Saturday, March 16, 2013

Pun Gone Wrong

Four-year-old Alia told me, with a sneaky twinkle in her eyes, that "a goose was coming out of my pants leg." 

Well, okay.  I wasn't sure what that meant, but that's okay.

Then her mommy said, "You mean a CALF is coming out of Nanna's pants leg??"

Oh.  Yes.  That's it!

So ... the names of some body parts aren't as obvious as others ....


Monday, March 11, 2013

Round Loaves of Bread

You know those lovely, round, rustic-looking loaves of bread?  I could never pull them off.  I tried making a round ball of dough, let it rise, and bake it.  What did I get?  Something flatter than I wanted, with edges that were way too flat.

So I tried putting the dough-ball into a greased bowl.   After it rose and baked, I would turn it out onto the cooking rack, only to find a "loaf" that was so roly-poly that it seemed tippy and unstable.  And who wants unstable bread? 

This weekend I experimented with a springform pan, the kind you use for cheesecake.  Hot diggety dog!  That's the way to do it.  The sides of the springform pan set a limit to how far the bread can spread out flat-like.  The dough is forced to rise up instead of out.  But the sides of the pan are straight, so the loaf is more even; and the loaf will not have the rounded sides & bottom that develop from being baked in a roundish bowl. 

PS: I put one large loaf of bread (maybe 4 cups of flour?) into a well-greased 9" cheesecake pan.  That worked beautifully.