Baking whilst baking

I don’t bake as much bread in the summer as I do in winter, especially on 98° days. But, bread was needed so bread occurred.

Cook’s Illustrated’s Multigrain Sandwich Loaf is, with a few minor changes, my standby. There’s always a sliced loaf in the freezer hobnobbing with what other breadstuffs have suited my fancy of late. Apparently, not much has suited my fancy of late because the freezer is a pretty lonely place as far as bread goes. The last stragglers were consumed this morning and so yes, bread was needed.

The recipe calls for 1-1/4 cups of 7-grain cereal mix. I’ve used a variety of multigrain cereals from Bob’s Red Mill and all have been great, with the 8-grain being particularly good. Alas, there’s only about 1/4 cup left in the fridge and damn it, the bee in my bonnet is buzzing for bread now. A container of cracked wheat reminds me of a James Beard recipe and I decide to wing it and merge the recipes.

In the Cook’s recipe, boiling water is simply poured over the cereal. (This doesn’t work with cracked wheat, trust me.) Beard’s recipe cooks 1/2 cup wheat in 1-1/2 cups boiling water for 10 minutes. He does not however, warn against fiddling around in the basement for a few while the wheat cooks.

Did you know that even at a simmer, cracked wheat boils over? And over, and over, and over.

Sweet mother of mercy does this stuff smell bad. Ugh.

But the bread goes together beautifully and in no time at all is nestling under a tea towel.

I forget how much more quickly bread rises in a kitchen that's 82 instead of 62. Before I have time to really goof off, it's time to shape and let rise for a second time.

Happy little loaves in the fading light

Tomorrow’s breakfast.

No, not both loaves. Geeze.

Did I mention the cookies? Before there was bread, there were cookies.

Peanut butter cookies. Peanut butter cookies with lots of peanut butter. And ground peanuts. And peanut butter chips. 

They're a shade too brown, but the timer went off just as the boiling honey spilled over my hand. It's easier to bake more cookies than regenerate flesh.

Uh, bon appétit?