Cooking up trouble!

Maybe I am not cooking up trouble, but I have gotten the evil eye a few times.   I don't think there is a smiley for evil eyes, or I would add one now.

We've been in the midst of the Saga of the Laminite Flooring.  We are on Episode 3, so there is another post, and a story in there somewhere.  During the actual installation process, it has been required that I stay close and be "on call" for when a third set of hands was required.  So, I cooked. 

I cooked last weekend, during Flooring Episodes 1 and 2, too.  I made home made pizza, whole wheat bread and cheaters veggie soup.  All was good, except that my bread was dense.  Just not light at all. This was the 3rd or 4th time I'd made whole wheat since getting my new KitchenAid mixer. I hate to compare it to store brought loaf bread, but I really was hoping to figure out how to get the texture closer to that of what I am used to.  So, of course , I turned to the super power.  The all knowing, chicken podiatry doctoring, cow impalement removing, cow wrangling, bodacious baking, honkey-tonk key slamming, Brave Cowwoman, AKA chickenandcowlady.   (She has her own superhero cape.  Seriously.  I've seen it in person.). I also asked her for her whole wheat bread recipe, since she had blogged that she put ghee in it.  Not sure if I've mentioned ghee on this blog, but its it's butter, but better, and it currently ranks top of my list of most important kitchen staples.  That, and garlic.

Back to the story. Dense bread.  So today, I tried her recipe for Non-Brick styled whole wheat, and I was super excited.  She was very through in her descriptions, and I got some insight in technique.  The bread mixed up beautifully -- it came to a nice dough ball that was slack (I figured out what that means, I think), but shapable.  It had ghee in it.  I was thrilled.  I turned the dough out of the mixer bowl into a large stainless steel bowl that I had coated with butter.  I set it in the oven with the light on to rise. I set the timer for an hour, and proceeded to prepare tonight's dinner. 

Imploded whole wheat bread.  :(

First mistake: Never, ever base bread rise on time only.  There are too many variables in temperature and humidity and such.  One day, rise may take an hour. Or another day, it my take 40 minutes.  Today was probably a 40 minute day, so when I peeked after an hour, I had a mess. The dough had probably grown 3 times in size, and had spilled over the sides of my bowl, and was hanging from the oven rack like wheat colored stalagmites. There was a pile in the bottom of the oven that resembled a fresh pile of -- well, I won't go there. However, we are in the year of positive attitude, so silly me was STILL somewhat excited.  Getting this much reaction from the yeast surely meant I had done something right!! But, alas, no one ever mentioned mountains of dough in bread recipes, so logic (and my pessimistic side) said something wouldn't be right.  I punched the dough down, kneaded, shaped and put it in the loaf pans and back in the oven for the 2nd rise.  I watched it more carefully this time.  When the dough had reached the top of the pan, I set it out of the oven and turned the oven on to preheat.  Just before putting it in to bake, I made a cut in the dough to allow for oven spring.  The dough deflated like I had let the air out of a balloon.  It deflated the most where I had made the cut.  Still -- I marched on, with high hopes.

I baked according to directions, and well, the dang loaf imploded in the oven.  The middle of the loaf was caved in.   I of course was saddened by this, but I took the loaves out, let them cool, and sampled them. The texture, was perfect, implosion and all!  Just what I wanted! The taste was remarkable -- though it needed salt.  Not sure if I didn't add enough, or forgot to put it in all together. 

Swiss Steak, simmering away!

The good news is that dinner, turned out GREAT.  I made Swiss Steak using Paula Dean's recipe.  A friend had been telling me how good it is, and I agree-- wonderful. 


I also attempted to make my own ghee... that shall be the next story!