I'll be over here in the rocking chair, rocking

Someone on my friendslist, one of the many college students, just said, and I paraphrase, that she sent in her paper with errors, but fortunately she has time to correct them and send it in again.

And all of you who are currently or recently college students or, possibly, professors, are nodding.

( Uphill, both ways. With Typewriters. )

It's ALIVE!

Inspired by kressel's post, I decided to bake some challah. I bought yeast, high gluten flour, oil, eggs and sugar. I used a recipe in the old Spice and Spirit - the yellow paperback instead of the blue hardcover. Mostly because I could find it, except I reduced the sugar by half. I don't like sweet challahs. Also, I added a pinch of saffron to the water.

It's been rising for less than an hour and it's already *huge*, and when I jab two fingers into it, the impression stays. Do I need to add more flour?

UPDATE: It's Alive II

I used the wrong yeast. However, when I went to punch it down, it was perfect - tacky, but it pulled away from my hands. Thank you for the advice. I have made bread before, but not in years.

I shaped it into eight small loaves after taking challah. The first four doubled as I was braiding the second batch ,so I painted them with egg wash (I couldn't find the sesame seeds, so it's just eggwash) and they're in the oven now.

This is the first time in years and years I've made challah, let alone a big enough batch to actually take challah *with* a blessing. The merit for this goes to kressel, who inspired me to do this mitzvah. For this, may she have the zechus to see all of her children do well in school.