Sometimes You Feel Like a Flake

I don't know what I did right. Don't you just HATE when that happens? We screw up all too often so it's helpful if we can figure out how to repeat ourselves when we ace the course.

It's that cheese bread, the one I gave the recipe for in the January 14th entry titled Comfort Food. I made it again today and it tasted just as good as it did last month. Only better. It was the crust, you see. For some reason, the crust this time is not just tender, it's very much like that lovely flaky croissant sort of -- uhmmm -- tender, flaky stuff.

I couldn't believe it. Kept slicing off more pieces and, yep, by golly, this one's flaky too. Why? What did I do right? This has never happened before. Never. Tender, yes. Flaky, no.

Okay. Track back. There were a few minor differences. Like I forgot the minced onion but I really don't believe that has anything to do with the crust. Uhmm ... oh, right ... I have some butter-flavored Crisco that I need to use up so I flopped in a quarter-cup of that instead of butter. Maybe that provided just enough difference to bring on the flake?

Also, I added some Vital Wheat Gluten. Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't. Usually I add it when I'm using wheat flour. Helps the dough rise better. But today I tossed in a couple of spoonsful because -- well, just because.

And I remembered to put the bread pans on the bottom shelf of the oven instead of the next one up. Made for a perfect golden brown top this time. I liked that.

That's all I can think of. So if I line up these "usual suspects," I think I'm going to put my money on the Crisco as the flake-culprit. We'll see. I'll be making some more of the cheese bread Thursday for Eddi and Larry and I'm going to use the Crisco again. Like a surfer looks for The Wave, I'll be looking for The Flake.