Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Those frackin’ Templars

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I’ve always been fond of the Knights Templar. I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail a million eons ago. I have The Temple and the Lodge and The Illuminoids and The Pursuit of the Millennium and A History of the Secret Societies. I have undoubtedly even more such books around here someplace (still haven’t organized my shelves by topic, dammit). Jim McDonald’s The Apocalypse Door! Great fun. And, of course, I’ve read The Da Vinci Code and was aware that related books have been coming out.

Yesterday, as Darin and I wandered around Borders, I was struck by how many Templar-related novels there are out right now. And other Da Vinci Code related nonsense, such as (I am not making this up) The Diet Code.

I walked over to Darin with one of the books in my hand and said, “I know this isn’t an original sentiment, but… Dan Brown has a lot to answer for.” He nodded.

So much for the line of dialogue I always wanted to put in a movie: “Those fucking Templars are at it again.”

Did I read this right?

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I took Martha Stewart Baking out of the library. It looked great! Excellent pictures. A wide range of great baking recipes, not all of the whip-up-this-little-wedding-cake-in-your-spare-time variety, but homemade Oreos and cupcakes.

She had a recipe for Pullman bread (also known as pain de mie), and since I am still looking for the sine qua non of pain de mie, I couldn’t wait to try it.

Then I read the instructions and went, “Huh?”

Let me summarize it: make the dough. Let proof. Punch down; let proof again in the proofing bowl. (Most recipes I’ve read do only one proofing in the proofing bowl, but whatever.) Take the dough out, fold up, put in pain de mie pan, let rise.

So far, so good. Then we get to this:

Close the lid completely and bake, rotating pan halfway through, until loaf is light golden brown, about 45 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350F, close the lid, and continue baking another 30 minutes.

I assume that second “close the lid” is there because you opened the lid to check on the loaf’s color. But this baking time — what the hey? 75 minutes total is almost double what any other recipe I’ve read has called for.

I pulled the loaf out after the 45 minutes were up: the loaf was a deep golden brown, and the crust was actually several millimeter thick. To be absolutely sure I used my insta-read thermometer, and the interior temperature was fine.

What’s up with that extra 30 minutes? If this was the first time I’d baked bread, I would have cremated the loaf.

This makes me very nervous about trying other recipes.