Friday, March 14, 2008

A wondrous breaddy day


Rachael wanted bread that was not Italian, not crusty, not artisan, but was white, soft, and normal. I looked through the Bread Bible for white, soft, normal, and found a bread which the author said was “what Wonderbread, in its soul, always wanted to be” – white, soft, and normal. The rising time was supposed to be four hours, given that one started a sponge the evening before, but there was another thing one did with the sponge which took several hours, and I had not counted this into my program for the day. As usual, I got a late start, and I shortly realized that I had seriously miscalculated the time it would take to make this bread. Oh well! I hadn’t had my sainted aunt to dinner for quite a while, and so I invited her, and as I was measuring out the 341 grams of flour called for on my nice little kitchen scale (a gift from Ana), I realized that I should invite Ana as well. I was planning to make Eggs Benedict, and use the bread for the toast under the eggs, but it was quickly clear that this was not to be. Fortunately, I had English muffins, the more traditional Eggs Benedict base, so we had the bread for dessert, so to speak. And it was quite yummy – white, soft and normal. It was the softest bread I had ever made – rather a miracle of whiteness, softness and normalcy in fact.

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