I have a story for you. This could only happen to a blind person. I am an experienced cook and I didn't see this one coming.
I was out of bread so decided to bake some from scratch. Ok, it has been a few years since I have done this but used to bake my own bread much of the time. I decided to use a newer loaf pan though, one of the expensive, huge ones that will hold at least two regular loaf pan's worth of dough. All went fine. I put the bread in the oven to bake. I cooked it at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, knowing I would need to check it at 35 and butter the top and put it back in to make the crust delicious. A friend brought groceries by and came in to put the milk and store bought bread away. I asked him to check my bread to see if it was brown enough because it smelled like it might be done a little early. To make a long story short, the bread had risen above the top of the pan. That was expected. It would resemble store bought bread in its shape that way. What I didn't know was that it had risen into the wires of the top oven rack and there were grooves down into the top of the bread loaf, and the bread had grown through the slits in the oven rack above. By using long kitchen mitts he was able to pull both racks out, set the whole thing on the stovetop, extract the top rack and put it back into the hot oven, leave the bread out but put the bottom rack back in the oven as well, and help me decide it was finished baking. I guess the heat from the top rack cooked it from above. It looks a bit strange, and the top edge became lopsided so I cut it off from the loaf to use with pepperoni or sausage slices, and the rest of the loaf turned out fine except for the grooves in the top every two or so slices. Without sighted help I would have had to let the oven cool and then try to rescue the bread. Not understanding exactly how it was caught, I would have made a mess of the whole thing. As it turned out, the bread is delicious and it didn't get crumbly, which doesn't always happen. You better believe that I'll take that top rack out of the oven next time I bake bread in that supersized loaf pan. By the way, the bread came out of the pan perfectly, no sticking, no breaking of the loaf as it slid out of the pan. I couldn't have asked for a better experience except for the oven rack issue. How lucky that my friend came to my house at the absolute perfect time. What are the chances of that happening? I feel like angels were watching over me. Not that I was in any real danger, but it could have been a very frustrating experience. Pamela Fairchild <pamelafairch...@comcast.net> _______________________________________________ Cookinginthedark mailing list Cookinginthedark@acbradio.org http://acbradio.org/mailman/listinfo/cookinginthedark
