Still Goatless

Made bread last night.


It took me two attempts.


Having failed to buy/find enough ingredients around the home I ended up with a 1:1 ratio loaf of 'white bread flour' to 'white bread flour with bits in it'. It should have been 2:1. I was also lacking oil.

I put the ingredients into the breadmaker and thought I'd use the timer function so I would awaken the next morning to the smell of freshly baked bread wafting around the flat. I pressed what I thought was the 'timer' button and the machine instantly jumped into life, as I jumped out of my skin. The display showed '0:58', which even in my inexperience of this particular breadmaker I knew was wrong. This machine takes '3:25' to make a loaf, I was '2:27' short.

The breadmaker kicked again. I swore and pressed every button on the panel. Twice. Then before the machine could churn a third time I used the ol' familiar reset technique and turned it of at the mains. The display died and I knew I had won.

I examined the panel for a while pondering where I had gone wrong. Some of the buttons had half-faded pictures on them, some were (like my mind) completely blank. I decided on the next button I would try and flicked the mains back on. Immediately the breadmaker started struggling again, so I repeated the reset technique, except this time I opened the lid and took out the semi-churned ingredients in their little bucket.

Having put the lid down I turned the mains back on, again pressed all the buttons on the panel several times each in various combinations to no avail and left the room, whilst the breadmaker pointlessly went through '0:58' of fruitless labour.

'0:58' later I returned to the kitchen and after waiting a little while for the breadmaker to cool down I again turned it off and on. This time the familiar '3:25' popped up and by carefully using the '+' and '-' buttons I set the time I required.

I then placed the bucket back in the machine and hit the ' ' button, which I'm sure originally had a picture of somekind on it, but was now just a grubby white colour and I was champion of the breadmaker once more. Hurrah.

I miss Goat. It is normally she who makes the bread.