Have flour, will travel

Gillian and I were looking for something fun to do on Sunday afternoon while Jamie and Brianna went to the Tennis Center.  We started off at the park for a bit, but it was still a little too damp after some overnight thunderstorms.  I remembered that some folks from King Arthur Flour were going to be in town for a baking demonstration on yeast breads.  G had been to another cooking/baking demo with me a couple months ago, and was game to try out this one.  It turned out not to be the best for her--it was a much larger group, so it was hard for her to see, and she spent most of the time playing games on my iPad.  We only stayed for about an hour before her attention span hit its limit.  But I enjoyed the part of the presentation that I did get to hear, including some entertaining stories.  With my level of experience, I didn't learn a lot of new stuff, but I'm intrigued by some of the classes that KAF offers at their Baking Education Center in Vermont.  I'm going to add a trip to Norwich to my Mondo Beyondo list.  It would be a great opportunity to meet my blogging friend Rebecca, too.  Maybe I can convince some of my other baking/blogging friends to meet up with me there and we can all take a class together.  Anyone interested? =)
 

When we got to the demo, we each got a booklet of recipes.  G immediately pointed out the recipe for Double Fudge Brownies.  When we got home, J & B still weren't back, so I suggested that we could bake something together.  G quickly suggested the brownies.  I knew it wouldn't be a problem to get my employees to eat some of them, so we made the full 13"x9" pan.  The recipe calls for brown sugar, which I think helps keep the brownies moist.  I used natural cocoa powder rather than the Dutch-processed that was called for (I prefer the way it tastes) but did keep the espresso powder to boost the chocolate flavor.  The somewhat sneaky ingredient is white whole wheat flour.  Granted, these are brownies, so there isn't a whole lot of flour, but a little extra whole grain is always a good idea, right?

The verdict?  You would never guess that there was whole grain flour in these brownies.  They are fudgy and a bit chewy, and altogether yummy.  The change in cocoa worked out fine.  We added a mix of chocolate chips and m&ms to our batter, but next time, I'll put the m&ms on top instead.  The candy shells sort of melted into the brownies when we let them rest overnight.

If you'd like to try these for yourself, you can find the recipe in the KAF Whole Grain Baking cookbook.  And if you think you'd like to join me on a trip to New England, let me know!

p.s. We got this nice KAF bowl scraper to take home with us--you can never have too many of those!

Should you be dancing?

I'm running a little behind this week.  I started this post last night, but was too tired & unfocused to finish it.  And now I'm trying to get it done before I need to get to bed (early, since I have a very early start tomorrow).

Watching:  Well, at the moment Monday Night Raw is on--background noise for me, but J is watching it.  It's scary how much I've picked up by association. =)  J fully admits, it's basically a soap opera for guys.  I'm a little afraid to admit that my girls can recognize a remarkable number of wrestlers just by their theme music.

Reading:  168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam.  I was inspired to read it after reading my friend Anandi's review--which you can check out here.  I'm not done yet, so I'll have to report back on what I think of it next week.  But I figure it's worth reading, since I'm trying to manage my time/life better.

Listening:  Nothing special.  I've got a playlist of upbeat songs to get me--and sometimes the girls--moving.  One of the ones they really like is You Should Be Dancing, thanks to Despicable Me.  I got some other Bee Gees songs, thinking they'd like them, but I get complaints when I play anything else.  

Making:  The main thing this week was scones.  For the end of the week, I made some for the girls--Triple Chocolate, at G's request.  This particular KAF recipe doesn't call for freezing them like a lot of the others do, but I did it anyway.  I mixed up the dough and shaped the scones on Wednesday night, then popped them in the freezer.  That made it easy to bake them off on Thursday morning.  I made scones again Friday morning to take to work, though I only froze them for about 30 minutes while I showered.  Those were savory, with cheddar cheese and scallions.  I tweaked the recipe a bit, by subbing a little cornmeal for some of the AP flour.  I was also lazy and used my #16 disher to make round scones, instead of making triangles or squares.  

Ooh, and I made ice cream on Sunday, too.  Jeni's Salty Caramel.  I crumbled up some Biscoff cookies, being sure to leave some larger pieces, and layered them in with the ice cream as I packed it into its freezer container.  I was going for something similar to Haagen Dazs Spiced Caramel Biscuit.  I enjoyed that flavor, but thought it needed more, bigger pieces of cookies.  And I always like salted caramel better than unsalted.

