My husband, Tenzin, likes messing around with bread recipes. When we weren’t eating gluten for a few painful months, he was convinced that he’d be the one to come up with the magic recipe for gluten-free bread that didn’t taste like crap. So now we have approximately fifteen different bags of flour in our pantry.
Incidentally, he never did come up with the recipe. So if you were looking for it and your google search brought you here, uh, sorry.
Anyway, it’s been a while since he’s made bread, so the other day, he decided to slap some together in the bread maker, without the instructions. The result was this:
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| Photo by PartlySunny |
We called it “Monkey Brain Bread.” When he first brought it toward me, I thought it was a roasted chicken.
It may be because I’m a visual person and on some level I need my food to be aesthetically pleasing, but this bread was nasty. With three-fourths butter and one-fourth bread, it was edible. The kids, however, chowed it down.
A couple of days later, we decided to try out a recipe for “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” that my friend turned me on to. You basically make up the dough, leave it in the fridge, and then pull some off whenever you need it and bake it up. Easy peasy.
So Tenzin and the girl made the dough (Tenzin had to change the recipe because Tenzin can’t not change a recipe).
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| Photo by PartlySunny |
Then I shaped it, popped it in the oven, and voile! It was super cute. It belonged in a bakery. As Mary Poppins would say, it was practically perfect.
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| Photo by PartlySunny |
And the kids? They hated it. Said it tasted terrible. They liked the Monkey Brain.
So as far as I’m concerned, kale is getting a makeover. I’m thinking “Alligator Ears.” Or maybe “Lizard Tale.”
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.
That's it! I'm getting a breadmaker… I want some monkey brain bread too!! x
i love the pretty little loaf!
it's funny you post this now- i just made fried bread tonight, trying to recreate the recipe that my great grandmother probably perfected over 50 years. sadly (and not surprisingly) it was not a success.
Making bread intimidates me. My husband recently started making tortillas…they are fabulous! He wants to make crepes but that really intimidates me! I would probably like the monkey brain bread. I like the crispy crust ends…but I'm odd…
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I can make bread, technically, but I cannot as I don't eat homemade bread, I inhale it 🙂 Ran into a lady buying a bunch of Kale at Trader Joes the other day and she tipped me on to a treat she makes for her children: toss kale with olive oil and some salt and bake it and it turns into puffy sort of chips like those canned chips
Making bread is easy…I love it. I have a really really good whole wheat recipe that I use. And it's easy…but Monkey brain sounds good too.
My husband says the key is to only use half the recipe in the bread maker. So there — you have the secret!!
My recent post The Artist Presently Known as Newt
The problem with grandmother recipes is that they write them down, but they're never accurate. Because when they make them, they actually go, "Oh, it's just a pinch of this. And then you sort of sprinkle that." So if you haven't spent 20 years with them, good luck. And then if you're like me, you spend 20 years and still don't get it right.
My recent post The Artist Presently Known as Newt
I love crispy, burnt stuff. Which is very convenient in many situations. I wouldn't be too intimidated by the bread. I suck at cooking, and it's really not that big a deal. Seriously, check out that link.
My recent post The Artist Presently Known as Newt
Whoa! We're totally trying that. We have kale up the wahzoo. Tenzin sneaks it into stuff because no one likes it. My dad has tried drying it before, but it's just okay — kind of comes out like seaweed. Thanks for the tip, that's awesome.
My recent post The Artist Presently Known as Newt
Yeah, but you think everything is easy because you're actually sort of naturally talented at stuff. Brat.
My recent post The Artist Presently Known as Newt