Overbaked?

Back in my wheat days I had put some dough in a warm oven to rise and forgot about it until whatever movie we were watching (a couple hours later!) mentioned bread which reminded me of my now over-risen dough.  It was easy enough to punch it down, reshape it, and let it rise again but this wouldn't be the last time I'd forget something in the oven, but strangely in my latest escapade I have discovered a strange secret peculiar to gluten free baking.  We made pizza the other night, my regular bread recipe makes too much for a thick 12" crust so I either use the extra for breadsticks or in this case I put it in a small, greased stoneware mixing bowl and planned to make a round 'artisan' loaf.  We finished baking the pizza and headed downstairs for a movie night and I put the mixing bowl in the oven at 350 and set the timer for 25 minutes, but I didn't hear it go off.  Nearly two hours later, after the show, with a sinking (and rather panicked) heart I knew what I had done.

I bake a full batch of this dough for about 45-50 minutes this was 1/4 the volume and twice the time but strangely the oven wasn't a smoking disaster as it would have been with wheat bread.  In fact the bread was very edible when it had cooled.  The crust was a little dark and a tad thicker but the crumb was actually very nice, especially as this recipe tends to be a little gummy, the extended bake time actually improved it!  I googled it but found nothing of use on over baking gluten free bread so must submit my own theory that the dough is incredibly moist that it takes much longer or hotter temps to actually burn it to a crisp than traditional wheat bread.  I am not proposing that we should over bake gluten free bread as a common practice, but rather can honestly say that when baking gluten free yeast bread, if you aren't sure if your loaf is done, baking it for an extra 20 minutes to be on the safe side isn't going to hurt it much at all, whereas a wheat loaf might burn on the outside and still be raw in the middle, the gluten free loaf can handle a lot more abuse and still be delicious, but if you under bake it, it will be completely inedible so err on the side of burning!

Advertising: what's really for sale?

 My nine year old son said he wanted a beard and mustache trimmer for Christmas last year, not that he had any facial hair to deal with as of then, but rather he had seen the commercials and was convinced it would bequeath all that 'coolness' to him that the models in the commercial displayed whilst using the contraption.  That is the heart of advertising: make the viewers want something, anything, other than what you are selling.  How many commercials or annoying ditties can you remember from decades ago and of those, how many can you actually remember what they are selling rather than the humor, wit, or catchy song that lodged it in your head?

I was a young teenager, well beyond the age of bathtub toys, but I wanted a 'rub-a-dub doggie' for Christmas.  We had a little family exchange where each sibling was given a little money to buy something for another sibling and I convinced my brother to get me one, despite my mother's objections, but the reality was far from that promised by the commercial, but then I didn't want the toy, rather I wanted the fun and love and happiness exhibited by the mother and her daughter in the commercial.  My poor childish heart longed for something it needed but had never had, and I thought I could get it by investing in a toy!

Can you look through the advertising in life, official and not?  What are you really after?  What do you really need?  What is someone else trying to get from you?  What are you longing for and hope a relationship or job or money or power or fame or car or new location or trip or whatever will give you?  Look past the smiling facade, the cool music, the happy people, the wit or humor or unforgettable jingle, both on TV and in real life, to the core of the message, why does it attract you?  Do you really want the product or the trappings in which they are trying to sell it?  Can that product or relationship or whatever truly deliver what you are longing for?

Who are you?  Where did you come from?  Is there a purpose?  What happens afterward?  Does it mean anything?  Does anyone care?  These are the big questions.  Do you have an answer?  Advertisers and scam artists have mined them for millennia to control others or enrich themselves without giving away even a hint of an answer.  But there is an Answer, but we'd rather hum the tune from a gum commercial that hasn't aired in three decades!