Feeling:  Sore.  I went and got a massage yesterday, and had my massage therapist work on my lower back and right hip.  Not surprising that they were bothering me, since I was standing and running around all day on Friday.  (When the 1st of the month & Friday coincide, things are really crazy in banking.)  I've been trying to get better about getting a massage on a regular basis.  As long as I schedule my next appointment before I leave, I do okay.  My goal is to go every couple of weeks; any less and I undo all of the good that was done before I go in for another session.  Sure, it's a little expensive, but I don't spend a lot of other money on myself.  And it's kind of a healthcare expense, right?  

Planning:  I should be planning for my trip, but I'm too busy with work right now to think all that much about it.  I did tell the girls that I'm going out of town that weekend, and that they'd have to keep their father out of trouble.  G thinks for some reason that it's totally hilarious to ask me to bring her back a saxophone as a souvenir.  (Your guess is as good as mine where that came from.)

Loving:  Spending some time with my girls this weekend.  Nothing big, but we had lunch out together at Blue Baker in Austin.  Then we went to a book fair at Barnes & Noble, benefiting the girls' elementary schools.  As if we need an excuse to buy books... =)

Check out more Currently links at Kristin's blog.  

Currently...

I'm still trying to get back in a blogging mood, so I thought I'd borrow something from my friend Anandi.  Back at the beginning of last week, she posted a list of things currently going on in her life.  The idea originally comes from Kristin, who decided to do this as a series on her blog this year.  I figured it would be worth a try, to give me prompts to write about.  So here goes...

Watching:  HOCKEY!!!  I'm so happy that hockey is finally back.  We really need to make plans to attend another live Texas Stars game, too.  We got a bit of "divorce hockey" today.  My husband's Flyers played my Sabres.  I need to get more familiar with the players again--I kind of wish I was playing fantasy hockey this year, since that forces me to pay more attention.

Reading:  Assorted things, including the new cookbooks I got for Christmas.  Today it was the one pictured up top, Cook Illustrated's The Science of Good Cooking.  Many of the recipes are familiar from the other CI volumes that I own as well as the website.  One of the things that I love most about CI is their explanation of their testing methods and the science behind the recipes they come up with, so this book is right up my alley.

Listening:  Another Christmas gift, Maroon 5's Overexposed.  Yes, it's been out for months, but I didn't buy it because I've been trying to leave stuff on my wish-list for J to buy. =)  He said he would have gotten it for me sooner but he had to order the non-explicit version since he knew the girls would want to listen to it in the car with me.

Making:  Lots of stuff, the past couple of days!  Which is a refreshing change, since I've been feeling kind of stuck with baking as well as blogging lately.  Today's dessert was chocolate mousse, again pictured up top.  I also made an impulse buy at Central Market this morning and picked up a carton of blood orange juice.  I've already made David Lebovitz's orange caramel sauce with it, and will have to see what else I can use it in.  I've also mixed up the starter to make these Asiago Bagels from KAF tomorrow.

Feeling:  Pretty good.  The main thing that I'm focused on right now is the Cultivating Courage course that started last week.  When I took it back in October, it was every day for 30 days, including weekends, and I liked the continuity of that.  This time, it appears to be just Monday through Friday.  I was initially disappointed by that, but having a break from new activities over the weekend allowed me to catch up on reading what others in the class have been up to.  And I can still do new brave moves on my own if I want.

Planning:  Cake, cupcakes and the meal for Brianna's birthday on Friday.  She's going to be 10--how is that possible?!  I'm glad that we have the day off tomorrow (me from work and the girls from school).  That will give me some more time to prep things so the end of the week won't be quite so crazy.  For school, she's requested chocolate cupcakes topped with swirled chocolate and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream.  For the cake at home, she wants chocolate mousse cake.  I made one for Christmas that was chocolate sponge cake layered with chocolate mousse and coated with poured ganache.  She liked it so much that she asked me to make another one.  I wasn't thrilled with the mousse I made last time, so today's dessert was due to me test-driving an different recipe.

Loving:  This great necklace that I ordered from Anandi with my One Little Word for this year.  There's still a post coming with my reasons for picking that word and how I hope it will shape my year.  After last year's focus cake, I want to make another baked good to feature this word.  I'm still trying to decide what to make.

