Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Traditions

I love traditions.  They help bring people together, both family and friends.  This year is my first Thanksgiving being away from extended family.  While there are many things to miss about our large family gatherings, one of the things that I look forward to this time of year is my Grandma Parrott's homemade rolls.  She uses a recipe that was passed down from Great Aunt Mildred.  Of course they have both made the rolls so many times that a recipe is no longer needed.  Good cooks often say that you have to see and feel what you are making to know when it is right. 

Since I'm so far from home, and won't be getting any of Grandma's rolls this year, I decided to try and make them myself.  I do not bake very regularly and have only ever made bread by myself on one other occasion  and it didn't turn out very good.  But nonetheless, I was determined to make the rolls and carry on the tradition with my family, wherever we may be in the world.  So Grandma emailed me the recipe and I gave it my best.

There are a few things that made this even more of an adventure than it would have been had I been in the U.S.  First of all, I had to lug my 20 lb. transformer into the kitchen so I could use my mixer.  I'm not sure if it was something I did wrong or if it was the cool, moist climate but the rolls didn't seem to rise quite right. Also, it seems my smaller UK oven cooks a bit slower.  Despite the differences the rolls came out pretty good. Of course, I did quite a bit of tasting to assess the success of the product. The texture isn't quite what it should be but with practice hopefully they'll improve.

Baking supplies all ready

  When did my baby get so big?!  She looks like a little girl. 

Lyla helped a little bit.  She mostly just wanted to eat the dough.

Yum! Baking in the oven. Notice they are baking at 175 Celsius, which is not quite the same as 350 Fahrenheit but as close as I could get.

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