OHMYGOD - Where's The Flaccid Sea Creature??

Kids! I don't know what the hell has possessed me, but I've baked. And not for a Daring Baker's challenge, either. I baked on my own. WTF? Here's what I'm thinking.. ya'll should run out and buy lots of bottled water, saltine crackers, canned goods and toilet paper (never be without toilet paper!!). Dig yourself an underground shelter in the back yard and prepare yourself for some kind of natural disaster. I don’t bake unless it’s a DB challenge! Something bad is surely going to happen! And bread! Lord almighty I NEVER bake bread on a whim or on my own - NEVER. This disaster is going to be a doozy – I’m tellin’ yas! Wait.. don’t go getting all panic stricken just yet. I still have my usually long ass story to tell. Come back. Sit down. Join me in a glass (or twelve) of your favorite alcoholic beverage.. believe me, it’ll calm those shaking hands. Or is it just my hands that are shaking? Whatev. Anyhoo, something made me finally bake THIS RECIPE again. Go look. Because if you don't go look you won't understand what a wonderment this baking adventure was. Seriously. GO. LOOK. Did I lie? Is that not the most frightening things you've ever seen? It's like science fiction and pornography combined. And I ate those bad boys. All 4 of them. In like a week. If even. It was the best damn cheesy bread I've ever had and at that juncture in my life I didn't think anything could be as good as Panera's Asiago bread. But those 4 cheesy baked monstrosities were phenomenal. I kept saying that I would make them again.. but baking is sooooooooo fakking stressful for me. The Baking Gods hate my ever-livin guts. They laugh at me at every occasion. They mock me at the drop of a hat. They sneer and point at me while whispering behind my back. I don't know what the fakk I ever did to piss them off, but I obviously did. And now, what? 2 years later? Something possesses me to make them again. I made the starter last Thursday night. I was unsure how far ahead you can make a starter, so I enlisted the advice of my bread baking guru, Mary. She told me I can make it a few days ahead, which eased some pressure as I knew I wanted to make it this weekend, but was unsure of the exact day. HAR! Yeah.. in other words - how long could I procrastinate before my started died and I chickened out? Gah. Well.. come to find out the Baking Gods were watching - AS PER FUCKING USUAL. You see, the recipe calls for instant yeast. I didn't even comprehend that.. I used active yeast. So after 15+ hours (I had to work on Friday), it hadn't gotten very bubbly and pretty much looked just like a wad of dough. Not good. So I got on the King Arthur website and with an expert. It was immediately pointed out that I used the wrong yeast. Duh. I thanked her and then realized… Baking Gods – 1 / Lisa – BIGFATFUCKINGZERO. I didn't have instant yeast, so I sweet talked my beloved Hubbs into running out to get me some. Bless his cotton socks. Soon I had the correct yeast and more bread flour. I started again - this time around 6 a.m. Saturday morning. I figured it’d be good to go around 2ish that afternoon, then I’d make the dough and allow it to rise until Sunday morning. Way longer than what’s called for, but I’ve read that if you let your dough rise for a long time, the better the flavor of the bread.. and hell, any excuse to actually put off baking it. Yeah, the memory of the smoke detector going off and black billowy smoke spewing from my oven the last time I made this bread was pretty damn strong. Well my powers of procrastination are pretty damn.. uhmm.. powerful. I managed to conveniently “forget” the starter on Saturday afternoon. And Saturday night. On Sunday morning I remembered it and said to myself, “Hey dipshit, you need to make the bread today.” And then I blocked it out again. I had plans with my girlie friends to go shopping at Trader Joe’s.. and I’ve been out of Tejava tea for a month. Nectar of the (non-baking) Gods, I tell ya! So my mind was conveniently “elsewhere”. :P When I got home Sunday afternoon, I put away the groceries, poured myself a big glass of tea and got the flour out. I was going to make the dough! Go me! Making the dough took roughly 5 minutes. Mmmm hmm… 5 whole fakking minutes of my time. A spare 5 minutes that I just couldn’t seem to find all day Saturday and most of Sunday. You see this is how my mind works. And believe me, I know I ain’t right. Knowing full well how delicious the bread would end up, I still did everything I could to drag my big fat feet in making it. It’s like I’m a glutton for my own punishment. What. The. Freeg? Before I went to bed Sunday