Okay, that's my list for right now.  I'm not sure if this will become a weekly activity or if it will be less often, but I think it will be a good way to help me work through some of my blogger's block. =)

Unraveling the mysteries

Yesterday was nice--the year got off to a pretty good start.  I didn't stay up late to usher in the new year on Monday night.  Instead, I went to bed when I was tired (G was too), and woke up refreshed.  Over nine hours of sleep, yay!  I had some quiet time with G while B slept in.  (Unlike her mother, B did manage to stay awake until midnight, along with J.)  G and I decided to make breakfast.  B had suggested scones as a good way to start the new year, and of course we had to have chocolate chips in them.

I turned to one of my favorite sources of scone recipes, King Arthur Flour.  I started with their master scone recipe, and tweaked it a little bit.  I substituted some white whole wheat flour for some of the all-purpose flour.  To adjust for that, I went with the higher amount of liquid since the www flour absorbs more.  I used a bit of half & half (30g) that I had in the fridge, and 1% milk for the rest.  I used brown sugar instead of white, since I like the taste of it with the www flour.  For the chocolate chips, we went with mini chips this time--and not too many (a scant cup--140g).  The scones ended up having a subtly nutty quality about them from the www flour, and the chocolate bits were nice but not overpowering (the way full-sized chocolate chips can be sometimes).  And of course we added glaze.

The rest of our day was good--low-key.  We all went to Book People, a local independent bookstore in Austin.  Then we got some hot chocolate for the ride home.  Dinner was low-key as well.  I went with simpler meals for both Christmas & New Year's this year.  Nothing special, but they were things that everyone would eat without much complaint, which counts for  a lot.  I finally got the rest of my Christmas cookies baked, so they were dessert.  Once the girls were in bed, I thought about writing this blog post, but instead opted to watch some Big Bang Theory with J, which never fails to put me in a good mood.  Bring on the rest of 2013. =)

(edited to add--if you look closely at my photo, you can see my ingredients list; if you go by it, also add 3/4 tsp salt; I forgot to write that down)

Mission accomplished!

I did it!  NaBloPoMo success--30 posts in 30 days.  I'm still trying to decide if I want to continue the daily posting into December, but it's really nice to know that I can manage it if I put my mind to it.  My goal is to avoid getting hung up on being perfect, and just write more often than I did before this month.

I was tempted to wait on posting about the Gingerbread Cupcakes until I could get a better picture.  But that would have taken a while, since I would have been tempted to make more cupcakes first.  Since I wanted to take most of them to work but keep a few for us, I increased the recipe by half so I got 18 regular-sized cupcakes.  The only ingredient that was a little tricky was the egg.  I cracked an egg into a small bowl and beat it to combine the yolk and white.  Then I measured out about 25 grams of it to add to the batter along with the other whole egg.  It worked out pretty well.  Other than that, the recipe was pretty straightforward to follow.  My cupcakes took 20 minutes to bake.  For the frosting, I only used 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, since I was using high-oil Vietnamese cinnamon.  I only ended up adding a couple teaspoons of milk to the frosting, since I wanted it pretty thick for piping.  One thing to note is that I didn't have to increase the ingredients for the frosting.  The original amounts yielded more than enough frosting for 18 cupcakes.

The verdict?  These were definitely a hit at work--and a nice change from chocolate.  The cupcakes were quite tasty on their own--nice and spicy--and the frosting was very good, too.  The cinnamon kept it from tasting overly sweet.  Both the cupcakes and frosting are going on the make-again list.

Baking therapy

Is it bedtime yet?  This has been a very long week.  I'm sick of everyone being sick, while keeping my fingers crossed that I don't come down with whatever has been plaguing everyone else.  I'm tired of G coughing her head off and B whining that she can't breathe.  And J isn't feeling so hot either.  Might just be a respiratory virus, might be the flu, who knows.  But it can go now.

G managed to be sick on days that she had off from school anyway.  B, on the other hand, missed school on Monday and Tuesday.  As a result, we've been paying for it yesterday and today.  She's had a bunch of math classwork and homework to catch up on, as well as a test that she ended up bringing home today.  Figure in the facts that she still isn't feeling well and that she's a drama queen at the best of times, and you end up with me spending the better part of four hours (over two days) dealing with her as she's been sitting at the kitchen table complaining.

I finally gave up and went for the stress relievers--baking and booze.  Not the hard stuff, just some tasty cider.  And some gingerbread cupcakes that are in the oven now.  If all goes well, the finished products should make an appearance here soon.

