Written on Monday, Posted on Wednesday(That's how tired I was)

Whew! Man am I tired. I did a lot this weekend and I am nowhere near done. Company coming on Thursday and there is STILL cleaning to be done. But this weekend was all about baking, some for me, some for others. Let’s see: on Saturday night there was corn bread and brownies to go with the catfish (and salad too, but that’s just rinsing). And then there were two kinds of scones (whole wheat with currants and almonds and sour cherry) and two loaves of challah bread for the parents for mother’s day/birthday gifts. I figure they already have everything they need but everyone can always use a little breakfast. And then there was reduced fat brioche for me for breakfast. It’s good but you can tell that it’s reduced fat. I just wasn’t prepared to put TWELVE TABLESPOONS of butter in anything. Man, that is A LOT of butter!

Making bread is one of those weird things that you just have to learn by doing. Most recipes tell you to “knead until it feels like an earlobe” (I’m not kidding, that’s actually how they describe it). So I end up standing there, feeling the bread with one hand and my ear with the other saying “well…I GUESS it feels the same.” But, once you actually hit that texture, you know it forever. I didn’t know it the first few times I made bread but one day I just kept kneading and BAM! the dough suddenly felt like…an earlobe. It’s kind of gross but now I know why the cookbooks describe it that way.

I really like making the breads but I swear that twenty minutes of kneading (two different loaves at 10 minutes each) is equal to a pretty serious upperbody workout. I’m gonna look like Popeye if I keep making the bread.