This was years ago. At the time I lived in an apartment complex where fresh air was not allowed to intrude. It was Christmas, and I was visiting my parents, in their so-drafty-it-feels-like-a-gale-force-wind house. I make bread all the time, and my mother asks me to make Stollen for Christmas morning.
The dang dough just doesn't want to rise. I pat the top of the dough, and realize that it feels cold, refrigerated cold. So my mother and I find a better spot, and finally it starts to rise.
I should have trashed it then, because the bread was doomed. After baking, the cat (who was never interested in bread before) gets up on the counter and starts to nibble on one end. We shoo her off, cut off the cat nibbles spot, wrap in plastic and place in the by now cold oven to be safe through the night.
My father gets up in the morning and decides to make pancakes. To keep them warm, he turns on the oven. We rescue the Stollen before the plastic wrap melts completely on it, although the cat nibbles spot is now augmented by the Saran wrap frosting at that end.
And it didn't taste that great, but after all that drama, I am not surprised.
