All-Day Bread

A new recipe I perfected this week:

Around 9 am, take an excellent recipe like this one for Oatmeal Sandwich Bread. Load all the ingredients in the bread machine pan (don't leave anything out! whew!). Place the bread machine pan in the bread machine. Set the bread machine cycle to "Dough."

About an hour later, wonder how the bread is doing. Run back to the kitchen and look in the bread machine to find a bubbling mass and notice that you did not yet turn the machine on. Turn machine on.

When the buzzer sounds the end of the rising cycle, open the cover and notice that the bread didn't rise. Warm the oven slightly, place the dough in a bread pan, put the pan in the warm oven and cross your fingers.

Entertain a friend who has stopped by while your dough hangs out in the pan for an extra long period of time in the oven, not rising. Just before the end of the rising time, get ready to leave the house. Ask friend how to rescue this poor loaf that now needs to bake but can't start yet because you have to go pick up a child from school and can't leave the house with the oven on. Friend advises putting the bread outside where it is chilly so that the yeast growth is arrested. Follow her advice and go pick up child.

When arriving back at the house, surmise that you can warm it back up and maybe help it rise a little more by putting back in a warm oven. After another 30 minutes in warm oven, give up and bake the bread according to the original instructions. By dinnertime, remove bread from oven and present it to family as Dense Oatmeal Toasting Loaf for breakfast the next morning.