It may be amazing but even as a complete beginner you already come up with tips to make life easier for the next generation of bakers. The fact that only two hours separates you and your imaginary followers appears to be no obstacle to the largesse.

For example, I must report that the results of my flour mess (described but not cleaned up earlier) was noted by my wife with some concern later.

First of all, the level of efficiency that I had working with flour for the first time in 38 years was pretty low, and I spilled more of the stuff than I do now, only three loaves later.

Secondly, it’s not that I didn’t clean up after myself, but as you married guys know, what you consider clean and what a woman considers clean can be two very different things. They, of course, consider us a bit visually challenged, and we think they have some kind of laser vision. Plus maybe being the slightest bit crazed about the cleanliness/Godliness thing.

But the true reality check in the spilled flour arena is the “run your hand along the counter” test, which will reveal a grainy quality even to the most beefy guy, if he hasn’t really done a thorough clean up job.

It wasn’t the lack of detailed cleanup that bugged my wife, however, but the compromised, bread-dough spattered condition of the dishcloth after the event. She compassionately conveyed her master cook mom’s solution which is to scrape the big pieces of flour and dough off of the counter with a spatula, followed by a final cleanup with a wet paper towel.

My only modification to that was to use the stainless steel dough cutter or bench knife that I got from this site.  I just like using the official tools as much as possible.

It’s a guy thing.