Frogging and baking
Last week I proudly presented you my Fake Frankie cardigan. An easy top-down raglan cardigan with a simple pattern of garter stitch rows on stockinette background. Last week I may have bragged how experienced I am in knitting (and crocheting) such top-down constructions. This week I frogged the Fake Frankie cardigan…
No, don’t be afraid, not the whole cardigan, only the last rows of the cardigan’s body. You remember the photos of last week (if not here there are again).
After writing and posting last Monday I contemplated them again and after some minutes I was convinced that the cardigan is long enough. I immediately started the last garter stitch section which replaces the ribbing in this cardigan. I knitted 8 rows, put the cardigan down and was so pleased that I would be finished in two more rows (the garter stitch sections are 10 rows each). And then I noticed that I completely ignored the distance between the garter stitch part and the stockinette part – the last stockinette section was much to small…. Ahhhhhh…..
And there we are now. At the unraveling part. Which I hate, because I am a chicken which is frightened to drop stitches during the unraveling process. Therefore I made a foolproof plan to tackle this dangerous process of unraveling:
First: Bake something sweet
Second: eat enough sugar to create a high which then will carry me through the ..
Three: frogging
Thought and done
As I had a block of yeast resting in my fridge and the bread bin was empty I decided to bake two birds with one stone – or so :-DDD I remembered a wonderful Japanese recipe I got from a friend which were the perfect solution – Melonpan. Sweet and fluffy yeast rolls covered by shortcrust. I doubled the yeast dough recipe to not only bake the cute Melonpan, but also a small yeast bread.
For the bread/roll dough I sifted
400 g wheat flour
into a bowl with 6 g of salt.
In another bowl I combined
20 g fresh yeast
1 big egg
30 g sugar
100 g milk (38° C)
100 g water (38° C)
30 g soft butter
Now I combined the wet ingredients with the flour and mixed them into a soft dough. I covered the dough and let it rise for approximately 1 hour. During this rising time, I prepared the shortcrust. I combined:
50 g cold butter
55 g sugar
120 g wheat flour
1/3 Tsp baking powder
Dash of salt
into a dough which I rolled into a sausage form. I covered this dough and put it into the fridge. (Making the shortcrust is easy, not eating the whole dough, this is the hard part)
One hour later my yeast dough had roughly doubled in volume and was ready to be beaten down – ahem - flattened softly. I halved the dough to use one part for the Melonpan and the other half for the later bread. This part I put away to let it rise till I would use it.
For the Melonpan I divided the yeast dough into 8 small parts which I first stretched and then formed into balls. Now on to the shortcrust. This I cleverly divided also into 8 parts :-D and rolled it out into thin disks (actually I could not find my rolling pin, so I flattened the dough by hand which was not aesthetically pleasing). I stretched the yeast dough a second time and again formed small balls which I covered 2/3 parts with the shortcrust.
After all Melonpans are placed on the baking sheet I cut diagonally into them to form their typical crust pattern. I let them rise for 15 minutes and then they hopped into the oven for 6 minutes on 200 degrees and then 10 more minutes on 170 degrees.
Tada: my sugar doping was ready 😍😍😍 Thy looked like crumbling misshapen mutant rolls, but the taste …. Yummy 🤤 😋
As the oven was still hot I also baked the second part of the yeast dough (which I had stretched and formed), so we had not only sweets but some kind of bread for the next day :-D
Strengthened by the Melonpan I applied myself to the unraveling. To avoid trouble I mostly use one special method for frogging. By inserting a knitting needle into the first leg of every stitch of the row to which I want to unravel, I spare me the picking up of live stitches. As I am to lazy to explain, I made this short video:
As you can see on the video, I was able to unravel without bigger problems, I only messed up two stitches at the beginning of the row where I placed the needle into the wrong leg of the stitches. After this baking and unraveling session I am now back on track and again short before finishing the body of the sweater (hopefully).
The other project I am on is a crochet bunting made out of Lisa Pinenote‘s dragonfly granny square. You can find the pattern on Ravelry for free if you want to join in.
![old neckline(9).png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNVAqmcocxijzCXF4gTp2Wz6qVA9T8GqMkzdwP6uW7v7x/old%20neckline(9).png)
Last but not least, I want to direct you to @needleworkmonday‘s contest. The #needleworkmonday community is celebrating its 2.!!!! Birthday this July (wooooooooow) and invites us all to create a special project which involves this celebration till July 29th. You can read more in this post. Hope to see you on the birthday party
Thank you @crosheille for initiating and @muscara, @shanibeer, @marblely for hosting the #needleworkmonday. If you want to see more beautiful projects with yarn, fabric and most of all needles, follow @needleworkmonday. Or even better grab your needles and keyboard and join the #needleworkmonday community.
