"Ohh, mom we forgot the butter..."

These words were uttered from the mouth of my little sous chef (or maybe I should just say wanna be chef), Ariel, last night as we were wrapping up our Activity Day for Girls activity at church.

For those of you wondering, no that is not my new calling in church, but the person who was over it can no longer do it, and since I am currently the only person left in a semi-leadership role (secretary) in Primary (0ur President moved, and they have yet to call a new President), I begged Mike to let me step up (he is currently over Primary in our Bishopric). I just did not want Ariel, or the other girls, to have to go with out an Activity Day leader once again. It seems that calling is hard to keep filled. Okay enough of that.

Let's do like they do in the movies and go back a little in time so that you can see how we arrived to this whole "we forgot the butter" point. There was a post where someone taught her activity day girls how to make bread and then they can freeze it and bring it back on Sunday and use it for the sacrament bread. I thought that was such a great idea!
But, if you read my previous post, you would realize that I, unlike my mother-in-law, am not a baker of bread. It has always seemed overwhelming to me. In the past, I attempted to make my mom's bread recipe once and it seemed like there was a million steps, so half way through I quit. Mike's mom even bought me a bread maker and I have yet to use it. What is wrong with me???

Anyway, back to the point. So I kept thinking the girls really needed to do this. I felt strong about it. I felt like it would be something they would find fun to do, yet also get a valuable spiritual lesson about the sacrament (we talked about the sacrament and how we could remain faithful while the bread was rising). I also thought it would be special for them to know that the bread being used for sacrament, something so sacred, was the bread they made.

But again, I thought "wow this will take too much time" because even though I have not made bread, it always seemed like a 3 hour job. So what did I do, you guessed it, I called Mike's mom. I knew if anyone could help, she could. And I was right. I explained my time dilemma and I also told her that I really did not want to have to have the girls go home that night and be up past 9pm baking bread. She quickly told me that there was a cool rise dough recipe that could be made up within the hours time and then the girls could each take the dough home and let it rise for up to 24 hours in the refrigerator before baking. She sent out the recipe the next day. But I was still a little apprehensive, remember I've never baked bread before.

Well that soon changed. On Tuesday night, drum roll please, I made bread with Ariel and Cecily for the first time, just to test it out. I called Mike's mom several times in the process to make sure I was doing it right. It seemed to be fairly easy (once I kicked the girls out half way through the kneading process. I really don't have patience. I wish I did). I was actually impressed at how easy it was. In less than an hour I had the bread in the refrigerator to sit overnight to rise. The next morning I got up and baked one of the loaves for breakfast. The girl devoured it. It actually came out great. Later that day, I cooked the second loaf to take for the Activity Day girls.
Let me just say, I am an over achiever---or at least I try to be. I wanted each of the girls to have their own bread to take home, so I decided each girl would make her own batch, with her moms help of course. ( THANKS ANNIE AND LISANKA for all your WONDERFUL help. Those moms are angels, I tell ya! I could not have done the activity without them. And oh, if you have read Annie's blog, the jam she made doesn't just look good, it taste AWESOME! Thanks Annie!)

I have to admit, I felt slightly overwhelmed having to go back and forth between Ariel and another little girl during the activity since I only had made the bread once before and remember, I was the teacher.

Have you ever heard the saying, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"? That's what should be at the top of my blog because it is so me. I have these great ideas and plans with the best intentions and somewhere along the way something always seems to happen. So what happened tonight? Let's fast forward. The girls all had their two loaves of bread all nice in their pans (they looked so nice too) and they were eating the bread I had made earlier with Annie's jam and Ariel chimes in with, "Ohh, mom we forgot the butter." Me thinking that she was talking about having butter with bread said, "NO Ariel, that's why Sis. Emmertson brought the jam. We eat jam with bread. We don't need butter." Then she said, "But didn't we put butter in our recipe last night, and then she pointed to all the sticks of butter that I had on the counter."
YUP, you guessed it. I totally forgot to have the girls put the butter in the recipe. I felt like such an idiot and thought that I ruined the bread. The funny thing was that Ariel kept telling everyone all night "how to make their bread, like she was an expert." Where was she 45 minutes ago?

This morning, we baked our bread because I felt so bad and I just had to see how it turned out. Guess what, we were totally blessed. The bread was good. My girls gobbled up the whole entire loaf for breakfast and we are going to eat the other loaf for dinner. I am going to make another batch with Ariel on Saturday and we will bring fresh bread to church on Sunday for sacrament. YEAH!! When I told Mike's mom what I did, she said that it would be fine, that there are many breads that you can make without butter or oil!

I have to say this is the best bread recipe EVER. Not only is it easy to make (less than an hour, leave it in the fridge over night and then bake for 35 min). It is pretty much idiot proof. I mean come on, we left out the butter, the girls pounded that bread to death and it still came out good. Lisanka said that Hannah cooked her bread this morning and her entire family loved it. They are eating the rest of theirs for dinner too and making more on Saturday. I think we might have created bread making monsters! LOL.

Thanks again Heidi for all your help and for the wonderfully easy FOOL PROOF bread recipe. I wish I had thought to ask you for a recipe like this years ago, because there is nothing like fresh homemade bread! If anyone is interested, here is the recipe:

Coolrise White Bread

5 1/2 to 6 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

2 pkgs. active dry yeast

2 tblsp. sugar

2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup soft margarine (1/2 stick)

2 1/4 cup hot tap water

Salad Oil (or canned spray)

• Combine 2 cups flour, undissolved yeast, sugar and salt in large bowl. Stir well to blend. Add soft margarine.


• Add hot tap water to ingredients in bowl all at once.


• Beat with electric mixer at medium speed 2 minutes. Scrape sides of bowl occasionally.


• Add 1 cup more flour. Beat with electric mixer at high speed 1 minute, or until thick and elastic. Scrape sides of bowl occasionally.


• Stir in just enough remaining flour to make soft dough that leaves the sides of the bowl. Turn onto floured board. Round up into ball.


• Knead 5-10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Cover with plastic wrap and with towel. Let rest on board 20 minutes. Punch down.


• Divide dough into 2 equal portions. Roll each portion into an 8X12" rectangle. Roll up tightly into loaves beginning at 8" side. Seal lengthwise edge and ends well. Tuck ends under.


• Place in greased 8 1/2X 4 1/2 X 2 1/2" loaf pans. (Correct pan size is important for best results. ANDREA HERE--It comes out perfectly fine if you only have a regular 9 inch size bread pan because I used one that size for one loaf.)


• Brush surface of dough with salad oil (or you can use can spray). Cover pans loosely with waxed paper, brushed with oil, and then with plastic wrap.


• Refrigerate 2 to 24 hours at moderately cold setting. When ready to bake, remove from refrigerator. Uncover.


• Let stand 10 minutes while preheating oven.


• Puncture any surface bubbles with oiled toothpick just before baking.


• Bake at 4oo degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, or until done.


• Remove from pans immediately. Brush top crust with margarine if desired. Cool on rack. Makes 2 loaves.