Cinnamon-- A Christmas story of two loaves

Category: Life happenings | Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:48 pm

Many years ago I became an avid homemade bread maker and took over the cinnamon bread for Christmas morning breakfast tradition that my Mom had started when I was a child....slaving over the dozen or so loaves from proofing the yeast to baking. And a new generation of family members began to expect this tradition every year. Two and a half years ago my oven died and as of yet I have found no really compelling reason to replace it, besides it makes great storage space in my small kitchen.

This year I finally remembered that when Mom had found frozen loaves of unbaked bread in the grocery store freezer section, she had started using those instead of making the dough from scratch....if it was good enough for Mom it was good enough for me.

I put the loaves in the fridge to thaw....didn't take as long as I expected. When we returned home from the movie on Monday the rising dough had filled the bag and had to be cut out. Got two loaves all done and on to rise. They were small loaves so I thought I would try baking them in my toaster oven instead of taking them to Lisa's unbaked the next morning.
Did you know that bread dough will burst into flames when it touches the heating element in an oven??? Well, I didn't.

After they cooled, I cut off the burned sections and covered them with aluminum foil ....then forgot to refrigerate them to prevent further rising.
Christmas morning I found......do you remember the episode of the I Love Lucy show where she takes this 6 foot long, 2 foot high loaf of bread out of the oven?.... that is what I thought of when I turned on the kitchen light yesterday morning.
They were huge and flopping over the sides of the small loaf pans....a picture of Jabba the Hut flashed before my minds eye, not a pretty sight.
I pulled the loaves from the small pans, but them in larger ones....we baked them when we got to Lisa's.
They had collapsed into the pans and looked terrible and I explained why that was.

But they were both gushing over how good it tasted and how nice it was to have my homemade cinnamon bread again, I just didn't have the heart to tell them the rest of the story.

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Comments

Droopy wrote on Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:51 pm:

:D Don't look at me, I'll keep your little secret safe!

glendann wrote on Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:11 pm:

That is so funny toni,and my mother always said you never get to old to learn and you did learn lots :)

kuntrygal wrote on Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:19 pm:

How funny... I can almost picture the look of surprise on your face. As long as the cinnamon bread was good and there was no damage in the 'fire'!! ;)

eileen wrote on Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:00 pm:

When I read your blog entry my first thought was - now Toni sounds justlike me!!! LOL Soooo glad everyone enjoyed your bread and really pleased you shared your story with us - cheered me up after having my MIL here today.

Primsong wrote on Wed Dec 26, 2007 10:33 pm:

What a great story it makes though, eh? :-D The point is their 'inner children' were fed and comforted by their memories more than by the bread anyway, which you did very well.

Frank wrote on Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:04 am:

They don't read GardenStew do they Toni? :D

Netty wrote on Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:14 am:

Mums the word Toni.
I'm glad everyone liked it.

Biita wrote on Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:06 am:

hahahaha,,, now that is funny, i won't tell either. lol. i wish you would of got a pic of that and it sounds like we cook the same way.

Emma1917 wrote on Mon Dec 31, 2007 4:41 pm:

That is the funniest story I have read this Christmas holiday. I can just picture the loaves rising so much that they spilled over the tins. Been there, done that, etc. I usually knock the dough back and let it rise all over again, but unfortunately they usually taste and smell more yeasty when I have to do that. I'm glad yours tasted O.K. though because that is the real test of success. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

SongofJoy57 wrote on Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:51 am:

Toni:
This was so funny . . . and true . . . I could just imagine each thing when you told your story . . . it does sound like something out of I Love Lucy . . . and also my kitchen sometimes. I am glad your bread turned out warm and yummy . . .

just_a_penguin wrote on Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:13 pm:

Oh man, that's so funny! I am an avid bread maker (so much so that I've actually taken to kneading on a TV tray for want of counter space in my kitchen) I will have to remember the bursting into flames thing for sure. At least it tured out well. That's the best thing about bread--even if you mess up, it's still yummy.