Kitchen Equipment Falling Apart

First, we’ve had a Keurig coffee maker for a couple of years now. It died this past week. We didn’t do a rendition of Taps for it, but we certainly missed it. We tried to fall back to our previous coffee maker and had a bit of a time figuring out the right ratios of grinds-to-water. I’m pretty sure I’ve got extra hair in places I didn’t before. But more importantly, we realized a not-so obvious other benefit to the Keurig- we used less coffee grounds to make an acceptable cup of coffee. The Wife and I both noticed it this past week- when I mentioned it this morning the Wife concurred, replying “I thought I noticed the same thing, but thought it might just be me.” She went out an purchased a new Keurig today to replace it. They’ve made some changes, like getting rid of the charcoal filter in the water tank. Also, it appears our old Keurig had been dying a slow death because our first cups with the new one were noticeably hotter than what we’d been accustomed to. Definitely for the better.

I also wanted to pass along that I had to replace our Kitchenaid 7 Qt- yes, the one we’d just purchased in December. That clicking sound I described on numerous occasions only got worse. More recently, it had turned into a horrendous grinding noise when making the dough. It made it through it’s final bit of dough last night, but I couldn’t hold onto it any longer. It was only a matter of time before it gave out entirely. So I called Williams Sonoma and to my pleasant surprise, they said they’d take it back and exchange it for another one. I assume they handle returning the broken one to Kitchenaid. Naturally, mine was the first they’d had returned. Here’s hoping I don’t have to return this one.

Speaking of the last dough I made, I tried something a little different. Mom had mentioned how she’d seen a loaf of bread made on Food Network where they used ice water and refrigerated the dough. I’ve refrigerated dough, but never used iced water when making the dough. The idea is to extend the time for the yeast to fully develop by retarding its development with the cold, thereby improving the flavor of the bread. I’d never tried it, it sounded interesting so I gave it a shot. I can say that it does make for a nice loaf of dough, but the hard part is allowing enough time for the dough to properly warm up again. In reality, I probably should have given mine a lot longer to do so.