I had a bit of a bread explosion...and maybe some attitude happens
I am sitting here ready to write, I have finished up with a part of my day, and am planning to transition. My son and daughter have finished their academic part of the day. Things seem fine. I was straightening out my picture of my bread explosion we had this weekend, and apparently my son has gained some telepathy because he had a huge emotional explosion over emptying the dishwasher (a daily chore).
I will say, he seems to have a whole lot of emotion running through him. From excitement (he just put a coat of finish on his bat house), to passive anger he has been holding since yesterday, to the fact that he thought he had the upper hand on his chores having skipped one, and wanting to just talk to everyone incessantly. This last one is sometimes a missed expression of confusion for him. Many times we just listen to him ramble and don’t stop to notice that he is feeling anxious about something and he has to let something come out.
As I transition back to what I had sat down to do, I will praise him for eating mangoes for a snack a few minutes ago, and for taking the time to go take a deep breath in his room and was able to come back and finish his chores without further stress for either of us.
So, the bread…I have been making bread since I was a child. I took many years off where I was happy to buy it and not stress out about making anything. But as I slowly have grabbed back parts of my childhood memories, I have moved to making things that bring me joy (no, not a Marie Kondo plug, but she has good points). Bread is one of those things. It could be because I love bread and its starch that is supposedly bad for us all.
This weekend I tried a new recipe. It was not the one I had set out to make, but it was the one I found when I went to get started. I know this sounds horrid, and i am sure my great-grandma would roll her eyes at me. God I loved that Swedish woman! My Nana probably would shake her head and walk out of my kitchen, probably mumble something under her breath leaving me to feel like I was wrong. I loved her, too. But my great grandma probably would have waited in the kitchen with me to see what happened. It was both her and her daughter, my amazing grandma, who taught me you can always fix your flubs in the kitchen. My Grandma taught me recipes are merely an idea, not the set of rules. While many would probably shake from disbelief, following that rule I have only failed once.
Now…I may have read a step and thought it sounded wrong, did it anyway, and then new the words and meaning were not the same. But I had already done it and now we just needed to make it to the end. I wound up making more dough than I knew what to do with. But…hey, I like bread! I will also add that in the author of the recipe’s picture, she also had more bread than she said this recipe would make. I think she and I were on the same page of working through her recipe.
We had a very long rise sourdough, which is fine with me. And ultimately I wound up with two loves and a batch of sticky buns. So, let’s talk sticky buns.
Growing up I never knew cinnamon rolls. But most people when they see the start of a batch of sticky buns automatically ask if they are cinnamon buns. I mean, I put cinnamon in them, so I just thought they were all the same. It was my mom that explained the icing part. I suppose I could just do the sticky bun recipe and add icing…but that just seems like an overkill of sugar and like maybe a sugar coma would occur. Sticky buns are what I reference as slathered in butter and brown sugar. And my kids always freak out because “the stuff is coming out mom, flip it over already.” it is never a clean process to flip a pie pan of sticky buns onto a plate.
This goes along with a recipe from the other side of my family. We call that bread loaf “Irish Bread.” And when I bring it places everyone always assumes it is soda bread…but it isn’t, nor are they really a whole lot alike. I have made both, and soda bread seems easier, less made with love and more tossed together. But I am sure that is because I learned the family recipe from sitting in a kitchen with my Nana and watching versus reading a recipe. My kids often laugh that I bring out the recipe card when I make Irish Bread because I don’t really ever reference it. I learned with love, and I am still back in that kitchen in Oakland when I am making it today (although her kitchen was bigger than mine).
Saturday morning I had bread coming out of my ears. Today, I have half a loaf left. I think my family loves bread as much as I do…
