Rise, my Amish Bread Baby, RISE!

This is how I picture myself in the kitchen...creating a MONSTER!

I promise we will depart from this bread story arc soon, but it’s such a great source of mischief I can’t quit!

So when we last left the bread, it was a bowl-bound gelatinous blob, shut in the oven, attempting to rise. Picture Frankenstein’s monster taking its first teetering steps, with me yelling manically, “RISE! RIIIIIISE!!!!”

That was yesterday morning. I gave Amos all day to get himself together, to triumph over my unitentional recipe abuse and be all the bread he could be. I got home from Book Club arounnd 11, predictably saturated with wine, and lifted the cloth to check on his progress.

To quote an Easter hymn,  he had RISEN! Hooray! Then I took a closer look. And poked him gingerly. Still an inappropriately gooey blob. Just twice as big. Instead of a petite Amish Bread Dough Baby, Amos had morphed into Plus Size Fat Baby Dough/Batter…the consistency of…well, like nothing I have ever encountered before.

So my Chardonnay-soaked brain got to thinking…and my Kitchen Mischief Devil appeared on my shoulder with an opinion. “Why not just add a little flour? Couldn’t hurt. I mean, really…at this point, you’ve already forgotten the starter, beat it in innappropriately, and basically made a mockery of the art of baking. What harm’s a little flour going to do?” So of course I took his advice and began to work the flour in by the handful. With my HANDS. Thankfully David was watching Will & Grace, so no one had to witness the…well, mischief doesn’t do it justice…the Kitchen atrocity I was committing with that poor excuse for bread dough. It was tragically fantastic.

My drunken brawl with Amos finally ended when I wrenched him into two, stuffed him into two pans, and set him back in the oven to re-rise. I cleaned up the crime scene, went back to the den to finish Will & Grace, then went to bed. This morning, I peeked into oven to see if somehow the twins had managed to rise…and they had! A little. So I suppose I’ll actually bake them tonight, then we will taste and see just what kind of monster Bread Baby I have brought into the world.

I would like to say I’ll love him no matter what, but that’s not true. Unconditional love does not apply to food. 😉

Tags: Amish Friendship Bread, bread, bread mistakes, bread recipe, Frankenstein, sourdough bread