![needleworkmonday.png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPvaWXJ2mNenRsh8juVhW8BdMosnWzP7PtjvW3nXi4nwk/needleworkmonday.png)
![Want to see more_Follow me neumannsalvaor visithttp___neumannsalva.de_(1).png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVFwX9hAQWtuo13rH1wK3wDBoK25n1n1c5Y221KzXwDA1/Want%20to%20see%20more_Follow%20me%20neumannsalvaor%20visithttp___neumannsalva.de_(1).png)
Those little buns look delicious and just the right size to be even more tempting! I keep thinking I will make a batch of rock cakes (the simplest rubbed mixture of fat and flour you learn when you start baking), but I haven't got there yet 😍
That's a good tip about picking up the row where you want to stop unravelling before you start. I unravel a lot, I'm getting more philosophical about it, it is just part of knitting :)
Thaaaank youuuuu and yes, the buns were so nice, the perfect mixture between cake and bun (ok... secretly I have eaten half of the cake dough before I put everything into the oven, so the proportions weren't as good as I thought 😆)
I googled rock cakes because I did not know the term and they look delicious - there seem to be so many different variations. I hope you found time to bake them.
And the unravelling technique is helpful. I am not sure where I read about this, but it alleviates my fear of dropping stitches.
I guess I am not philosophical.... (but it would be a great book title "philosophical unravelling")
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Thank you so much for your awesome curation work and for choosing my post. It is always so amazing to be chosen 💕💕
Useful frogging tip and lovely looking bread! You definitely put a lot of work into getting the cardigan done right!
Hopefully the work will pay out... I love the wool so much and it seems to be discontinued. The buns only hold one day… Next time I must bake more :-D
I love the title of this post! It’s very intriguing especially for those that may not know what frogging is.
So glad you were able to get back on track with your cardigan. Smart idea to get sugar involved to pump you up and ready you for the task. Thanks for sharing those helpful tips and video too!
My baking usually never comes out pretty but the taste is all that matters! Yummy 😋
Thanks for sharing the news about our current contest!
Thank youuuu and I also had to learn the term, as there is no German equivalent. And the video was a try out for me. I have never added a subtitle and I guess I am not a natural in computer programmes, but in the end I managed to line up text and film :-D
I love your buns @neumannsalva (no pun intended hehe). They look pretty yummy :)
And thank you for sharing the tip to frogging (I looked up frogging hehe.. didn't now what it means until now, thanks to you!). I never knew we could do that. I frog quite a lot and usually I would just end up restarting the whole project from the casting on because I lost the stitch while frogging. And most times, I just give up and leave the project alone.
Thank you for the H&M link too! The skirt I bought was a work skirt.. normal looking skirt (correction, I bought 6 pairs hehe):
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXohL1qyd4amdrP8UU9AeAbyd5atVeYmi5gAvEs8puZzo/image.png)
Congratulations @neumannsalva! Your post has been placed in the spotlight for this week's 50th Curation Special Edition @NeedleWorkMonday Featured Posts! You will be splitting the post payout next week among the other featured artists! Yay! 🎉
Thank you for your quality post and for being a part of the needlework community!
Ah, the joys of unraveling... it's always such a dark moment to realize you have to go back... ahhhhh...
But I suppose sugar does help :DDD your biscuits look yummy :)))
Wishing you as few unraveling moments as possible in future :))))
Yeah!! This is Japanese melon pan! It looks so mouth watering ... I (@akipponn) miss it a lot and would like to show it to my daughter soon. But too lazy to do the cookie part in a summer hot day. I want to grab one from the photo and have a bite right a way!
Yes please!!! It would be amazing to see how you make them and if you have a trick how to make them a bit more professional looking. (I could not get the cake batter around the rolls without it crumbling and ripping)
But don’t stress yourself... thanks to Klimawandel it is so hot here 🥵🥵🥵🥵 baking is not such a seductive idea right now. We live in an old house with a big courtyard which is like a desert of concrete - over 50 degrees. It would be so much better if the landlord would plant something in this courtyard instead of this ugly and hot concrete....