RSS - PostsFiled under: BBA Challenge, BREAKFAST, DESSERT, SNACK | Tags: bread, cranberries, currants, raisins, walnuts
FINALLY! I got back in the kitchen and made some bread! It feels like ages. I have been away the last two (three?) weekends and just couldn’t wait till this weekend to get back into it. I have been doing more cooking than the blog suggests, but it takes more than i have these days to post every good thing i eat. Maybe this weekend i will get around to retro-posting some highlights.
This was not a good recipe to choose to make during the week after work. Especially not while making dinner, trying to bike on the trainer for an hour, and getting up at 6 to run before work the next morning. I think the bread came out pretty well, but I sacrificed the run.
My experience of this bread was ruined from the start by the perfectly delicious Panettone that I ate last Christmas. It was my first ever panettone experience. One of our consultants shelled out hundreds of dollars to ship us (us = the architecture firm i was working in) – a REAL Milanese Panettone. Despite it’s massive size, the crumb was as airy like a croissant with a perfect distribution of candied fruits and nuts.
My first panettone probably weighed 20 lbs. and I can only imagine that it had baked for hours. My petit panettone on the other hand, took roughly 40 minutes. I checked at 20, 25, and 30 waiting for the tops to be golden brown, and i think 40 minutes was a bit too long and dried them out too much. The big one (below) took about 1:20 and seems just right (texture-wise, i know it isn’t pretty). I don’t have a thermometer for it yet, but I know my oven is on the cool side. I was VERY glad i chose to use my mixer for the whole kneading process on this one. It was sticky, tacky dough (I may have been heavy handed with the rum) and i would have added too much flour had i kneaded by hand.
This bread in particular has made me appreciate the amount of quality control that goes into professional baking. To make this bread come out consistently good WHILE making a profit on the effort must be a real challenge.
It REALLY feels like fall now here in Boston. It dawned on me today that i have been donning my fall wardrobe all week long!
Now that i am back to working hard, I am cooking quicker meals (when i do cook). Tonight was breakfast for dinner. These turned out to be the best pancakes that we have ever had.
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups milk (I used 1 C buttermilk and 1/2 C regular)
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons vinegar
- Preheat oven to 250F. Mix dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
- Mix egg, milk, pumpkin puree, and vinegar in a large bowl. Stir dry ingredients into the large bowl, just until combined. You may want to add a bit more milk at this point. Mine was looking very thick so I added about 2 T.
- Pour 1/3 C batter a time into a buttered skillet over medium heat. Be careful while flipping these – they are fragile and have a tendency to wrinkle.
- Keep the finished pancakes warm in the preheated oven.
This is my first experience with the ‘Bread of the Month‘ (BOM) group on Facebook. Based on this experience, it will not be my last. This pumpkin gingerbread was so easy and good! And festive!
- 3 C sugar (that’s right)
- 1 C canola oil
- 4 eggs
- 2/3 C water
- 15 oz. canned pumpkin puree
- 2 t ginger
- 1 t allspice
- 1 t cinnamon
- 1 t ground cloves
- 3 1/2 C all purpose flour
- 2 t baking soda
- 1 1/2 t salt
- 1/2 t baking powder
- 1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)
- combine oil, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl and mix until smooth. Add water, stir in water, then pumpkin, then spices.
- Combine flour, baking soda, powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
- Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients just until they are mixed through.
- Pour into greased (spray oiled) loaf pan + muffin tin, sprinkle with chopped walnuts if desired, and bake until a cooked all the way through – about 50 min. for muffins, 70 minutes for the loaf.
I made this a few days ago, but what better time to pull out old recipes than when I’m out of cooking commission? Joe even had to tend to our pizza dough last night!
This semi-spicy fig jam recipe goes best with cheese. The best I could do at the time was cheddar, and sadly the best crackers i had around were saltines. It was very, very tasty – the only shame is that the cheese and crackers didn’t do the good jam justice.
