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why math is important

About two weeks ago a certain kindergarten teacher passed off to me a little ziploc bag full of ooey-gooey starter. I came home, googled the directions and sundry recipes for it, and the process began. By day ten I was debating whether or not this Friendship bread stuff was really a very friendly thing. But the end of day ten, I realized one very important thing: MATH is important!

The directions are simple for day ten: Add 1 c milk, 1 c flour, 1 c sugar, stir. Pour out 3 cups into containers to give friends (or to make bread), and keep the last cup to continue the yeast process. Simple, right? That means you'll have four containers after everything is said and done. One for the starter, one for my cinnamon rolls, one for bread. So somewhere in my warped thinking, that equaled four. (Yes, I may have two bachelors and an associates degree, but I'm NOT smarter than a fifth grader!) As it comes time to knead the cinnamon rolls, the goop is still, well, goop. Then I realized what I had done, and by that time the mixture was added and there was no choice but to DOUBLE the recipe. Do you have any idea how many cinnamon rolls that makes? (three 13x9 pan fulls, in case you don't). Thankfully we had little friends over that night, as well as Mrs. Bryan. That took care of half a pan. I froze the rest, though I'm not totally sure why. After all, they were okay. Not great, not ooh-aah make you want to swallow your tongue delicious, just okay. But either way, they are now taking up space in my freezer.

So now today, ten days out, is round 2. Three loaves of sourdough bread are rising (one cup of goop will make three small loaves of bread), as well as rolls for church on Sunday. I'm not sure how well sourdough rolls will turn out, but hopefully okay. If not, then my chickens are going to have a lot of time-intensive food to eat. I've also got my starter put back as well as a bag to give to a friend. (Am I nice friend to give someone more work to do or what?)

AND I found a recipe on-line that uses the batter that is for plain white bread, as well as an apple bread. Maybe I should be more specific: a recipe that uses normal ingredients (NOT pudding mix!) Do people really think the Amish use pudding mixes? I like pudding mixes, don't get me wrong, but why would I waste time making homemade bread from yeast only to throw a sugar induced pudding mix into it?

I'm not sure how many more weeks I'll keep this up. Bread machine bread is good, and it's much more time convenient. There's also yeast packets that you can use to make your own bread that doesn't require stirring and mixing for ten days before baking. Has anyone else tried this friendship bread?

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