What Had Happened Was

I really am losing my mind.  I found a bag of Bridgeford Parkerhouse yeast roll dough in the freezer (!!!!) and got really excited.  I should mention it was about 11:30 at night and I should have been in bed 4 hours prior.  In my state of euphoria, I forgot to return them to their arctic homeland.

Then comes the next morning, and I was almost in tears when I realized that my bag of roll dough (which I probably only paid 35 cents for with coupons) was totally ruined.

I wasn't sure that after sitting out all night that it would have been able to maintain its ability to rise, or in plain terms, I thought the yeast had been killed.

But there is rarely something that a little bit of these can't fix.  Enter: raisins, sugar, and molasses.  


FYI: If you ever run out of brown sugar and happen to have molasses on hand, just mix a little molasses with granulated cane sugar and there you have it.  Adjust the amount of molasses according to how dark you prefer your brown sugar.  I have just started making my own and keeping it in a rubbermaid--it is definitely cheaper.

So we mix a littlelotta melted butter, a handful of sugar and some molasses.  

Then I added to the mixture a handful of walnuts and raisins.  Totally fine to leave them behind if you have picky eaters.  (They are missing out.)

So then came the next part, scraping all of the dough out of the bag and loading up my kneading surface with flour.  

Roll it out...I would go thicker next time, maybe closer to 1/2", you will see why later.

Spread on the happiness...which has congealed a bit since the butter has cooled.  Makes the process much easier.

Roll er' up, pinch the ends closed.  If it gets too sticky to work with, just add a bit more flour.

Grease and flour your pan.  Or cheat and use Pam for baking.  Because it's easier.

Tuck your dough in for a nap.  Bread dough likes to rest in a warm place.  But not too warm!

Hide the evidence.

Wait a few hours or until the dough has doubled in size.

Then bake away!  350 degrees for 30-40 minutes should do.  If you knock on the bread and it sounds hollow, it is probably done.  As soon as this comes out of the oven, I spread a little butter on top, and let it run down the sides.

Hello!  This is a good example of why I should have rolled the dough a little thicker.  It still tastes the same but eats a little more neatly and would have better contained the filling.

You can see the caramelized goodness concentrated in the bottom corner of this loaf.  And the butter that runs down the side takes this to a whole new level.

I like to store my breads in paper bags.  It doesn't stick around long enough to warrant a ziploc.  

Sometimes being accident prone isn't such a bad thing...