Yeasterical!

I knew better and I still did it!

I got my Gourmet magazine Saturday, I have been trying to ignore my culinary magazines since I started a diet, knowing too well the temptation would be humongous, but then Saturday was a boring day, with He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed being sick( the poor man is all achy, and truly looks like he is suffering a lot, most probably is the flu with a touch of arthritis to make things more interesting). Anyways there was not much to do around the house (mmm’kay what if I was not in the mood for cleaning or ironing, give me a break it was SATURDAY!).

I am fanatic about bread and have been toying with the idea of making brioche, one of my top 3 favorites, but always end up thinking it was too much work. All those seductive descriptions on Gourmet magazine made me crave the thing worse than ever but I was still resisting. Mostly because I did not have all the ingredients but that is a detail. So I learned about a new food search engine and being slightly obsessed with the whole brioche idea I try it there. Voila! Another recipe even more promising than the one I read on the magazine. I knew I was doomed.

Sunday we had to do some grocery shopping and I end up buying the said missing ingredients, but still postpone the baking of bread. Since I know myself well I did get the eggs and butter out of the fridge, just in case, since they needed to be at room temperature for any recipe.

Then when I thought I was safe, it was late enough to start any baking project, He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed decided he needed to go back to bed since he was feeling lousy, so what is a woman fanatic about bread to do?

MAKE BRIOCHE!

I honestly try to reason with myself, since there was a 2 hour rise followed but 10 minutes of kneading and yet another hour rise, all things considered (the oven time being short 35 minutes) the bread will not be done before 9PM. That is silly, a little voice told me, the weekend will be over and your rule for allowing non-diet food window of opportunity will be almost closed!
But not quite!

So I did it! And it is a thing of beauty, and on top of that it is probably the best bread I ever baked, which I already knew it would be by the way the dough was just about so perfect to handle.

I confess I ate 2 slices, still warm from the oven, and yes with butter on top of the first one (the guilt was way too big to allow butter on the second slice, and yes I did make it a smaller one). He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed did have a warm slice himself but being sick I don’t think he was able to taste the full extent of my bread wonderfulness.

Only today I realized I should have taken a picture yesterday. I should take the picture before I had my first slice. Oh well I will get over it. Since He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed approved the bread and had a nice toasted sandwich for lunch today, I also froze two slices for a future French toast) now there is little left of my thing of beauty. I must say I feel content, baking bread is more rewarding than cooking, maybe because I don’t do it every day or maybe because it seems to involve a bigger transformation between ingredients and the result.

By the way if you want the recipe just email me!