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The holidays are almost upon us, which means it's time to hone our rusty baking skills for the homemade breads, cakes, muffins, cookies we'll need to create a festive, fun and delicious holiday. With that in mind, I got out my trusty bread machine and got to work last weekend.
It's been a while since I did any baking, so I decided to start out with a "simple" whole wheat loaf and then work my way up to sweet breads and rolls. Unfortunately, my first three loaves turned out like the one at left. Sadly, my skills need a lot of sharpening. (After my son tried to slice this inedible brick of "bread", so do my knives!)
I figured I wasn't the only one who might be having trouble, so, I did some digging to find tips to use and share in hopes that the beginning of your baking season will be a bit more successful than mine. Here's what I found out:
Check the dough ball. If you use a bread maker like me, you miss the hands-on feel of kneading, which can alert you to problems with your dough. During the second kneading cycle, open your bread machine and take a peek. If it's dry and flaky, add lukewarm water a teaspoon at a time until the dough ball circles freely in the pan. If it's moist and shapeless, sprinkle in flour until the ball rounds out and is almost dry to the touch.
Whole wheat is hard. We all want to eat healthy whole grain breads, but it's hard to get them to rise and hold their shape because of the flour's weight and low gluten content. Choose a high protein 'hard' wheat flour or use whole wheat bread flour. Or, try the no-fail alternative: add vital wheat gluten.
Fresh ingredients only. If your flour, salt or yeast have been around since last year, don't use them in your baking projects. This is especially important with the yeast and salt because they interact to make the bread rise and keep it from collapsing (as I learned the hard way).
If all else fails, I know you can always buy mixes or refrigerated dough, but I wasn't ready to give in yet. After buying some fresh ingredients and diligently checking the dough ball, I managed to make one successful loaf last weekend. I wish I could show you, but after smelling fresh-baked, but inedible bread all weekend, the family took the knife to the loaf before I could get to it with a camera. I didn't even get to taste one slice before the whole thing disappeared!
I'll guess I'll just call that a success and move on to practicing holiday muffins next weekend.
One day, out of the blue, Josette Duran's son Dylan started asking his mother to pack two lunches. She automatically assumed she wasn't sending him enough food to get through his school day. That wasn't it. Dylan had noticed that a boy at his school had only a fruit cup for lunch every day, which he ate by in a corner by himself.
It seems the boy's mother had lost her job recently and wasn't able to afford a complete lunch for her son. When Dylan told his mom the story, Josette Duran didn't hesitate to pack the extra lunch her son requested, including fruit, sandwiches, snacks, drinks and a little note that said, "Have a great lunch boys!" (The exclamation point was dotted with a little heart.)
One day, Ms. Duran was called down to the principal's office. There she met the student's mother, who had found a new job and wanted to thank Ms. Duran for feeding her son. She also offered to pay her back for all the food. Dylan's mom refused her offer. Then she took things one step further: the school volleyball team that she coaches donated $400 to the school cafeteria for other kids whose parents can't afford lunches.
In interviews with the press, Josette Duran says, "I don't think I did anything special." She's wrong. Because small acts of kindness lead to large acts of kindness. Because her little boy just asked for one extra lunch, now every kid at that small school in Albuquerque, New Mexico has a whole, healthy lunch to eat. Every day. And that's pretty darn special.
No time for sleep. No time for a shower. Barely enough time to grab a bite to eat for yourself before someone else needs to be fed. Sound familiar? Then you're probably a mom.
New moms have it really rough. Especially if they've already got a toddler at home. Even more so when the new baby won't let Mom a wink all night long and the toddler wakes up cranky in the morning. But some moments make everything worth it and keep you going even when you think you're about to drop. Like this one captured by new mom Esther Anderson:
Seems Esther had been having a rough night with her new daughter, Tessa, when the baby's sister, Ellia, woke up crying. So Mom grabbed her phone to document what was looking like a "long day" to document the grumpy morning for Dad. But in just one minute, little Ellia went from crying and cranky to cute and cuddly on camera.
Now the sisters are Internet sensations. They might even become famous when they grow up. Mom probably doesn't care about all that. As long as the sisters just love each other "so much".
Daniel Radcliffe has made close to $100 million playing the wizard, Harry Potter, but his true magical skills might be off-screen. Seems the young actor has spent very little of that cash, preferring to save it instead.
In an interview with London's "Telegraph", he said he doesn't really do anything with his money, but having it gives him freedom. Not only is he free from worry about earning money, he says, “It also gives me immense freedom career-wise.”
He's used his freedom to hold out for meaty roles such as the role of a corpse who proves to be quite useful in Swiss Army Man and playing beat poet Allen Ginsburg in Kill Your Darlings. Both movies were well-received by audiences and critics, even if they didn't quite hit the box office gross of the Potter movies.
As long as he keeps his fortune intact, Radcliffe can pick and choose his roles. “For all the people who’ve followed my career, I want to give them something to be interested in, rather than just make loads of money on crap films for the rest of my life,” he says. I'd say he has nothing to worry about. If recent history is any indication, Radcliffe will be making movie magic for a long, long time. As long as he keeps saving.
It's been a while since I did any baking, so I decided to start out with a "simple" whole wheat loaf and then work my way up to sweet breads and rolls. Unfortunately, my first three loaves turned out like the one at left. Sadly, my skills need a lot of sharpening. (After my son tried to slice this inedible brick of "bread", so do my knives!)
