Slightly Off the Grid

It’s raisin bread day. And I’m hopping around the kitchen with Pentatonix “Carol of the Bells” on repeat, trying to nail my part. The KitchenAid mixer is thumping bread dough in time to the music. Maywood Man joins in with the tenor part.

Oh how they pound, raising the sound.

Who knows what the bees are doing out in the yard. Inside we’re a-buzz–humming and oooing and ding-donging away.
Pretty much everyone I know would laugh to watch us. Not that we’re singing…but that we’re bopping.

I hope the bread turns out. Distracted baking results in disasters, like that time I accidentally hit the broil knob on the oven during the last ten minutes of baking and burnt a whole day’s worth of bread making.
My “MERRY CHRISTMAS! THERE’S YOUR BREAKFAST!” has gone down in family history as the best angry outburst I’ve ever terrorized the family with.

This time, though, I actually am trying to pay attention. Ding-donging aside, I’m noting all the little things that make for good bread…the little things that are not on the PDF of my handwritten recipe that I emailed my daughter. The little things that I’ve learned in the 40–gack!–years I’ve been using my grandmother’s recipe. The little things that my daughter might not know to do and will doom her entire Christmas morning to an epic fail.

I did tell her that perfect dough is warm and soft like a baby’s butt.
I did say to add the raisins before all the flour…they blend better that way.
I did say that the bread is done when you thump the bottom and it resounds like a drum and not like a thunking blob.

Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum. (Now it’s Little Drummer Boy on repeat.)

I didn’t tell her that the perfect temperature for dissolving yeast is when the water is just hot enough for her finger to stand it without burning.
I didn’t tell her how to knead it. Or to be sure to take her diamond ring off before doing so.

I told her the perfect place for the bread to rise was in an oven preheated to “warm.”
Did I tell her to turn the oven off?

For my sake, I hope her bread turns out lest I get blamed for failing to transmit the full recipe. As insurance though, I have an extra loaf rising just for her.
Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas!

post scriptum…insurance loaf to be delivered due to a case of 24 hour Bah-humbug attacking the 3 year old and preventing Mommy from attempting the bread.