Last night felt like Mom Training 101. I was up every hour for the first half of the night and I don't even have kids yet. Don't get me wrong, I welcome the day when I will have to stay up/be woken up for my baby in the middle of the night and get no sleep. But last night I was doing it for a silly loaf of bread, not for a precious child.
Anyways, Tuesday morning I woke up and realized we needed more bread. I decided to try out America's Test Kitchen's Whole Wheat Sandwich bread because I finally had all of the necessary ingredients and I wanted a change of pace from the bread I typically make. I have a really bad habit of not reading all of the instructions PRIOR to starting to cook; yesterday was no exception. As I started to read the recipe, I saw that I needed to create a sponge and let it sit for 8-24 hours. So I made it at 7:30am and planned to finish the recipe after I got home from coaching at 7pm that night. At 8pm I began to read the next step in the recipe, and to my horror, I realized that I needed 5 more hours to finish the bread. It needed to be kneaded, raise for 45 minutes, kneaded again, raise for another 45 minutes, divided and shaped into 2 loaves, raise for another hour, then baked for 50 minutes. This wouldn't have been a problem at all if it was 5 pm, or the fact that I needed to wake up at 5am the next morning. And it wasn't like I could just "pause" the process and go to sleep and finish the next day.
So the only thing I really could do was keep on pushing forward. I ran into a hurdle when I realized the recipe was for 2 loafs, and my Kitchen Aid wasn't big enough to mix the dough...so after constantly stopping and pushing the climbing dough back down into the bowl, I took it out and kneaded it by hand. After I let it start rising for the first period, I set my alarm clock and went to sleep. For the next few hours, my alarm was going off and I was getting up and changing the bread. At 1am I woke up to a wonderful aroma of fresh baked bread in my house. And when my real alarm went off at 5, I got up and sliced into the bread that had been cooling on my counter, spread a bit of fresh avocado on top, and bit into a little piece of heaven. Yep, all of that work was worth it! The crust was perfectly crusty and the inside was soft and moist--just like sandwich bread should be.
Luckily the bread was worth all of the lack of sleep I received. I will definitely be making it again, but next time I won't be doing it in the middle of the night.
And hopefully the child I will someday have to lose sleep over will be worth it too, though I don't doubt it at all. I'm just ready for the day the Lord blesses me with that challenge!!
Anyways, Tuesday morning I woke up and realized we needed more bread. I decided to try out America's Test Kitchen's Whole Wheat Sandwich bread because I finally had all of the necessary ingredients and I wanted a change of pace from the bread I typically make. I have a really bad habit of not reading all of the instructions PRIOR to starting to cook; yesterday was no exception. As I started to read the recipe, I saw that I needed to create a sponge and let it sit for 8-24 hours. So I made it at 7:30am and planned to finish the recipe after I got home from coaching at 7pm that night. At 8pm I began to read the next step in the recipe, and to my horror, I realized that I needed 5 more hours to finish the bread. It needed to be kneaded, raise for 45 minutes, kneaded again, raise for another 45 minutes, divided and shaped into 2 loaves, raise for another hour, then baked for 50 minutes. This wouldn't have been a problem at all if it was 5 pm, or the fact that I needed to wake up at 5am the next morning. And it wasn't like I could just "pause" the process and go to sleep and finish the next day.
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| It's so pretty!! Seriously tasted like fresh bakery bread...but I made it :) |

So the only thing I really could do was keep on pushing forward. I ran into a hurdle when I realized the recipe was for 2 loafs, and my Kitchen Aid wasn't big enough to mix the dough...so after constantly stopping and pushing the climbing dough back down into the bowl, I took it out and kneaded it by hand. After I let it start rising for the first period, I set my alarm clock and went to sleep. For the next few hours, my alarm was going off and I was getting up and changing the bread. At 1am I woke up to a wonderful aroma of fresh baked bread in my house. And when my real alarm went off at 5, I got up and sliced into the bread that had been cooling on my counter, spread a bit of fresh avocado on top, and bit into a little piece of heaven. Yep, all of that work was worth it! The crust was perfectly crusty and the inside was soft and moist--just like sandwich bread should be.
Luckily the bread was worth all of the lack of sleep I received. I will definitely be making it again, but next time I won't be doing it in the middle of the night.
And hopefully the child I will someday have to lose sleep over will be worth it too, though I don't doubt it at all. I'm just ready for the day the Lord blesses me with that challenge!!
haha that's hilarious.
ReplyDeleteMmmmmm, I can practically smell it!
ReplyDelete