But now I have home made bread for breakfast and leftover garlic-cheese rolls for dinner tomorrow night and it's time to refresh the yeast supply for the next time I get up at 3 a.m. and feel like making bread.

2 comments:

Harriet said...

That Sherlock episode was a long one, but I didn't fall asleep. I really enjoyed it.

smadronia said...

Few things are better than fresh baked bread. I have a wonderful book called Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a day, and it gives a lovely basic bread recipe for those round, chewy crust, dense loaves of bread. I used to make them all the time, but I've fallen out of the habit. I need to get back into it, my entire family loves fresh baked bread.