Good for Something, I Guess

When I was growing up I was a REALLY good bread baker. Really good. My bread always came out light and fluffy and delicious. I loved to bake bread and rolls and anything like that. Even as I was first married I did a decent job baking. I've wanted to bake more, but with a hectic life running back and forth all over the world it isn't always feasible to do that. 

But lately my bread baking skills have completely fallen apart. I'm not sure what has happened, but in the last year or so it seems as if all of my baking projects have totally flopped. Oh sure, you can tell that it is some sort of yeast project that I have undertaken, but the results are not light and fluffy and delicious. It is more of a a dense bread-like creation. Add to that problem my new convection oven and the learning curve that I am struggling with in figuring that thing out, and, well ... I've had more fails than successes lately. But no big deal. I'll figure out what is going on. It probably is just a bad batch of yeast that I need to replace. And one of these days I'll get all the little nuances of convection oven baking down, and it'll be a blessing, I know.

But today ...

Today I had volunteered to bring rolls to our ward Christmas party. I was really worried that lots of people did not sign up to bring rolls, so I felt a certain responsibility to make a good amount. I have THE BEST dinner roll recipe. The best. It is so deliciously yummy that I make it for every single holiday meal and any chance I can get to add to a fancy dinner. I love them. I knew the ward would love them. They are super yummy, but they are also super pretty as well. Bonus. 

I started early today, determined to let these rolls have all day to rise if they needed the extra time. They did. It took a little longer to rise than it should have, but it did rise. Everything was on track. The rolls looked delicious and beautiful. Finally, my bread fail streak was going to be broken. And then ... disaster. I had my rolls sitting in the oven rising in a warm place. Katie came home from school and decided that she wanted to make cupcakes. She preheated the oven, but didn't look inside to see my rolls there. I caught her mistake quickly, but not quickly enough. The rolls just sort of shriveled up. They still looked okay ... ish. They just weren't big and beautiful any more. At this point we only had an hour until the party began, so I just decided to roll with it. I baked the rolls as directed, except ... the convection cooking actually browned them a bit too much. They weren't burned ...exactly. They were just really, really toasty. Egads! This was a disaster. But still, they looked close enough to rolls that people would know what they were. They actually tasted quite nice, even if they weren't nice and fluffy like they should have been. 

I made the call and decided to go ahead and bring them to the party. It wouldn't hurt anything. No one was going to gag or die from them, so I figured it would be just fine.

Well, as I sat at the party I noticed that very few people had picked up my rolls. Okay ... no one had picked up my rolls. It's okay. I wasn't crying or anything about it. It wasn't a contest. But that little part of me that notices such things did notice. I just wished that I could have brought something that was a lot more appealing to the crowd. Oh well.

That's when I noticed my sweet Hyrum walking in between the tables ... carrying one of MY rolls. Oh, sweet Hyrum. I knew that he would come through and support my baking, even in failure. It just warmed my little heart to see him carrying it with him. So, with my heart full to overflowing I stopped him and said, "I see you grabbed one of my rolls." 

His reply?

"Oh, yeah, Mom. This is great. I'm going to take it outside so I can use it as a boomerang."

Ooooooohhhh. Well, that knocked me down a notch. 

So my rolls weren't a home run tonight. But that's okay. Tomorrow is another day. I will conquer this. I will. Or, worst case ... at least I know that I can bake some killer boomerangs if I need to.