That Thing Where You Play With Your Breadmaker.

I never did get around to working on my Einband shawl yesterday.  I kept myself busy in the kitchen and socks were on tap while doing that sort of stuff.

I finally put those odd settings on my bread maker to work.  I made a date loaf in the bread maker using the Quick Breads setting.  I actually made a double loaf, which resulted in a large bread loaf sized loaf.

I'm not sure I would do the double again.  The baking time was too short so I had to use the bake only setting to finish it.  Turns out, this is what the bake only setting is for.  Interesting.  

Over all, it turned out well.  The Quick Bread setting mixed for much much longer than  than you would ever consider doing by hand.  Quick breads are usually mixed only till they are moist all through the dry.  Because of all the mixing, this loaf has a devoloped gluten look that is more like a bread than the ultra dense look of a muffin type loaf.  It doesn't change the taste though.  It tastes great and there will be more.  Much more. 

But that is not the end of the tale of Date Loaf in the bread maker.  

My usual date loaf recipe, almost word for word identical to the recipe in my breadmakers manual, start by softening the dates in boiling water and a teaspoon of baking soda.  I did that but I had whole dates and a blender.  It seemed smart to leave the chopping of my whole dates for after they were all nicely softened.  Seems a logical way to get the job done, right.  And it is..

If you cool the tastes all the way to room temperature.  Possibly if there was no soda in the water.  Possibly if I had not been using a tightly sealed blender.  I'm not sure about that part.

  I put the dates into my nutribullet, with its tightly sealed design, because getting it out was faster than setting up my little processor thingy with its various attachments.  I whirred away, till the mix of dates and water was this nice gooey mass.  Simple.  According to the book, the date mix was the first thing that should go in the breadmaker pan, so I got the pan, and twisted the nutribullet blade section off the container.  

As soon as the first sign of free air hit the mix in the nutribullet, things were out of my control.  It blew up in my hands, and in an instant I had warm date goo running down my neck and head heading straight for my cleavage.  

Because I am me, my first thought was 'huh'.  My second was, I should get a camera.  Only I couldn't because by then, I could see how far the exploded dates flew.  They hit counters, cabinet doors, floors.  The free flying date goo missed nothing.  Nothing at that end of the kitchen did not get hit except the ceiling.  Yup.  Shoulda had a camera.  Or video.  I would have loved to play that back. 

It was epic.  

I do have a baking adventure for today too.  Sourdough.  I wonder if a sourdough sponge can explode?