Sometimes, I just can’t get myself excited to blog about something I’ve baked. I think that’s likely going to be the struggle with The Bread Bible bake along. Bread’s generally pretty easy, in my opinion, and none of the steps are all that exciting. It’s typically a long, slow process, with not a lot of visual interest. The one interesting thing I have to say about this bread: Rose says she makes it all the time, but because her husband doesn’t like beer, she makes it with water instead! She called it “beer-less beer bread.”
Rose
If you’ve followed my blog at all, you might know that I was one of the original members of the bake-along of Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, and I’m actively working my way through The Baking Bible and The Bread Bible, with two semi-overlapping groups of baker-bloggers from around the world. All of these baking books were written by Rose Levy Beranbaum, whose first cookbook, The Cake Bible, is currently in its 52nd printing! A couple of weeks ago, Rose posted on her blog that she was going to be in Toronto this week, to watch her granddaughter, Haley, compete in the Parapan Am games. Haley is doing great at the games, so far. She’s already won bronze and silver medals! Rose was kind enough to take time out of her family trip to meet with fans and sign books at Golda’s Kitchen, in Mississauga, on Sunday afternoon. Since I live about an hour away, I convinced Jay we needed to make the trip.
Whole Wheat Walnut Loaf
As I mentioned in my prosciutto ring post, bread can be made using a variety of techniques. This week’s “Alpha Baking” project was a whole wheat loaf based on the sponge technique. This is where the liquid is mixed with some of the flour and some of the yeast, then the remaining flour, yeast, salt, and any extras are sprinkled over top. I made this up on Friday, to take as part of my contribution to meals at our friends’ cottage this past weekend. Since it was a holiday weekend, I’m a bit behind on writing this up. Oh well!
Prosciutto Ring
I’m a little behind in blogging about the latest round in the Bread Bible bake-through, but it looks like I’m not the only one. 🙂 We all came to an agreement in the Facebook group that this would be a no-pressure baking & blogging project, and that people could join or not join for any given month, with no strings attached. I like it. We’re supposed to post on the first Wednesday of the month, and it is now the last one, so, I like to think I’m just embracing the no-pressure thing! The most recent recipe on the schedule was the prosciutto ring. This is another one of those recipes that I would never try making if it weren’t for a bake-through project like this, so I’m glad I signed up for this group.
ElderBlueberry Pie
Have I mentioned I love making pie? I love making pie. If I make up a “big” batch of pie dough ahead of time, I can easily knock a couple of pies out in an hour, not counting baking/cooling/resting times. And there’s always something in season that you can turn into a pie. And of course, as a couple of friends keep insisting:
Kourambiethes
I have no idea how to pronounce “Kourambiethes.” I’m going with “almond shortbread-y cookie things,” instead. My husband recently started a new job at a start-up, so we won’t be taking any significant vacation time, this summer. Instead, to use up my vacation time, I’m taking Fridays off until the end of September. This past Friday was really rainy and Jay needed to get ahead on some work this weekend, so I amused myself in the kitchen. I actually caught up/got a bit ahead in my “alpha baking” for both The Baking Bible and The Bread Bible. Blog posts to come, but I made both the Prosciutto Ring (The Bread Bible) and the Elderberry/blueberry pie (The Baking Bible), as well as a strawberry-rhubarb pie, and these cookies. Oh, and a batch of regular bread. 🙂
Molasses Crumb Cakelets
Well, this post isn’t going to be very exciting. I made these first thing in the morning on Canada day, which was… *checks calendar* 2 weeks ago, on Wednesday. I must have been half asleep (or distracted?) when I made them, because I took a grand total of 2 pictures, neither of which were very interesting.
This is a pretty straightforward recipe. First, mix oil, sugar, and flour together. Reserve some of that for the “crumb” topping. Then add molasses, water, baking soda, and maybe some other stuff (I don’t remember).
Mix it up, and pour it into mini muffin pans. It’s supposed to go into a total of 48 mini muffin cavities, but I only had enough pans to get to 36. It seemed to work out OK, if a little over-full.
Next step is to sprinkle the reserved oil/sugar/flour mixture on top of the batter. Then, into the oven. See? Quick and easy!
I brought these, along with some burgers, to the Thursday BBQ at work. They went over surprisingly well. Everybody thought I had undersold them. After the lunch group had their fill (6 people, so I can’t blame them for not consuming the whole batch), I wandered around the dev department and handed them out to my teams, and they all disappeared. I was surprised because I honestly wasn’t really a big fan. I found them to be not terribly flavourful, and the crumb topping didn’t add the texture I was hoping for. They were pretty homogeneously soft. I’m wondering if the topping could be improved either by using butter instead of oil, or by sprinkling it on a cookie sheet and baking it separately, before sprinkling it on top of the cakelets. Or maybe I just underbaked the whole thing, and my topping would have crisped up if I baked the cakelets a little longer.
Fourth of July Cheesecake
Quick post. Typing this up from Germany, on my phone, between meetings. 🙂 I made the “Fourth of July” Cheesecake as my birthday cake. Since I wasn’t planning on serving it on the fourth, and since the fourth isn’t a special holiday in Canada, I didn’t make it red, white, and blue. Instead, I made it blue, white, and blue. I realized too late that I should have made it red & white, with strawberries on top, for Canada day, since that’s July 1st (the day after my birthday). Oh well! Next time!
Pecan Praline Ice Cream Sandwiches
Wow. Apparently, these are so simple that I managed to forget to take any process pictures.
Catching up…
It’s strawberry season! I can’t quite keep up with the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks in my patch, so I picked up some berries from Herrle’s Market on Friday night. I love that place, and they just opened for the season while I was in Nashville. This Saturday was the St Agatha strawberry festival as well, so it seemed like the time was ripe (!) for catching up with the strawberry shortcake. I’ve also been slacking on my responsibilities to charity, in delivery of baked goods to Gilad, so I gave him the choice – brioche (which I missed 2 weeks ago), strawberry shortcake (which I missed at Easter), chocolate cake (this weekend’s scheduled “Alpha Bakers” recipe), or… brioche made into cinnamon rolls (inspired by a conversation while travelling). He said it all sounded good, but cinnamon rolls sounded the best, so I knew that was going to go into the plans for the weekend too. Then of course, since I’m trying to catch up, and not trying to fall further behind in my baking, I had to make the double damage oblivion this weekend, too. That’d probably be plenty for a normal weekend, but my parents happen to be in town at the moment, so all of this needed to be planned around spending time with them, too.
eatsndrinks.ca 