Know what this is??

IT’S A BREAD MAKER!!  Woop woop!!  So, a few weeks back I attempted to make Chrissie’s parents some bread as a “thank you” for letting us stay up at there cottage for a couple training weekends.  ”Try” being the operative word.  I had no idea yeast was such a finicky little bugger, and I’m a bit like Amelia Bedelia in the kitchen – I read the directions and do what they say.  ”Empty yeast packet into half cup of room-temperature water.”  Well, apparently our “room temperature” is not quite warm enough.  Or maybe it’s too warm.  Whatever the issue is, the yeast did not work and the bread did not rise.  It just sat there in the bowl.  ”Punch dough down.”  I punched it.  The height didn’t really change much, though.  That’s strange.  Oh, well.  Time to bake it!” The final product was more of a brick dressed as a loaf of bread.  It looked like bread.  Maaaan!  It smelled so good when it was cooking, too!

This was all explained to Chrissie and Jesse, who are themselves quite the culinary wizards.  While Jesse was explaining to me the idiosyncrasies of baking real bread (not that cake stuff – I’ve got that down!), Chrissie was formulating a plan.  See, they’ve been trying to nail down a wedding gift for us since the wedding… last July.  I’d figured she’d finally forgotten about it, and was glad she’d done so.  Nope!  While we were hanging out at the house this weekend, post-6&60, this sweet-ass bread maker was presented to us in gold wrapping (literally).  It has all kinds of recipes and settings, including some for gluten-free and low-carb breads.  So cool!  I am so excited!!  Bread and jam for everyone!!  (It makes jam, too!)  This is going to be so fun!