Disaster in the Kitchen

 

After leaving my hot cross bun dough to rest and rise in the bread machine before shaping and baking, I opened it up to discover an abominable mess of gooey, gelatinous spillover that had filled the bottom of my bread machine. I was so exasperated and upset, that I needed help spooning the 'glue' out of the appliance (and I didn't even think to take a picture at that point, but it would have been priceless). This is the pond of goop that Dale scooped out for me. 

I've made this recipe before, so wasn't expecting a disaster of this magnitude at all. I played back the video in my head of me 'making' the mixture, and I recall measuring what turned out to be almost 2.5 times the amount of liquid the recipe called for!

Instead of 125 ml of water, I distinctly remember using 1 cup plus 25 ml (125 ml is half a cup!). I was distracted and attending to other things at the same time as following the recipe, so I'm not at all surprised that it went wrong. I am surprised though, that I THOUGHT I could multitask on an 'assignment' as critical as this!

I'm pleased that this mistake forced me to thoroughly clean my neglected appliance, and I can honestly say that this is definitely the cleanest it's ever been! I'll have to try it out soon to see if the motor still turns the paddle!

Not to waste anything ... I added almost 3 more cups of flour to the dough in the pan, kneaded it and baked 3 bricks/loaves from it. I wasn't going to bother shaping individual buns, adding the dough crosses and brushing with sugar water at this point. It's cinnamon-y and tastes great toasted, dripping with butter.

The big question is, will I be confident enough to try making those hot cross buns this year?

UPDATE: not only does my bread machine still work, but so does my recipe when I measure correctly. These turned out nicely!