Midnight Snack

Thanks to Gretchen's post about delicious warm bread fresh from the oven, I knew that I had to make some, too.

After J woke up from his nap in the afternoon we got started in the kitchen. I would call out an ingredient and he'd go and find it. It was cute watching the little wheels in his head turn as he thought about where I kept the flour, sugar, yeast, etc. He had absolutely no problem with the eggs and butter, though. They seem to be two of his major food groups right now.

And so up in the chair he went, which reminds me that I really need to get him a stool of some sort to climb on. The chair is dangerous and slides out from under him unless I stand behind with a foot against the leg. No injuries yet, but a couple of close calls. He poured, we talked about measurements and counted, he operated the mixer. And the cutest part of all is that as all of it started to come together in the bowl, he looked on, amazed, and started singing The Wiggles "Dough" song. Honestly, I don't think he's seen that particular song in 4 or 5 months. It's not on either of the videos we own, and now that we don't get up at the crack of dawn, we don't watch them on tv all that much. Ahhh, the power of memory!



As the dough was rising, Wil came home and suggested that we go visit a friend whose daughter had been in the hospital overnight with (surprise) croup. Poor little Devi seemed much improved when we visited, and she and J played together a bit before she went to bed. This is the beautiful little blue-eyed girl that we've decided is going to be J's future wife. She's just adorable, and she's grown so much in the last two months. At J's birthday party she was just starting to do the army crawl thing. Yesterday she was standing up and cruising, using J for balance.

We stayed out longer than expected, came home to some seriously risen dough which got punched down, rolled into balls, and left to rise again. They finally came out of the oven at midnight and man! They were worth the wait! So delicious and warm and all melty in the mouth. I brushed mine with butter instead of the eggwash, and while they weren't as shiny and photogenic as Gretchen's, they were delicious.

So thank you Gretchen, for the wonderful recipe, and for the reminder that it's the perfect time of year to start cranking out the homemade goodies. This recipe will most certainly become a standard for us.