night, I punched the dough down because obviously I wasn’t going to make the bread. Today was a rare morning.. I actually woke up after my husband. That happens maybe twice a year? And I’m usually sick.. but whatev, I woke up later and the first thing out of his mouth wasn’t the usual grumble-speak “mrn’ng” or even “is the princess FINALLY up?” it was, “My goodness, doesn’t that freshly baked bread smell delicious?” What an ass. This was his way of telling me that the dough had been sitting out far too long and if I was going to bake bread then I better shit or get off the pot. Visual there.. sorry. Moving along.. A lovely collage of basically the same photo of the mini loaves/buns.. *slurp* I finally made my bread today. FOUR days after making the first batch of starter. FOUR. I had made two batches of dough so that I could make the mini “loaves” and a couple regular sized loaves. This time I cut the mini loaves much thinner.. and they came out more like bun size, which was perfect. Smaller means that the insides can’t rise out from the base reminiscent of the alien bursting out of that guy’s chest. I didn’t make flaccid geoduck/penis this time. They turned out bakery beautiful! I was AMAZED. I know today is a holiday for us in the US, but uhmm.. is this also a holiday for the Baking Gods? Or did I just take so damn long that I fooled them into believing that I’d never actually bake the dough?? Either way.. it all turned out great! Even the regular sized loaves, which I was unsure of because I hadn’t attempted that last time. Today is a day to mark on the books. Today I BEAT THE SHITE out of the Baking Gods. Today I made myself proud. Today something horrible is going to happen.. so really now.. get off your asses and start digging up your back yard. You can thank me for the head’s up after it’s all over. ;) xoxo

What Happens When a Bakeanista Crosses a Geoduck and a Flaccid uhh..

penis? Well she gets the best damn cheesy bread she's ever had.. YES you heard me, PANERA. It blows your Asiago bread right outta the water! Last weekend, in between our monthly trip to the West Side Market and Trader Joe's, plus a jaunt to the local greenhouse for the biggest basket of purple & white petunias we could find for Mommie's Day.. was a late blooming starter, lots of flour and even more CHEESE. The newly named "Bakeanistas" got together again for a day of baking and chit chatting on Skype. Wondering who the Bakeanistas are? Just a fantabulous group of sexy women including Mary, Sara, Ivonne, Helene, Laura Rebecca, Kelly and Stephanie - oh and me! Wondering what cheesy bread it was that we baked? Check out this step by step tutorial for Gruyère-Stuffed Crusty Loaves and the recipe can be found here. Knowing full well that this recipe called for a starter that was to be made the night before, I sent out a call for help from my other Bakeanista sisters - "SOMEONE PLEASE REMIND ME TO MAKE MY STARTER ON FRIDAY NIGHT!!" I knew damn well that without a reminder, I'd completely forget to make it. And because these ladies are AWESOME, I received, not one but TWO reminders on Friday to make my starter that night. PHEW! Thank goodness for reminders! Have I ever told ya'll about the two month period last year that I left Nigel at home on his grooming days? If I did tell ya'll that story - do you remember how I stuck post-it notes on the front door, the door to the kennel that Nigel and his sister, Chloe, sleep in during the mornings AND the post-it I stuck on the inside of my car windshield? Okay well, admittedly, I didn't stick the post it on the windshield until the 2nd month, since I had forgotten him the prior month. And do ya'll remember how I got 3/4's of the way to work when I realized that my goreous son was still sitting at home wondering WTF? Mmm hmm.. I woke up Saturday morning - BAKING MORNING - like I normally do (at the butt-crack of dawn), made my coffee, let the kids out for their morning constitutional, filled up assorted doggie and kitty food & water bowls, sat down at the PC with lists upon lists of things that needed to be taken care of.. and promptly blowing said lists off so I could read new email.. when at six bells this shudder of terror crept down my spine. HOLY SHIT I FORGOT TO MAKE THE STARTER LAST NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank God, Thank God, Thank God, and Hail Mary, I knew I couldn't start baking until later than the rest of the gals because of the monthly grocery shopping extravaganza. So I bound down the hallway, bouncing off walls, to the kitchen and slapped that shite together. I noticed how dry it was and was kinda taken aback, as every