I Made Something Edible!

Dear Kristen,

Little Mister’s birthday looked perfect for a one year old!  Way to go!  Simple is best, I think.  Munchkin’s first birthday was pretty much a yellow and red party – I just called it a Winnie the Pooh party so that I could make a beehive cake.

She doesn’t remember it, so it could have been a cupcake and green beans and she would have LOVED it!  (Cake makes everything great, Little Mister.  I’m glad you’ve realized this already.) But the other guests probably would have balked at the rest of the menu I served.

Recently I’ve been serving up messes in the GF bread department.  But, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I got a cookbook that looked promising – and so far…well, let me tell you.

What I tried:

BISCUITS!

Her’s looks like this:

Mine looked like this:

So not perfectly up-to-snuff (at least to match the picture) but she has the advantage of developing the recipe without a toddler attempting to sabotage her time.

See the blob shaped one? That’s Munchkin’s “triangle.” It doesn’t really hold a rigid shape with that much butter in it.

Taste? Good! Not the best biscuit you’ve ever had (that would have gluten in it, silly) but really pretty good.  A decent biscuit.

DINNER ROLLS! (I forgot to take a picture of these…I can insert a picture next time I make them.)

I made these because you can apparently freeze them if you under bake them and finish them up later.  The prospect of that was too awesome to pass up.  Messy to make, but not too hard, especially when Matt and the kids are watching March Madness napping on the couch and letting me work.

Taste? Good!  In fact, Matt actually didn’t qualify the “good.”  Just straight up good.  (We’ve learned that GF life is about good. Not great. Unless its a steak – that can be great.)

WHITE SANDWICH BREAD!

So I have a story here.  You know those moments when you are multi-tasking and basking in your own pride when you realize you messed up a task 2 steps ago without even realizing it?  And then, when you do realize it, you think, aw, yes Lord.  Thank you for humbling me.

That was Sunday.

After church, I had less than an hour and half to get everyone fed, bread made, birthday card created, dress-up clothes located and Munchkin packed in the car before we needed to leave for a birthday party.   Could I do it?  Of course! I’m a queen at multi-tasking!

Problem: Little Man didn’t nap so was tired and fussy which was quickly turning into “hangry” which in turn was ramping up my anxiety level.  I had Munchkin’s lunch done, bypassed mine thinking I’d get to it after I fed the hangry infant.  But I needed to get the bread in the machine before that.  After so many past failures, I was DETERMINED.  (That’s a kinda nice way of saying, stupidly stubborn.)

So I get all the wet ingredients put together – melted butter, egg whites, warmed milk.  And I put all the dry ingredients (minus the yeast) together.  And I am proving I am the queen of multi-tasking.

Or not.

Add baking powder. Check.  Add baking soda.  Add sugar.  Check.  Add salt.  Check.  Add sweet potatoes.  Wait; what?

Oh.

The page turned in the cookbook.  I didn’t notice.  The bread doesn’t have baking powder or baking soda – the sweet potato biscuits do.  Whoops.

Matt, being completely logical, suggests starting again.  Can’t do it!  I just used the last of the all-purpose gf flour that I made – so there is none left to try again. And I don’t have time to make more.  Certainly not in the 40 minutes left before I need to complete the next 4 steps of the day and leave.

So just throw it out?  NO.  I figured, it didn’t hurt to throw it all in the machine and give it a try anyways.  I can’t reuse the warmed milk, egg whites or butter…so might as well continue down the path of mistakes.  Make the bread and if its horrible, then throw it out.  (I should mention that the salt and sugar levels were exactly the same in both recipes, so it was really only the baking powder and soda added in.)

So I baked it.  Or the machine did.

And it tasted good!  Not just slightly edible.  Down right good – better tasting than all the other attempts!  Specially slathered in butter – which honestly makes almost anything good.  This makes me hopeful that if I actually follow the recipe to a T, it could be even better.

I didn’t take pictures of this either.  Let’s face it.  My pride was crushed and I wasn’t very optimistic.