Pumpkin Challah and a Mouse Named Kev

For Christmas, my parents bought me a pain de mie pan (aka a Pullman Loaf Pan) for baking bread. It is nothing short of fantastic, making perfect, perfect square loaves of bread with a tender crust and a crumb that is strong enough to not squish and ball up when sliced for sandwiches. I think I've used it three times so far - once for a traditional pain de mie, once for brioche (sigh - yum) and once, today, for a pumpkin challah.

I know challah should not be pumpkin, but I saw a recipe and it sounded good, so who can blame me? I know, too, that challah should not be forced into a square pan, but I had visions of cream cheese and pumpkin butter sandwiches for my picky (sometimes) vegetarian daughter's lunch. I had visions, too, of Wednesday night's dinner being a baked French toast with scraps of sliced challah from the kids cut-out sandwiches. Pumpkin spice, maple syrup, butter, a side of bacon. Can it be Wednesday night already? Please. So anyway, it wasn't traditional challah, but I'm going to keep calling it that because I can and I feel like it. Plus, I did braid some of it - that counts for something, right?

It rose beautifully, all three times. That was new to me, I usually only knew breads to rise twice. But it was fine - gorgeous and pillowy with each rising. It made our house smell delicious while rising and baking. I think I bake bread as much for the smell as I do to have it in the house. There is nothing better than the warm, yeasty smell of homemade bread. Nothing.

Here's where the mouse named Kev comes in. Little Man thinks he's hot stuff, snitching bits of this and a piece of that from the counter in the kitchen whenever he feels like it. Normally, I don't mind - if there's something out on the counter it's usually healthy. If it's not, he asks. I've never known him to sneak a cookie or something that he knows he shouldn't have.

Obviously, a perfectly square, perfectly beautiful loaf of pumpkin challah seems like a healthy snack to him, because he destroyed my beautiful loaf. He pinched off pieces until it looks like something a rat gnawed on.

And then he grinned at me and told me he twicked me. And then. And then. And then he saw my face and realized that I wasn't laughing this time, that it wasn't funny. We had a long talk about how when Mommy bakes something or cooks something, he isn't to eat it until he checks with me because it could be for someone else.

So now, my perfectly baked, perfectly cornered challah is destroyed. Gone forever. (Or until I bake another one.) But Little Man's tummy is sated. At least I know it's good, right?