Double yolk!

Happily-ever-aftering

This was my latest order from KAF.  No flour this time, since I'm still pretty well-stocked.  I can buy AP, bread, www and unbleached cake flour blend in my local grocery store for quite reasonable prices.  Durum flour is the one I order most often, but I just opened a new bag, and I have cake flour, high gluten flour and pastry flour that I've barely touched.  So I'm good there.  I love the boiled cider, so I try to keep a bottle in reserve.  As for the vanilla, I really like King Arthur's relatively new house blend a lot.  I have to admit, the fact that it's a big bottle makes me use it more liberally than I might otherwise. =)  Again, this new bottle is for my reserve.  I don't want to run out of a lot of things, but vanilla is very high on the list!  As for the sprinkles and cupcake papers, look, it's more evidence of my love of snowflake items. =)  I bought some snowflake papers from KAF last year, which were great.  These are a slightly different design, but still very pretty.  I couldn't pass up the sprinkles, either.  I'm sure B&G will enjoy helping me use them to decorate cookies and top cupcakes.

Note--I just happen to like KAF products; they have not compensated me in any way.

Spice is nice

Well, I'm more than ten days in now, and so far the posting every day thing is going pretty well.  I'm not entirely happy with all the posts, but none are really bad.  And I feel like I'm making progress toward my goal of just getting the words out.  Today's post is a bit more extensive than the past few, since I had the time to take some better pictures.  I'm playing around with different spots in my house to find some good lighting, and this spot was pretty successful.

As you may be able to tell, today's featured ingredients are nutmeg and rum.  One of my favorite blogs is the one written by the folks at King Arthur Flour.  The posts are always entertaining and informative, even if the recipe isn't something that I plan to make.  But sometimes I read a post, like this one last Monday, and know I have to make the recipe as soon as possible.  Nutmeg Bites sounded fabulous, especially once I got to the part about the rum icing. 

The great thing about these cookies is that they're really easy to make.  No particular mixing order--you pretty much just dump everything in the mixer.  It's a straightforward ingredient list, with flour, sugar, butter, egg, salt, vanilla, and a full teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg.  Once the dough comes together, you stick it in the fridge for an hour to firm up.  I actually left mine longer than that without any problems.  I used my #70 disher to scoop the cookies.  My bake time was a little longer than the 8-10 minutes stated in the recipe; I let them go until they were clearly starting to brown on the bottoms.  While the cookies cooled, I mixed up the icing, which consisted of powdered sugar, a little butter, and some dark rum.  

The verdict?  Mmm, these are wonderful.  I love cookies like these--almost like shortbread, but easier.  The rum in the frosting was very strong right after I mixed it up, but mellowed a bit after a day or two.  In fact, I think that overall, the cookies were better after a day or two.  Nutmeg has become a favorite spice of mine, and I enjoyed the fact that there aren't any other spices in these cookies to distract from the nutmeg flavor.  

If you'd like to give these a try for yourself, you can find the recipe here at King Arthur Flour.  I will definitely be making these again, and probably putting some in my holiday gifts.  

Playing catch-up - Classic Apple Crisp

A couple weeks ago, I was in the mood for apple crisp, and thought I'd try something new.  I found this recipe at King Arthur Flour.   I love anything with streusel, and this one is quite tasty.  I also like the addition of both boiled cider and regular apple cider to the filling.  We originally ate the crisp for dessert, but it also makes a great breakfast.

Let sleeping monkeys lie

I don't have a whole lot to write about today.  As my husband said when I asked him how he was doing, "It's Thursday."  That day when we're all exhausted but it isn't quite Friday yet.  And I do mean exhausted.  I went upstairs to check on Gillian, because she was taking forever to come downstairs after taking her shower.  I found her lying on the bathmat, wrapped up in her hooded monkey towel, sound asleep.  I admit, I thought about taking a picture. =)  But instead, I manage to rouse her enough to get the towel off and her pajamas on.  She pretty much sleepwalked to her room--I'm not sure she was actually awake.  