starter I've had to make (hehe every.. like I've made TWO now and one of those died a horrible death that I try not to think about) has been spongy and wet. But oh well.. no time to dwell! I put her in a warm place and went about my usual morning routine and then left for shopping with Hubbs. I didn't get to participate in much chit chat this month, which was a bummer because I missed all talk of vajayjays, exploding mammories and other unsavory topics that usually trip my trigger. Dammit. So in between TJ's and the greenhouse, we stopped home to unload the car and I made the dough. Left it to rise while we visited my mommie and when I got home I rolled it out and filled it with cheese, then rolled it up into a considerably long log. Another hour or so later, I cut the log up into 4 "mini" loaves (so not mini!) and pulled apart the outer layers so the cheesy goodness would have plenty of room to bubble up and out like the most delicious lava from a volcano I've ever seen. Into the oven they went and back to the office I went to chat with Kelly and Mary for a bit.. I was also doing something else, but I can't recall what it was at this moment. Regardless of what it was, it wasn't too long after my cheesy volcanos went into the oven that I started to smell an all too familiar scent when I'm baking bread.. smoke. Dear sweet jebus the smoke alarm went off next. Gah. I ran to the kitchen to find puffs of billowy black smoke emerging from the back of my oven - WHAT THE FUCK, BAKING GODS??? CAN YOU GIVE ME A BREAK JUST ONCE???? I took the loaves out and was more than alarmed to see that they had morphed into what can only be explained as a cross between a geoduck and a man's flaccid hoo-haw. I KID YOU NOT, kids. The Baking Gods were having another belly bustin laugh spree at my expense ONCE AGAIN. Helene's vajayjay-looking bread had nothing on these pornographic sea monsters. Oh hells no. I ran back down the hallway in a frightened panic (you always know when I've been baking - that frightened panic takes over) and pounded out the words on my keyboard to Mary.. "OHMYGOD THERE'S SMOKE EVERYWHERE AND MY BREAD LOOKS LIKES LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF DEBBIE DOES DALLAS - HELP!!!" Mary calmly asked how high my oven was (425º as per instructions) and then recalled that I had a hot spot in my oven from when she was here back in October of 2007 - so she advised me to turn down the oven to 375º, and put them back in. They might take longer to bake, but at least they'd stop smoking. And the funny thing was.. the loaves, other than their embarrassing appearance, weren't burning.. nor was the cheese erupting from them like.. well.. GAH we will not discuss what the oozing cheese looked like - but the oven itself was smoking. So I did as she said and by the time I got back to the office, she and Kelly and I think Helene was there at that point, came up with a couple conclusions.. I had sprayed cooking spray on the parchment paper (no, didn't do that) - my oven was smoking because it might have just been cleaned and the heat was causing the residual cleaner to smoke (BINGO!). These gals are so smuckin' fart! :D Hubbs had cleaned the oven out with soap and water a couple days before and it looked as if a lil soap residue was still there. PHEW. The rest of the baking process went beautifully - it did take an extra 10 minutes for them to bake through, but I was rewarded with the most AWESOME tasting cheesy bread that I've ever had. The outside had just the right crispiness, the inside was soft and gooey and the flavor.. ohhhh the flavor! Gruyère is the BEST cheese to bake with, in my humble opinion. This is one of those recipes that I can not recommend enough. The dough was a snap to make and very easy to work with.. not sticky at all and it rolled out beautifully. Now it might not be the prettiest loaf of cheesy bread ever, but that just adds to the rustic charm of it. We (and by "we" I mean ME) inhaled the first loaf that afternoon.. I shared the 2nd loaf with him the following day and froze the other two.. they did not last longer than a week as I just toasted up the last of it this past Monday. My only advice to you would be to either double - nay triple - this recipe so you've got plenty in the freezer to get you through until next cheesy bread baking day. ;) Thanks so much to my sexy bread bakin' mamas - I can't wait for the next Bakeanistas adventure! Love you all SO MUCH! :) xoxo PS - Sorry that my post is a couple days late.. but the good news is I can sit for almost an hour now without having to request help to get outta my chair! hahahaa! Fakkin' sciatica. Gah. xoxo