A Recipe For Bread So Rock Hard You Can Use It As a Weapon

I’m sure you, too, have been in the same place I was a few years ago. I had just purchased a baguette at the grocery store when I had an overwhelming urge to go to the batting cages. I am an impulse-driven person, so I drove to the Good Time Fun Time Bat Zone. Never mind that I had ice cream in the car. Never mind that my son, who I had not seen in seven years, was waiting on my doorstep for a themed dinner (the theme being “Please Forgive Me, Nathanial.” It’s funny because my son is named Dave!). It was time to hit some balls.

I arrived at the cages and went straight for home plate. An employee offered me a bat and I said, “No, thank you.” Another employee thrusted a bat in my face, which I refused, disgusted. “I brought my own,” I said, waving my baguette around. All around me, jaws dropped.

The first ball shot out. I swung, and I connected. I screamed in despair as my baguette crumbled in my hand, unable to withstand the fierce speed of a mechanically-tossed baseball. “No!” I wailed. “My son said he would only forgive me if I served a piece of long bread at dinner! He said it needed to stretch like a limousine!”

I fell to my knees and cried to the stars, which was a bad idea, because it left my head at the perfect height to get hit by a ball, which it did. I blacked out, and when I woke up in the hospital, a fiery realization was flowing through my veins, heating my brain until it produced one hot, cooked thought: this never would have happened if my bread had been rock hard.

I ripped the IV from my arm and raged, “Where are my keys? WHERE IS MY BAGUETTE?” The nurses ran in, attempting to restrain me, saying things like “please calm down” and “you’ve been in a coma for two years.” I tried to fight them off, but I had no bread with me, let alone rock hard bread, so I was no match for them. I was sedated.

When I woke again, I apologized, quite dramatically, for my behavior, and acted like a model patient. I pretended to be exactly what they wanted me to be: a person who learned from their past mistakes, a person who did not sketch coded recipe notes in the margins of their dream journal. I pretended to reform myself, all the while carrying the knowledge that I would reform the world.

My life’s purpose thoroughly swaddled in secrecy, I was released from the hospital. As I attempted to reassemble the pieces of my life, I also worked to assemble a recipe. I studied with masters and street vendors, with bakers and weapons manufacturers. They all laughed at me when I divulged my true passion, when I shared with them the life’s work that was driving me. “You’re paying $180 for this four-week class just so you can learn how to make – I’m sorry, what was it—a ‘rock-hard bread’?,” they said. “Good Lord.”

I had several near-successes and suffered through many more heart-breaking failures. During my 373rd attempt to make the perfect loaf, I accidentally burned down my house executing what I had dubbed a “24-Hour Bread Roast.” After my home had been rebuilt, I baked a loaf that was the closest thing to “rock hard bread” I had ever gotten. That was when I realized the burning of my house had been a sacrifice, and if I ever I wanted to truly ascend, I would need to suffer once more. So I burned my house down again.

I stood on the periphery of the house fire, and in the flames of my rapidly burning home, I baked the perfect loaf. I flung my freshly-baked bread into the air and cried tears of joy as it landed on the windshield of my neighbor’s car, shattering the glass completely. I had my recipe.

I successfully recreated the recipe a second time, and then I took my rock hard bread to the streets. I lingered in dark alleyways at night, my baguette sticking prominently out of my market bag. I waited night after night for someone to accost me, but it was as if even the scummiest of ruffians knew not to mess with me: the baker toting a bag loaded with rock hard bread.

Finally, though, I got my wish: the silhouette of a tall, lean man filled the entrance to the alleyway. He grew closer and closer, so I drew my bread out of my bag. “You want a taste of my bread, punk?” I called out. I wacked it against a nearby dumpster, effectively showing off the baguette’s fortitude. An ominous clang echoed through the alleyway, and then I pounced.

I aimed a good hit at the punk’s knees, and the young man fell to the ground. “Ow! What the hell?” he yelled. I aimed another hit at his gut, but he rolled away, causing my rock hard bread to hit the ground with a loud thud. “Stop! Please!” he shouted. “I just wanted to ask you about your bread!”

The young man rolled into the light and I was able to finally see his face. It was my son, Dave! At this point I had not seen him in almost ten years, which was why I had not recognized his voice. “Dave!” I said. “My son!”

We embraced and I apologized for being absent in his life for almost a decade, and for nearly beating him to a pulp with a rock hard baguette. He accepted my apology. Being quite the bread aficionado himself, Dave was intrigued by the concrete-like loaf I had concocted, and we bonded over our mutual love of bread. Finally, after everything I had been through the last three years, I had my son back.

I no longer feel the need to bake rock hard bread. However, I went to quite a bit of trouble to create the recipe, and I think it should be shared so no one else has to suffer the way I did ever again. Enjoy!

Editor’s Note: Due to a problem with our website, we are unable to attach recipes at this time. Please check back later.