I CAN KEEP A SECRET!

Okay, so nearly a year ago my step sister, Angie, invited all of us to attend a bread making class. I wasn't able to make it but RaNae and DeAnn went and for the entire year they have been flaunting their new found talents in our faces.  I think deep down they were glad that none of the rest of us went because they truly had "SOMETHING" on us!

Well after realizing that they were never going to break down and share the "SECRET" recipe we finally got RaNae to schedule a class for us.  We all gathered our friends together, loaded in cars and traveled to Pleasant Grove to attend a Pantry Secrets bread making class. 

Jeannie and her daughter Mindy made it look so easy.  The end product was delicious. We had a great time learning their tricks of the trade.  They had all of the supplies you would ever need to become a professional baker.  It was hard not to splurge and buy everything they had to offer.  I bought the key ingredient, lecithin, cinnamon drops and some calazone molds.  Kristy called Tony and had him run to Costco and pick us up some bread flour before they closed.  We then met him in a parking lot to purchase the "white powder substance".  It looked kind of fishy, but we were grateful to him for making it possible for us to get right to baking.

                      

                      

It was great! I honestly couldn't wait to get home from work today to see if I would too have a new found talent.

In fact, we were ALL excited!

I was asked to take a dessert to someone in the ward and this was my chance to SHINE!  I ran to the store right after work, anxious to get a few things and get home and reinact the things that I had learned the night before. 

I gathered up my supplies and began the seven minute process of mixing the dough together, the one that is possible to do completely mess free.  It's true, I witnessed it! 

They made a big deal about keeping the dough "sticky".  I felt like I had this in the bag, that is until it came time to take the dough out of the mixing bowl.  Something just wasn't right!  The reinactment quickly started to fall apart from there.  Sticky is one thing but, this dough was beyond sticky!

They instructed us not handle the dough with flour, but I had no choice. In the end this batch went in the garbage and I began again, this time reducing the amount of  "extra" water.  Batch number two was a little less sticky, but still not quite right.  I was seriously beginning to doubt my new talent!  I managed to form a couple of dough gobs with this batch, which actually tasted pretty darn good, but I knew they could be better.

I was not giving up!  I went for batch three.  Now remember that I was planning on taking a yummy treat to a neighbor for dinner.  I had no choice but to try again.  This batch too, was a bit too sticky!  But, by now I'm nearly out of time to try again so I had no choice but to create this beautiful raspberry creamcheese braid, ha ha!

Too bad it's not Halloween time.  This would make a perfect MUMMY!

Well, in the end I smothered it with frosting, hoping to hide the imperfections and also hoping that the taste would overshadow the appearance.  I made me a smaller one after the fact to try so that if I needed to call and apoligize I could.

It looks like I'm going to have to do a lot of practicing before I have the talent that DeAnn and RaNae were apparently born with. I'm not giving up!  But in the meantime, I think it's safe to say that the SECRET IS SAFE WITH ME!