Breadmaking Catastrophe!

It could have happened to anyone. My letter to a friend.

Dear Robin,

 

I have to report that I have suffered a minor disaster with my new bread making machine.  I may have told you the first attempt was a triumph.  My Gran daughter completed  the whole job as she is used to them.  Rose and I tried yesterday after Jessica went off home.

 

The machine is so clever Robin.  The ingredients are measured out and dropped into a bread making chamber.  There is a metal paddle fixed into the bottom of the chamber.  This metal fin rotates and mixes the ingredients into dough once it is switched on,  We do nothing from the moment the switch is pressed.    It mixes, sets, preheats the dough, rests, then ovens the  bread to perfection..  All we had to do was wait till the "ping" after one and one half hours then all would be well.

 

I turned on the machine and off went the paddle churning up all the ingredients.  Rose and I peered in through the glass inspection panel watching the mix being churned and bubbling with yeast.  We purred with pride at our new gadget with a computer brain doing its job with a will.

 

We watched and watched but to our concern no bouncy ball of dough formed.  Liquid flux merely rotated in the vessel without a glimmer of doughy texture.  We rushed to the instruction manual and to our horror we found the flours chosen for the brown bread had been added well under the weight needed. We had confused millilitres with grams!  Well we are both over sixty!  Neither of us really liked decimalization!

 

I poked down the stop button and pulled up the inspection cover.  There the glug lay,  helpless and runny  in its chamber.  The dreadful truth dawned/  Neither of us could recall exactly how much under weight the flour was.  We had to guess and promptly over filled the mixing chamber.  Once again we switched on.

 

Off the machine gurgled while we peered on, hands wringing and some mutual blame flying.  Shortly we again examined our endeavour through the glass inspection chamber.  Happily there it was; doughy, soft and clingy, sprung with yeast. After mixing the dough ball was warmed and initially it did not swell at all.  Doomed  it was I feared and I went off to play on line chess.  I expected  to see a golf ball of concrete being the result of our labours.

 

The machine churned on.  We had started the process off too late at night.  Rose trogged off to bed.  I played chess and impatient for sleep.  I checked it to see how long the cycle had to go.  I was appalled  to see the whole receptacle brimming full with red hot bread.  Still twenty minutes to go.  The massive loaf pressed with red hot venom against the glass inspection chamber.

 

At any second I expected it to blow. Those twenty minutes seemed like twenty hours.  The top of the loaf imp loaded under stress but still no messy explosion took place.  After , what seemed, a life time came the "ping" of the "finished" button.  I scampered off to the machine and threw back the glass inspection chamber.  I extricated  the vast, throbbing, loaf and plopped the red hot beasty onto a cooling tray.  It came out in good style.

 

 I was proud as punch the loaf looked grand,  fit for a king.  I turned it over.  There on the bottom of the loaf was the regulation hole in the bread that is always left by the twisting metal paddle.

 

The inside of the chamber was as clean as a whistle.  Too clean to be precise.  The entire metal paddle had seemingly vanished into thin air.  I grabbed the loaf turned it over and completely aghast I saw the steaming monster had swallowed up the  metal paddle completely.  Like a huge wheaty sponge.  The excess of trapped mixture had pressed under the paddle and drawn it inside the body of the loaf. 

 

I grabbed the kitchen potato knife.  Like a demented, demonic, surgeon I scalpel ed away round hole in the loaf base.  I probed deep in its vital organs and after about ten minutes I extracted the metal paddle from the inner sanctum of the loaf.  I operated so precisely and  so neatly that no bready scars ruined the outer form of the bread..  It was one AM by this time and I was completely knackered but I wrapped the wholemeal giant for the next day.  Then like Samuel Pepys " And so to bed!"

 

Today Rose and I cut the loaf into slices.  It was truly yummy and divine toasted.  Through the middle of each slice was the silhouetted space of the metal paddle incised perfectly through the centre of every slice.  Somehow I was blamed for this debacle.   Robin these machines are such fun.  True it made me look a stupid fool so I would be very much oblijed if you kept this little story away from our mutual friends.  I do not think I could bear their derision.

 

Today I am attempting Italian White  Bread with bread flour and corn semolina.  I have forbidden Rose's participation.  I shall report back when the operation is complete.

 

 

Good breadmaking and bye for now,

 

 

 

Ron    

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Oh, what fun! I could easily imagine you as Dr. Frankenstien, fretting maniacly over the latest failed effort to regenerate life. I make bread, but to be honest, I'm afriad of bread machines--especially now! No, I'll just continue doing it by hand, just like my great grandmother did. (I'll not grind the flour, however)

[KAREN]

Hahahahaha! I love to bake. but I don't use a bread machine. Let me know if things are going better! Great story!!

[KATHY SUE SILLS]

Love your story. what an adventure you had! Made me smile all the way to the end! Happy bread making!

[EMF]

Been there. What a great story. Every memory of it is as fresh as a daisy in my mind. Every time I think of it. I loved the story, simply becasue it made me laugh. Terrific

[Cherrie Palmer]

I belly laughed just visualizing this culinary undertaking---loved it!

[little mermaid]

I laughed till I cried! Great story. I love your self-depricating account of the missing paddle. Hilarious! The description is so graphic it just has to be true! More! more! please Ron.