- 1 1/2 C diced fresh figs (6-10 figs, depending on the size of the figs)
- 1/2 C seeded, peeled orange, diced (up to 1 small navel orange diced)
- 1 1/2 C of sugar (I used 1 C)
- 1 1/2 t grated orange peel
- 3 T lemon juice
- 1/4 t ground ginger
- 1/4 t ground cloves
- 1/2 t cinnamon
- 1/2 t butter
step 1:
Combine all the ingredients in a microwave safe container and let it sit for 30 minutes. This lets the fruit macerate in the sugar.
step 2:
Microwave on high for 7 minutes, stop cooking, and stir. Continue cooking for another 6 minutes, stopping to stir ever couple minutes. After a total of about 13 minutes, the mixture should become viscous.
step 3:
Test the jam’s viscosity with a spoon. If the liquid begins to firm up before it drips, it is done. I plan to finish eating mine within a week, so I have it refrigerated in a plastic container. If you want to save it long term, check out the USDA canning guidelines here.
I have been wanting to make french toast for some time now. With all of the delicious bread recipes i have been making with ‘The Challenge’ it is a wonder that i haven’t tried yet. Finally, I made some with the Celebration Bread (Challenge #11) I made on Friday. The recipe is adapted from The New Best Recipe (my new fav). It was delicious. Not too eggy and very easy. My only suggestion is to sift the flour into the batter while whisking so that it doesn’t clump up.
- 1 egg
- 1 T butter, melted
- 1 1/2 C skim milk, about temperature
- 3 T sugar
- 1/4 t salt
- 1/4 C all purpose flour
- 4-6 slices of brioche style bread
- whisk egg in a shallow dish. Whisk in milk, then melted butter. Then add sugar, salt and flour (sifted).
- Heat cast iron skillet over medium and drop 1/2 T butter in.
- Meanwhile, place 1/2″ thick slice of bread into the mixture and let it soak for 30-40 seconds on each side. (you don’t want the bread too thick, or to let it sit for too long and get soggy)
- Cook toast in the skillet until golden brown on both sides.
Today I found some striking similarities between the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge and marathon running. Dedication, endurance, and (most notably today) repetition. Turning the page in the book for the challenge this week I saw yet another sweet celebration bread. It was like turning the corner on a long run to see ANOTHER hill to climb. Although i have enjoyed all of the breads so far, Joe doesn’t really like the sweet ones and we have had a hard time trying to finish them. It seemed like a waste of flour to make (essentially) the same thing twice. So i skipped it.
On to challenge #12: English Muffins
These English muffins were really fun to make. The dough was simple – after making 10 other Rinehart recipes I have a pretty good handle on mixing and kneading dough. This time i even did my windowpane test!
I was, however, a little intimidated by the cooking process. The idea of frying dough in a pan was foreign to me. I ended up using our square and round cast iron skillets simultaneously to get as many muffins cooked at the same time as possible. It felt like juggling; frying and immediately baking as many muffins as possible. I’m not sure why my muffins were so puffy, but at least they were nice and fluffy inside. I think baking for 8 minutes was just right.
After fully following the recipe, the only thing i would do differently is to make 7 or 8. As you can see, I made 6 as the recipe called for, and they are pretty big. There was no temperature control on the skillet, and after reading PR’s warning about under-cooking the muffins, i ended up burning the first two. After I started eye-balling the brownness level, and relying less on elapsed cooking time, they turned out well. I used lowfat buttermilk instead of whole milk and it gave them a nice, almost sourdough taste.
As usual, check out more photos on FLICKR.
what a delicious dinner! it was sort of naughty. we had planned to make taco salads for dinner, but i had bought buttermilk for my next Bread Baker’s Apprentice challange recipe, and we had both been wanting to make pancakes for a while. I think these came out a little too moist and had a tendency to tear.
- 2 C all purpose flour
- 4 t sugar
- 1 t salt
- 1 t baking powder
- 1/2 t baking soda
- 1/4 t cinnamon
- 1 1/2 C buttermilk
- 1/4 C milk
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2 t vanilla
- 3 T butter, melted
- 3 T semi sweet chocolate chips
- preheat oven to 250 F and heat skillet over medium heat. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, and mix wet ingredients in a separate, small bowl.
