Over the weekend, I decided to cook a big family dinner which included homemade french bread. Sounds wonderful, right! I found this "Easy" baked french bread recipe on Pinterest. Apparently so easy that even young kids had tackled it and it turned out great. Well, let me just tell you all about my experience with this "easy" recipe and the amazing revelation I got just from making this bread.
First, let me just say, that before attempting any recipe be sure to read everything first. Don't even start getting your ingredients together until you have read the entire directions. For example, I didn't see the part where the author had used a Kitchen Aide mixer to mix her dough. Of course, I don't have one of those fancy mixers, and I had already started mixing ingredients in my "bowl" so I couldn't let that stop me. I figured I'd just do it the old fashioned way and knead the dough by hand. Well, this was not as easy as it seemed inside my head that it was going to be. Let's just say I have a whole new appreciation for my great grandmother now and my abs were feeling the pain the next day. I kneaded and kneaded until my arms were sore and I was sure they would fall off at any minute.
Then, I read that I needed to add 3 1/2 MORE cups of flour. I had already used 3 cups! By this point, I'm thinking what on earth have I gotten myself into here. So, here I go, adding more and more flour, one cup at a time, until I can't even mix this stuff together anymore. All of the sudden, I notice further down in the directions that you will know when it's ready once it starts pulling away from the bowl. I guess that meant I wasn't really supposed to use ALL of the flour? Well, it kind of was doing that with the first 3 cups of flour that I started with and I realized by this time this project was probably going to be a Pinterest fail for sure. I had already invested so much energy and time in it already though so I just added some more water and kept on kneading.
Afterwards, I spent what seemed like an eternity separating this dough and then rolling it out (with a glass because I didn't have a rolling pin) and forming three separate loaves. They looked beautiful y'all! Even though they looked pretty and smelled wonderful, I still wasn't positive they would be edible, but nothing was going to stop me now from continuing on with this little experiment. I popped those babies in the oven and watched them rise and turn the most beautiful golden brown, all the while thinking, "Wow! I'm actually going to make this baking fiasco work out!" When the timer went off, I took them out of the oven and took a picture of the beauty that was sitting before me. They looked like perfectly baked loaves of french bread. The tops were a golden crunchy brown, shaped perfectly with little cuts across the top, and they smelled magnificent. I just sat and admired the beauty of it for a while and sent pictures to family members to show them what I had created with my own two hands.
Then, I cut a piece to try it out. That's when I realized that I had been correct from the very beginning about this "easy" recipe and my mistake of not reading everything before I just dove right in and got started. On the inside, the dough was separating and parts of the dough were just a weird gray looking color. It wasn't edible at all. Was I surprised, well not really, I'm not going to lie about it. I mean for a minute there, when I looked at the outside, I thought maybe, just maybe it had all worked out and I had made this magical bread that my family was going to just ooh and ahh over while I sat back and smiled with pride, but in the back of my mind I had always doubted that this would be the actual outcome.
Even so, I admitted my defeat with dignity, threw them in the trash and cooked some Wonder Dinner Rolls instead. Before I threw these beauties out though, the thought crossed my mind that people are just like this beautiful loaf of bread. I know you are thinking, what, she has lost her mind, but just think about it. As I looked at this loaf of what looked like perfect bread on the outside, I started thinking about how we post pictures of ourselves with makeup, smiling and looking as perfect as possible on the outside all of the time. Yet, a lot of times on the inside we are broken, sad, angry or just feeling lost. We don't want others to see that part of us. We just want them to see the pretty parts and to make it look to others that everything is perfect in our lives. Then there are people who trick us into thinking they are our friends because on the outside they seem so sweet, caring and kind, but on the inside they are really manipulating and cruel just waiting to take advantage of us in our weakest moment.
Just like this bread, looks can be deceiving. Just because something looks perfect or pretty on the outside doesn't mean that's what it is like on the inside. It's ok to not appear pretty and perfect all of the time. It's ok to admit you have flaws, problems, and issues you are working through, because everyone else does too. Just remember, the next time you see a smiling face, look beyond that perfect exterior, maybe that person's life isn't really as perfect as it seems. Maybe they are just putting on an act to get you to trust them, or maybe they are struggling with their own challenges just like you, because they probably are. Maybe they are having one good day out of 7 this week or 365 this year. In conclusion, look beyond what you see and be careful who you trust or who you judge. Don't just assume everything is perfect and good from an outside appearance, because like this beautiful loaf of bread, looks can be deceiving.
Comentarios