Bread

Today I am baking bread ... as I am writing to you, the dough is rising.  After kneading the dough to a consistency that felt correct, I plopped the mixture into a glass bowl, covered with plastic wrap before setting in the oven to encourage the combined ingredients to increase in size.  In one hour I am to punch the expanded blob down, split in half and then form two separate loaves.  The reshaped dough will also have to rise. 

Since I do not have a mixer, I decided to prepare the dough using my hands.  Five minutes ago, after rereading the last recipe, I noticed a small notation at the end of the third sheet of instructions where the author noted that if I were to make the dough without a mixer, the yeast should be activated first in warm water.   Ugh… hopefully my bread dough can adapt.  From where I am seated, the mixture looks doubled in size.  I question the second punching down; why not simply bake this original impressive mound? 

There are important phases in the process when the dough has to rest before swelling again. It occurs to me that life is like this ... we make mistakes, we rise; we are punched down only to rise again.  Expanding is important if we want to produce an impressive loaf of bread.  Learning and developing is imperative for me to develop into a better person.    

I believe I am at the second rising stage, trying to get it right (already making mistakes).   As for the bread, I'll let you know if I was able to produce a proper loaf.