In other news, I took cake to work today for one of my employees, since it was her last day with us.  She loves yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  Since that's a favorite of mine as well, I was happy to make it for her.  I actually tried two new recipes for this one.  The cake is the Golden Vanilla Cake from King Arthur Flour.  I made the full recipe and ended up with two 8" rounds and half a dozen cupcakes.  For the frosting I wanted something that wouldn't overpower the cake.  I went with the Foolproof Chocolate Frosting from Cook's Illustrated.  It uses milk chocolate, which seemed like a good match for the vanilla cake, and also cocoa powder, so it's still really chocolatey.  (I was actually a little short on milk chocolate, so I made up the difference with a bit of bittersweet.)  The final combination of cake and frosting was really good, and well-received by everyone at work.  I'll be making this one again. =)

Forgot to add--the stars are edible glitter, which you can find here.

  

It's a great pumpkin scone, Charlie Brown!

I'm so glad that it's Friday and that I don't have to work tomorrow.  It's been a long week.  I wasn't moving that well this morning, so instead of making my tea at home and taking it in my travel mug, I stopped at Starbucks.  Anticipating that it would be a crazy day, I went for the big cup. =)  The holiday cups are out, and those always seem so cheery.

Figuring everyone at work would also need a pick-me-up to get through the day, I made them some breakfast.  I don't think I've brought this group scones before.  King Arthur is one of my main sources for scone recipes, and they were featuring pumpkin scones this morning.  I had canned pumpkin and cinnamon chips in the pantry, so I was all set.  I'm definitely becoming a fan of freezing the scones before baking.  The scones end up having a great texture--there were lots of raves at work.  (Plus it works out--I can mix and shape the scones, throw them in the freezer, and shower while they chill and the oven preheats.)  I had one person comment that she wanted to know what my pantry looks like, that I can whip up something like this on a moment's notice. =)

The only downside to the scones is that the nurse at Gillian's school was rather disturbed this morning.  It seems that G picked up a stomach bug, and the nurse isn't used to the results from a student eating something orange for breakfast...  So wish me luck for the weekend.  I really hope no one else comes down with it and that our plans aren't derailed any more than they already have been.  G is already on the mend and asking to eat something besides saltines because she's starving.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Keeping the doctor away

I had a really good mail day recently.  It helps that I got tired of the stack of bills needing to be shredded--one evening I switched everything to paperless that I could manage, which means most of the mail now is either total junk or good stuff.  On the day in question, I think I got a new Cook's Illustrated magazine, an issue of Bon Appetit, a Crate and Barrel catalog, a Stash Tea catalog and a King Arthur catalog.  Definitely good stuff. =)  (And you can probably guess, I don't check my mail every day--it had kind of piled up.)  In the back of the KAF catalog, there were some fun Halloween treats, including a picture of Boiled Cider Caramels.  I quickly jumped online to find the recipe.

I will probably end up making the caramels sometime during the holidays.  But I wasn't in the mood to cut up and wrap lots of pieces of caramel.  Then it occurred to me that I could add boiled cider and spices to one of my favorite caramel sauces and come up with something similar.  I decided to go with a classic recipe from Cook's Illustrated, scaling it back by half since this was an experiment.  I added a bit of corn syrup for insurance against crystallization.  Once I'd whisked the cream into the caramel, I added boiled cider one tablespoon at a time until I had a flavor I liked.  I made my own version of apple pie spice by adding a mix of cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg.  I also added more than the original pinch of salt, since I like salty caramel.

The verdict?  I was a bit surprise at how much flavor the boiled cider brings to the caramel, but I'm still trying to decide if I'm happy with the amount of spice.  It seemed a bit heavy on the cinnamon at first, but was better after a day or two.  The caramel is tasty on top of vanilla ice cream and stirred into tea or warm apple cider, but it's really good as a dip for apple slices.  I know, big surprise, right? =)

I'll definitely be making this again, and playing around with it some more.  I'm including my rough recipe if you'd like to try it yourself.  If you haven't made caramel before, here's a good resource from Fine Cooking, including a video so you can see what it's supposed to look like.  (I do things a little differently, based on the Cook's Illustrated recipe.)

