Bake sales. I assumed that with food allergies and fear of liability-related terrors they were no longer a thing. Color me surprised Monday evening to see on the PTA’s Facebook page that they are having a bake sale fundraiser on Wednesday. To be fair, the organizer did make the post that morning, but I am old (it said so on my medical chart when I was  pregnant) and do not allow Facebook on my phone, so I am partly responsible for being late to that knowledge, but still …

Anyway, in my best attempt at being a supportive PTA mom, I promptly started the pre-ferment for some basic bread dough Monday night, mixed up the full dough Tuesday morning and made my plan for a cool slow overnight rise in the chilly garage and the actual baking on Wednesday morning. Then Tuesday turned into one of those never ending days, and at 9:15PM I am in the kitchen shaping the loaves when I come up with the idea that I should bake some cookies too, because how long could that really take?

(Spoiler alert!)

Two and a half hours later it’s midnight, and I have 57 thumbprint cookies (with homemade cranberry sauce left over from Thanksgiving) cooling. No holiday-themed bags for them, but the paper plates left over from last year’s kiddo birthday party are festive enough, right? On my way to bed I checked on the bread dough in the chilly garage, and, holy crap, that’s some healthy yeast in there! The loaves were almost fully risen; no way they’re not going to overproof by morning, even with a 5AM wake up. Into the fridge they went in hopes of slowing them down enough to not be bringing baked bricks to the sale.

Wednesday morning baking bread after a semi-sleepless night went well enough, though I didn’t completely trust that the loaves weren’t overproofed. Nothing I could do about it at that point, except not bring them, but “not being able to do anything about it” has never stopped me from worrying.

The car smelled wonderful on the way to school. The loaves sold. The cookies sold. Maybe I did bring bricks of bread to the sale, not that anyone would say anything to me directly about that because that is just not DONE around here. I baked, and it was good.