Fluffy Bread

"Punch it down how far?"
"Taint moving down for me!"

In the early part of the week, Bonnie woke and asked for hot fluffy bread.

I pulled out the yeast to supply her with the product she wanted.

The flour, the yeast, salt, sugar and the temperature of the day cooperated.

All I needed was a little boy to help punch down the dough.

"How do I get this off of my hand?"

One cooperated.

A few handful went into his mouth.

He also made a few attempts at punching the dough down, but he is little and there was a lot of dough.

"Have my other cousins really swallowed this?"

While I was watching him, I was reminded of the number of people who have learned to punch down the dough.

Ceilidh got to be an expert at it one summer.

Then I was thinking of those who know how to cut hot bread -- really hot -- right out of the oven.

The trick is to get that first cut through the crust and then to gently move the knife back and forth -- no sawing, just let the blade do the work.

Watermelon in background for next experiment!

By evening the bread was well on its way to being consumed. One loaf had gone home with Joaquim.

The last loaf became a science experiment.

In the past we have seen people take store purchased bread, butter it, fold it in half, and then press it-- give it a couple of good whacks to take all of the air out of it.

So we decided to see if that could be done with this bread.

No luck.

Gentle pats, hard whaps, even taking a meat tenderizer to it wasn't enough to have it loose its structure.

How -- sweet flour, yeast, salt, oil and that right humidity!

Arta