- when the pan is fully heated, add wet ingredients to the dry and gently stir until NEARLY mixed. (be careful to leave a few clumps)
- keep the cakes warm in the preheated oven.
Filed under: BREAKFAST, SNACK | Tags: apricots, nuts, oats, peanuts, raisins, vegetarian
This is a simple, two step thing. First, to make the granola, then form the bars. I have made granola a few (three) of different ways in the past and have my favorite recipe prettymuch down. To make the bars, i just added a bit of maple syrup to my usual granola recipe, to make it more sticky. Next time i might add some chocolate chips…
Homemade Granola Recipe:
- 2 C rolled oats
- 1 C peanuts or toasted almonds
- 1/4 C sesame seeds
- 1/4 C flax seeds
- 1/2 C toasted sunflower seeds
- 1/2 C coconut (this time i used the fresh coconut i had hand cut at the beach)
- 1/4 C fiber one (crushed in a coffee grinder)
- 1 t sea salt
- 1/2 C raisins (i like to mix golden and regular)
- 1/2 C dried fruit (dried apricots + craisins)
- scant 1/4 C canola oil
- 1/2 C honey
- 1/4 C maple syrup
- Mix the oat, nuts and grains in a large bowl.
- Measure oil into the measuring cup and swirl it around before pouring into bowl.
- Then measure out the honey in the same, unwashed cup. The oil will help the honey exit the cup.
- Toss everything together until evenly coated and then pour out into a baking pan. I use a large roasting pan, as it keeps everything contained. A cookie sheet with a lip also works, but you have to stir it slightly more carefully if you use that.
- Bake at 300° F for 30 minutes, turning it with a spatula every ten minutes or so. You want everything to be an even golden brown.
- When it is finished cooking, returned the baked granola to the mixing bowl, add the raisins and fruit and stir to combine.
- To form bars, line a rectangular baking dish with wax paper. Immediately pour the warm granola into the dish, cover with another piece of paper, and press down HARD, packing the granola as tightly as possible.
- Let the pressed granola harden cool for at least 3 hours (i let mine sit overnight) before cutting. My pan yielded 14 thick granola bars. For lack of more sustainable packaging ideas, I wrapped them up in some saran-wrap.
I eat at least two of these a week for breakfast… and sometimes for lunch on the weekends. they are so easy and cheap to make, i cannot see why ANYONE would go to one of those expensive smoothie places.
- 1/2 C frozen strawberries …..large bag of frozen strawberries: $9.50/64 oz. bag~ $0.70/serving
- 6 oz Fat Free Plain Yogurt: $2.70/32 oz tub~$0.50/serving
- 1/4 C Orange Juice (or milk if you’re Joe): $2.60/64 oz canned~$0.16/serving
- 1 small banana: $0.19 at Trader Joe’s
- first add yogurt, then berries, using an immersion blender cup,
- Optional ingredients: flax seeds ($5/lb~$0.25/serving), rolled oats ($4/carton~$0.10/serving)
total cost: $1.54 – $1.79 per smoothie
YESSSS!!! i have been secretly counting the days till i could make these! during my freshman year of college, i visited the campus Cinnabun more than i should have. i have an evident weakness for sweet cinnamony (esp. frosted) things! I made 9 large cinnamon buns and at this point there are 6 left. we’ll run it off! I had a really hard time deciding which was the most mouth-watering photo to use for this post. thank heavens for FLICKR.
Once again, i am appreciative of the one-day bread recipes. This one was perhaps the easiest challenge to make to date. The only thing i would do differently next time is to put the WHOLE 1/2 C of cinnamon sugar in after rolling out the dough. It seemed excessibe to dump that much sugar onto the dough, and i probably only ended up using half. Now that i am eating th thanks to some extremely well executed dough, they are very tasty anyway. I had forgotten how good these were. i am tempted to go back for bun #2.
Check out more scrumptious photos (and step-by-step commentary) on FLICKR!!!
as usual, and out of respect for this excellent book (which i have been borrowing from my local library) i will not publish Peter Rinehart’s proprietary recipes on this blog. You may find a portion of the recipe on googlebooks.
