SC - OT-OOP-bread help!

[Laura C. Minnick]

Esteemed bread bakers- help!

I tried to post this earlier but the mailer hiccupped and I don't think
it went through....

I baked this afternoon- dumb thing, too- it was 88 here. Anyway, made a
batch of oatmeal bread- a recipe I've used many times and been happy
with. Today's batch was a serious flop and I'm mystified as to why. I
followed the directions as usual, but the dough was very sticky, rose
very fast, and the eventual loaves, well, one of them tried to crawl out
of the pan- it looks vaguely like the elephant man. I don't understnd at
all what happened. The variables might be:

1) the heat today. But that shouldn't matter, should it? And why would
the dough be sticky?

2) I might have miscounted the cups of flour that I was kneading in. But
if there was too much, why was it sticky? And if there was too little,
why was there so much dough?

3) I looked at the bottle- I got dark molasses instead of light. But
that should only be a taste difference, no? Would it affect the dough?
The recipe doesn't specify dark or light either. I also double checked-
and unless the bottle is doing a 'widow's cruse' miracle, I used the
correct amount and not accidentally too much.

This is very frustrating- as a baker I've always been rather proud of my
bread. To totally blow a batch is humiliating. And the shekels are few
and far between enough around here that a mistake like this is not good-
and no, it doesn't taste all that great either. Bummer.

Does anyone have any ideas? Or should I just go back to the tried and
true potato bread that the kids inhale in an afternoon?

'Lainie
(Queen Carmen is still sleeping off the weekend...)
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