Christmas Weekend Friday

Yay, it's baking day! I gathered up all the ingredients for Bestemor's Christmas Bread. I was so organized and excited about doing this.

I had decided to limit the children's involvement this year to decorating the cookies and maybe making some of the easier ones.

I made up 4 different batches of dough and put them into the refrigerator so that all we had to do at the party was to roll, cut, bake, and decorate. What a plan!

I had all day to do this because I didn't have to go to work and the house was ready for the sleepover. I had packed all of my cook books because I really thought that we would be spending Christmas in Texas and I figured that I probably wouldn't be baking this year.

The milk, sugar, and spices were cooling when I took this picture. I noticed what a good rising I was getting from the yeast and remembered that Lori advised me to get new yeast because her bread hadn't risen too well.

My arm felt like it was too weak to go on by the time I finished stirring in the 24 cups of flour. But I was just so pleased with the way things were going. I hadn't had a single interruption and I had figured out how to regulate my oven so that I could keep the temperature at just the right level to get the yeast to rise.

It was decided that Neal and I would leave early to go and see the girls at their gymnastics classes and then just bring them home with us for the baking and decorating of the cookies and for a sleepover.

I had emailed Teresa to invite Stuart and Audrey to participate as well but left home before she had time to answer. When we didn't hear from her by phone I figured that I had just contacted them too late and they had probably made other plans.

On the way home from the gym in Vancouver we all listened to Cinnamon Bear on the radio. It was a radio program from the 40's narrated by Judy Garland and Slim Pickens. It came on the radio at 7:00 and was 15 minutes long. It just ended by the time we arrived at the Dollar Store where we treated the kids to some toys.

We were delighted when the telephone rang and Teresa said that they were waiting at our home. Of course, poor things had been sitting in the cold car for almost an hour waiting for us. We hurried home and the party began.

I was excited to bake the bread which had been rising in my oven since about 2:30. OH MY GOODNESS !!! The yeasty bread had risen, and risen, and risen until it oozed over the edges of the 12 loaf pans and dripped over and through the racks and then puddled on the bottom of the oven about 2 inches thick. I would have taken pictures of the mess but it was too difficult to hold the camera still through my weeping. Just kidding.

Several hours later all of the loaves had been baked and the house smelled wonderful. Because the bread had sat in the cold kitchen during the cleanup each loaf had sagged in the middle. I wanted to throw it all away and make a new batch but it is so expensive to make and truly it smelled so delicious I just couldn't.

Because the dough had covered the edges of the pans the bread had to be cut out of the pans and these photos show the result. Well, I consoled myself, kids don't like the crust anyway. I swear I heard Bestemor say, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, well, I like you for trying".