Apple Cider Caramel Sauce
(adapted from Cook's Illustrated and King Arthur Flour)

60 grams (2 ounces) water
200 grams (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
22 grams (1 tablespoon) light corn syrup
115 grams (1/2 cup) heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
60 grams (about 3 tablespoons) boiled cider
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
15 grams (1 tablespoon) unsalted butter

Pour the water into a heavy 2-quart saucepan.  Add the sugar to the pan, pouring it into the center so none sticks to the sides of the pan.  Add the corn syrup and swirl the contents to combine.  Cover the pot and bring the mixture to a boil over high heat.  Remove the lid and continue to boil the mixture until it turns straw-colored, about 10 minutes.  Reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook the syrup until it turns dark amber, about 5 minutes longer.  Remove the pan from the heat and add about half the cream.  The mixture will bubble vigorously.  Once the bubbles subside, add the rest of the cream and whisk the mixture until smooth.  Whisk in the salt, boiled cider, and spices, then whisk in the butter.  Allow the mixture to cool until just warm before serving.  The caramel sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a month.  Makes about a cup.

An apple a day

I like baking stuff for breakfast on the weekends.  It's partly because I have more time then, and also because if I make something on Sunday, we can generally eat the leftovers for breakfast for a few days, making weekday mornings a little less hectic.  The only problem is that I'm frequently indecisive about what to make.  I think that scones sound good, for instance, but then can't settle on a recipe.  Part of the problem is that I'm trying to find something that the girls will eat, too.  So when I saw the recent blog post from KAF, I was thrilled.  Fresh apple scones sounded delicious, and even better, didn't have anything in the ingredient list that seemed kid-unfriendly.  (Both girls complain about nuts, and B doesn't like dried fruit "in things.")  Plus I can't seem to help buying lots of apples every time I go to the store this time of year, so it's good to find new ways for us to consume them. 

The scones get a double dose of apple-y goodness--applesauce provides some of the moisture in the dough and there are pieces of chopped apple folded in.  Since the recipe calls for half a cup of (unsweetened) applesauce, I took the easy route and used one of G's single serving cups that she takes in her lunch.  (B likes the blueberry ones, but not the plain.)  There's also a nice amount of spice.  Since I don't have apple pie spice on hand, I used a mix of cinnamon, allspice and freshly grated nutmeg.  In addition to the ground spices, you add cinnamon chips to the dough as well.  I pretty much followed the recipe as written, which I'm not always very good about.  Sometimes it's just easier to make round drop scones, but I did the triangles this time.  The recipe calls for freezing the scones before baking, to keep the butter chilled. I can't fit one of my big sheet pans in my freezer, so I used two smaller quarter sheet (13"x9") pans and put one round of dough on each parchment-lined pan.  Since I like glaze on my scones, I skipped the cinnamon sugar topping.  Once the scones were out of the oven and had cooled for a few minutes, I mixed up a quick glaze flavored with boiled cider and drizzled it on top.

The verdict?  These are quite good.  This is the first time I've actually followed the instructions to freeze the scones before baking (which has come up in other KAF scone recipes), and I could tell a difference in the texture.  I'll be better about remembering to do it in the future, maybe even making the dough the night before & freezing them overnight.  The flavor combination was great.  G was skeptical at first ("I'm not eating those!"), but decided that she'd try one after she concluded that they smelled pretty good.  The glaze worked out well, giving just a little bit of extra apple-y flavor.  

If you'd like to give these a try, you can find the recipe here at King Arthur Flour.  The glaze recipe can be found on their site as well. (here--scroll down; I used milk instead of cream & added a pinch of cinnamon)  These scones are definitely going to be in our rotation a lot for the next few months.

Weekend wind-down 9.16.2012

Welcome to another episode of Di's stream of consciousness week in review. =)  My big accomplishment for this weekend?  Rediscovering how much I love baking bread.  I spent a couple years baking almost all of the bready things that we ate, but then for some reason stopped doing it.  I don't know that I'll go back to doing everything, but I do want to get back in the habit of baking bread on a weekly basis.  Yesterday I made my favorite sandwich loaf recipe, Dan Lepard's Milk Loaf.  You can find the recipe on my friend Nancy's bread blog.  I actually don't use it much for sandwiches for me, but the girls like it, and it makes fantastic toast.  Since I plan to use it mostly for kids' lunches, I made two smaller loaves, in these pans.  I increased the original recipe by one third, and it was just the right amount of dough.  

Once I got started, I was asking myself why I don't make this dough more often.  It's a great method, and such a nice dough to work with.  It's the getting started that's the challenge.  Once I get going, I'm fine.  I did the same thing this evening with another dough.  I meant to make the dough much earlier in the day, but kept putting it off, thinking it would take too much time.  I finally just told myself to get in the kitchen and do it.  The amount of active time I spent?  Maybe 10 minutes.  Now I just have to hold on to that and remember it the next time I'm procrastinating.  

