A Boy and His Loaf

As I think I might have stated back when we here at Chez Boeckman-Walker began baking our bread, I wanted that task to be a family ordea--er, endeavor. Not that I had crazy delusio--er, visions of the three human residents gathered around a bread machine, basking in its warmth, with the sweet aromas issuing forth imprinting lasting memories of cherished family traditions in our heads.

No, Gentle Reader, at the very least I just hoped that if I needed someone else to throw the ingredients into the pan and hit a few buttons, I could trust the male human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker to get the job done correctly.

By and large, I'm halfway there at this point. Aside from a few missteps every now and then, the husband can make a fully edible loaf of bread and even pizza dough in one of the five (or is it six now?) machines sitting at the end of the kitchen. The boy, on the other hand....

Well, he's a typical six-and-a-half-year-old boy in that his interest waxes and wanes. Although I suppose for most six-and-a-half-year-old boys, that he even shows an interest in and wants to participate in making bread is pretty extraordinary. In the immortal words of Hank Hill, "That boy ain't right"--and I'm only going to encourage his oddity.

Fortunately, I think I've discovered a way to do just that. Offering to let him measure and add the ingredients to the baking pan isn't enough. No, the final product really has to appeal to him. And what appeals more to a six-and-a-half-year-old boy than peanut butter and chocolate chips?

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bread

1 1/8 C milk
1/2 C peanut butter
1 1/2 T honey
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 C bread flour
1 t yeast
1/2 C chocolate chips

1. Add ingredients, excluding chocolate chips, to bread machine in the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Raisin, Sweet, Wheat or Basic cycle on the machine.
   
3. If available, select the Light crust option.
   
4. Press Start.
   
5. Add the chocolate chips either at the beginning of the second kneading period or when the machine beeps to add fruit or other late-addition ingredients (if available on the machine used).

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Donna Rathmell German doesn't include a nutritional breakdown for her recipes in The Bread Machine Cookbook II. That's probably a good thing in this case, Gentle Reader. Peanut butter and chocolate--not exactly a low-cal, low-fat, low-carb pairing there.

The Faudie's Futzings
I don't know if these count as futzings per se, but the boy and I used skim milk, vital gluten (we used whole wheat flour, after all), creamy peanut butter and Nestle Tollhouse Mini Morsels. When I told the boy we could pack more chocolate content into that half-cup since we'd use a helluva lot more mini morsels to fill said measuring device than we would if we'd whipped out the regular morsels, he threw his full support behind that decision.

He even insisted on testing the mini morsels to authenticate their chocolate goodness.

As with the onion poppy seed bread (baked a few hours earlier), the aroma of this baking loaf was not mouth-watering whatsoever. In fact, I can't recall there being much aroma at all. No hearty eau de toasting wheat. No scent of sweet chocolate or peanut butter. Disappointing, if you ask me.

When the machine beeped to let us know baking was complete, I opened the machine's lid and was somewhat disappointed by the loaf's final appearance. It had risen well enough, with a level top and uniformly colored crust that didn't appear burned at all. No, my disappointment was that it didn't look a thing like I had expected. I'd expected a basic loaf of bread but dotted with spots of dark that had once been chocolate chips.

But the loaf's failure to meet my expectation I suspect is my own fault. No, not for having the expectation in the first place, which might have been wildly unreasonable. Instead, I made the mistake of putting in the mini morsels too early; not long after the second kneading period had begun, I determined later. Yes, Rathmell German notes the chips can be added then, but I've read in many places that additional ingredients should be added 10 minutes or so into the second kneading. Since I'd been in the garage getting the washing machine going so that the boy would have clean uniform shirts for the following week of school, I missed the moment when the machine switched from rising to the second kneading and thus, out of fear of having already missed the beep, I threw the mini morsels in. Many minutes later the beep sounded...and my dream of a regular-looking loaf with dark spots that had once been chocolate chips came into serious question.

And, stupid me, my expectation didn't account at all for the peanut butter's presence. Stupid imagination.

The boy, on the other hand, was thrilled with the final product, both because of his involvement in the baking process and also because he was hungry.

Lil' Carb-craver

He was not thrilled that he had to wait for the bread to cool before slicing into it. But when that time came, he insisted he have the honor of cutting into the loaf. And I let him. Hey, he has his own chef's knife, and he's well on his way to having some mad knife skills like his ol' mom.

No fingers or hunks of flesh were lost in the cutting of this bread.