Leaping Like a Geyser

As yesterday's post mentioned, it was a day to pick up eggs from our farmers followed by a trip to the grocery store. (Just now I typed "grouchery store." Freudian slip?) As I've said many times, the grouchery store takes the starch out of me, especially when I spend all of my time there trying not to bite off the heads of my fellow obstacles; I mean, "shoppers." Fellow shoppers. (I don't know what's gotten into my typing fingers today.) Anyway...by the time I got home and put things away, a very bad case of inertia set in and I spent the rest of the afternoon lazing on the couch, sleeping at times, petting cats all the while. And then...it hit me:

"Brainy," in case you were wondering. So, I did get a little more done on Wheel Estate...I added the stop border. About the time that was finished, Mike was home from work, and I had to quit for the day.

On the bread-baking front, we're down to our last bagel. I've been putting off baking the Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread because men and quilters do not live by bread alone...although they would dearly love to. Anyway...I wanted to mix it up last night because its first rise is a long 12 hours. It wasn't hard to mix up. It's one egg, some bread flour, some salt, some yeast, and then you blend together a little peanut butter and a lot of water, add some whole peanuts, and you have your dough. When it went into the proofing box for the night, it looked like this.

When the clock struck 12 hours this morning, it had risen nicely. The large clumps on the right side of the image below are the whole peanuts that were mixed into the dough.

It's baked up in a regular loaf pan, lightly sprayed with olive oil and with some chopped peanuts in the bottom of the pan.

Here's where things got pretty messy. I dumped the dough out onto a floured surface. It was a very wet sticky dough. I despaired of being able to roll it up jelly roll fashion, but forged ahead. Also, I thought there was some seedless raspberry jam, but seeded was all I had. (Just say "no" to seeds.) The only thing that was going to work were these cherry preserves...which, as it turns out, is my favorite. So I stretched the dough out into a rough rectangle. It was the consistency of pudding. Then, I carefully spread about a half cup of cherry preserves over the top and made a feeble attempt at shaping it.

The book makes it look easy, but it was nearly impossible. I was just grateful it didn't stick to the bread board and managed to plop it into the loaf pan in glop-like fashion. Then, it was sprinkled with some more peanuts. I wasn't feeling good about this at all, but I went ahead and let it proof for another couple of hours anyway.

Everything seems to take twice as long as recipes instruct, and so extra time is always needed when giving the various doughs time to rise. Thankfully, and despite its rather precipitous drop into the pan, it rose again nicely, although more slowly than the recipe suggested. When I put it into the oven, it looked like this:

It was supposed to bake for an hour and 15 minutes, but after just an hour, it started smelling burned. And it was. The entire top crust was charred black. I yanked it out of the oven and immediately removed it from the pan, only to find that the crusts were burned on all sides.

I have two ideas about this. First, possibly I was supposed to have turned down the temperature when I put the loaf into the oven. If I was, the recipe didn't say so. Second, the jam burned wherever it was exposed. As you can see, it doesn't look bad on the inside. I cut off the burned crusts and tasted the inside.

It actually tastes pretty good, but it was a disappointing outcome just the same. The dough was so hard to work with that I doubt I'll try this again. It has me curious though, and so I'll probably go in search of some recipes online to see if I can find something that might work better. This is why I'm tagging these posts "apprentice" bread baking. Emphasis on the "apprentice" part.

Okay. So finally, after requesting it four times, I received a map of Florida yesterday. It figures Florida would be the most difficult state, doesn't it? When I said, "Florida, don't make me come down there," it finally arrived in the mailbox. Only, here's the thing, Florida: I am coming down. Mark my words. Oh yes. It's happening. 

So there you go...a complete set of all the tour books and maps for the Canadian provinces and the lower 48 states.

And as long as we're talking about Canada, I need to pass along this bit of information from my friend, Beverly, who left this comment on yesterday's post:

I was wondering if you applied for the Parks Canada pass. It gives you free admission to all the national parks in Canada this year. . . Just an FYI. The pass is being offered to help celebrate our country's 150th birthday. 

Oh wow! Beverly, you're no-reply, and so I can't thank you personally. I'm hoping you'll see this little thank you note here. And don't you know I went directly to the Parks Canada website and ordered one up.

Cool! I'm not sure whether we'll actually do much traveling in Canada when we take our USA loop beginning this fall, but certainly, we might have some time to get up there this summer. Either way, we'll be set with our Discovery Pass, so thank you for the info, Beverly. And thank you, Canada! You know I love ya', Canada.

So it's time to get that last border put on the Wheel Estate quilt. This one is small enough to sandwich on the ping pong table in my sewing room. I might just get to work on that fairly soon. The new camper wall awaits. Also today, I'm going to get out there and do some measuring for various bins and baskets that might keep us better organized. Also, there is one more little quilt I want to make to hang on the wall. I need to get the parameters of the perimeter on that one too.