I also made applesauce this weekend, and muffins for Sunday breakfast.  The applesauce was because we're starting to get some good fall apples, and homemade applesauce is the best.  I found some very large Paula Red apples at Central Market, and bought a whole bunch.  Gillian isn't a big fan of the applesauce, but Brianna likes it, so that's one more thing ready for the lunchbox this week.  The muffins were pretty good as well.  Muffins are good for grab & go breakfasts during the week, so that seemed like a good thing to make today.  I've been wanting to make crumb cake, but couldn't settle on a recipe, so I decided to make a basic muffin and add some crumbs on top.  For the base, I made the batter for these doughnut muffins from KAF.  I know from past experience that the muffins end up very domed on top, so I made 16 muffins instead of the usual 12.  I topped each one with some streusel that I modified from a crumb cake recipe.  It worked pretty well, but isn't exactly what I was after.  I plan to play around with it a bit more, so when I get it the way I want it, I'll have to do a full post.

I also did some baking to take to work last week.  I may not always have something to make for dinner, but I always have the stuff to make some sort of cake. =)  In this case, I was looking for something else to make with apples.  I wanted to make this cake that my friend Tracey posted, but actually didn't have everything I needed.  (Now you know another reason why I made applesauce this weekend.)  So I went looking, and found this Apple-Ginger Streusel Coffee Cake.  (I didn't have applesauce, but did have both fresh and crystallized ginger. Go figure.)  I used pecans instead of walnuts, but otherwise made the recipe as written.  I was happy that the recipe called for a 10-cup bundt pan, because it gave me a reason to get out my Heritage Bundt pan.  I got lots of compliments on the cake, and it did look really pretty.  It was very moist, but next time I think I'll add just a bit more salt.  

And for non-baking stuff?  Well, Gillian was under the weather for a good part of the week (still that annoying cold from last week), but finally seemed to be doing better today.  We had an interesting trip to Costco in the rain this morning.  I'm thrilled to have the rain, though, and the cooler temperatures that have come along with it.  It actually feels like we really might be approaching fall.  I also survived a trip to the outlet mall with Brianna last night for some new clothes.  We managed to find some stuff with a minimum of drama, so I can't really complain.  And Jamie had an interesting day on Friday; hopefully this week will be less eventful.  

I think that's about it for tonight.  

When life hands you lemons

It's 11:30pm, and I'm still up.  J headed up to bed, but I didn't feel wound down enough to sleep yet.  Then I realized that I hadn't had my nightly mug of tea yet.  I'm drinking Christmas Morning, which may not seem appropriate for a late night in July, but it's one of my favorites.  Normally I'd be stressing about getting enough sleep, since I tend to get up early for work, but I'm on vacation for a couple more days.  It's amazing how much better I feel, after getting a decent amount of sleep and some naps in over the past few days.  I needed this break.  A lot.

There has been so much going on.  When I saw my mother-in-law a few weeks ago, she commented that she could tell I'd been busy with work because I hadn't been posting here much.  (The fact that we were having the conversation in person is an indication of how crazy things have been, since that wasn't really planned.)  She's right.  When I'm just stressed about work, or stressed about my personal life, I can usually manage.  But both have been kind of out of control, which tends to make me shut down.  I do what I have to in order to survive on a daily basis, but that's about it.  Fortunately, I think I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm starting to feel creative again, which I haven't in quite a while.  One nice thing about having some vacation time is that I've had a change to play around in the kitchen, and I actually feel like writing about some of it.  (So hopefully you'll see some more posts after this one!)

Right at the beginning of this month, one of the work stresses sort of resolved itself.  I'm taking on a new position, which will mean more stress in the short term, but it's a better sort of stress that what I've been dealing with for several months.  It's a pretty big change for me, since I realized that I'd been in my previous role for 7 years.  New location, new people, lots to adjust to.  (plus I'm still helping out my old team for most of this month)  But I'm excited about the change, and I realized that having new (to me) employees has an advantage--more taste testers!  My new team is over twice the size of my old one, so even if some are on diets, there will be others willing to eat baked goods. =)

We had a staff meeting last Monday, and I figured that bringing dessert would be a great way to get off to a good start with everyone.  I wanted to bring a couple of things--something chocolate and something not.  Fortunately, I already had an idea for the non-chocolate one, from one of my favorite sources, King Arthur Flour.  They featured a recipe for Molasses-Raisin Cookies on their blog recently.  I love raisins and spice cookies, and was looking for a good excuse to try the recipe. 

