Cookies & Bread

Since Monday afternoon we have been the proud owners of a bright red KitchenAid stand mixer. My wife had spotted it on display in the window at Verner & Verner. It was rather costly but looks to be a sturdy machine that should last us a good long while. My wife recalls that her aunt still has a similar mixer that has been in use for decades. Yesterday evening it was put to the test, first in mixing up a batch of chocolate-chip cookie batter, then later mixing and kneading some bread dough. In both cases, the end results were delicious. After the bread dough had risen just once, my wife took some of it aside, separating it into pieces which she then flattened, and fried in a little butter until brown on both sides. We ate the resulting toutons hot, smeared with more butter, to which tradition-minded types might have added a drooling of molasses: hardly a nutritious snack, but a very satisfying one nevertheless. Later, after the remaining dough had risen again, and had baked, filling the apartment with that singular smell, we each savoured a little crust of it, cheerfully ignoring Mrs. Beeton’s warning:

When bread is taken out of the oven, it is full of moisture; the starch is held together in masses, and the bread, instead of being crusted so as to expose each grain of starch to the saliva, actually prevents their digestion by being formed by the teeth into leathery poreless masses, which lie on the stomach like so many bullets. Bread should always be at least a day old before it is eaten… Hot rolls, swimming in melted butter, and new bread, ought to be carefully shunned by everybody who has the slightest respect for that much-injured organ: the stomach.