The recipe is pretty straightforward to make, using the creaming method.  The one unusual step is that you put the dry ingredients and raisins in the food processor and pulse to chop up the raisins.  I generally avoid using my food processor because I hate to wash it, but I was intrigued by the idea of the small pieces of raisins blending into the cookies better.  So I pretty much followed the recipe as written.  I did make my cookies bigger than the recipe said to--I used my #40 disher, and got two dozen.  Because they were bigger, I baked them for 13 minutes.  I also skipped the coating of sparkling sugar.  Since the blog post suggested lemonade to go with the cookies, I whisked together some lemon juice and powdered sugar and drizzled the glaze over the cookies.

The verdict?  These cookies are awesome. I took them to the meeting along with a batch of brownies, and the cookies were the clear favorite.  The lemon glaze was nice with the spices in the cookies, although I kind of wish I'd applied it with a heavier hand. =)  I can definitely see how these would pair nicely with lemonade.  I like raisins, but since they're chopped up, they're not very noticeable, and might sneak past the raisin haters if you don't tell them they're there.  The cookies definitely wouldn't be the same without them.  I'm seriously considered making another batch of these cookies just so I can crumble them into a batch of lemon ice cream.

If you'd like make these cookies for yourself, you can find the recipe here at King Arthur Flour.

Wordless Wednesday - Mother's Day

 (I'll be making these again, for sure)

 (Pretty much the only time they're quiet... *sigh*)

Let's do the twist

Sunday is family dinner night around here.  It's the only night that we always eat together.  We occasionally pull it off on a weeknight, but way more often than not, I feed the girls early and then J & I eat later.  Early is relative, of course.  The parent who picks the girls up from school/daycare gets home with them around 6:30 or so.  The other parent doesn't get home until after 7:30.

Since that doesn't leave me with much time or energy for cooking during the week, Sunday is also my day for meals that are more involved, or that just take more time.  A lot of times, it's something that makes lots of leftovers that I can eat for lunch during the week.  Tonight's spaghetti and meatballs is a good example of that.  I try to save the things I know the girls won't eat for me & J to have during the week (as long as they're relatively quick to make).  I want B&G to try new things (and they're really pretty good about that), but I get tired of hearing about how unhappy they are with some of my menu choices.

Last weekend, I tried something new that I was pretty sure they'd enjoy.  A few days earlier, my friend Tracey had a great new dish on her blog.  That's not unusual, since Tracey posts all sorts of good things. =)  But this was one that I wanted to make right away--Pretzel Dogs!  I regularly make my own dough for mini pigs-in-blankets, but it never occurred to me to wrap them in soft pretzel dough.  In fact, I realized that I've never made pretzels at all.  I've been meaning to, but just haven't gotten around to it.  

The great thing about this dough is that it doesn't take long at all to make.  The dough is straightforward to mix up (I used my dough whisk for the initial mixing) and can be kneaded in your stand mixer.  I did some machine kneading, then finished by hand.  The dough is really nice to work with, and it needs less than an hour to rise.  Then you portion out the dough, roll it into ropes, and wrap them around hot dogs that have been cut in half.  I only did five hot dogs (so 10 pieces), using 60 grams of dough for each piece.  I formed the remaining dough into 4 rolls (similar to hamburger buns).  The pretzel dogs are boiled in a baking soda solution for about 30 seconds each.  I boiled the rolls as well, but had to flip them over halfway through the time, since they don't roll the way the hot dogs do.  Finally, the dough is brushed with egg wash, sprinkled with salt (I even had actual pretzel salt!), and baked for about 15 minutes.

The verdict?  These were fantastic!  I definitely think they've earned a place in our regular menu rotation.  Jamie ate his with mustard, which sounds appropriate for pretzels as well as hot dogs.  The rest of us don't really like mustard, so we used ketchup.  But what I really want to try with them next is cheese sauce...  

I'm excited to try my hand at other pretzels as well.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to make them.  If you'd like to try these pretzel dogs for yourself, you can find the recipe on Tracey's blog.  My friend Abby made them, too; I love her cinnamon sugar bites for dessert.  I'm also submitting these Pretzel Dogs to Yeastspotting; be sure to check out all the other delicious yeasted creations.