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.

Let's do the twist

I hope all you moms out there had a great Mother's Day.  Amazingly, I got to stay in bed all the way to 7:30am!  It's nice that my girls are now old enough to fend for themselves for a little while in the morning.  They were camped out in Brianna's room, waiting for me to get up.  Unlike last year, they apparently hadn't come up with any sort of plan to make me breakfast.  That's just as well, since last year they neglected to let my husband Jamie in on the plan until the morning of Mother's Day.  =)  Being of sound mind (sometimes, anyway), I had already come up with my own plan anyway, and done most of the work the night before.

A few weeks ago I was at the library with the girls, and decided to wander through the cookbook section.  I'm not as fortunate as my friend Tracey; my library doesn't have nearly as many as hers does, especially newer ones.  But I stumbled across an older book (2008, so not -that- old) that caught my eye.  It was The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread.  I had heard of it because Tracey posted a recipe from it a little while back.  Joanne Chang also mentions Amy's Bread in her book Flour, which is one of my current favorite books.  It turns out that the books are similar--home recipes for bakery favorites.  I like the writing style of both, which is what usually leads me to purchase a cookbook.

Once I had the book at home, I read through the whole thing.  Am I the only one who likes to read cookbooks for fun?  I think the people at work have finally gotten used to me doing it on my lunch breaks. =)  I made mental notes of recipes that I wanted to try sooner rather than later, and the one at the top of my list was the Cinnamon Raisin Twists.  They're made from a sweetened dough that contains cinnamon and raisins.  The dough is layered with some butter and brown sugar and then cut into strips that are twisted before baking.  The recipe can be completed in one day, but I broke it up into two.  I completed the recipe up through shaping the twists, but rather than doing the final rise, I stuck the pan in the fridge for the night.  (The recipe calls for two sheet pans for baking the twists, but I crammed them onto one pan since I couldn't fit two in the fridge.)  On Sunday morning, I took the pan out and put it into my slightly warmed oven so that the final proof wouldn't take too long (it ended up being about an hour since I started with cold dough).  Once the twists were puffy, I took them out, preheated the oven, and baked them for about 25 minutes.  

The verdict?  These are fantastic!  Sort of cinnamon roll meets raisin bread.  The only problem I had was that they were too big for any of the small plates we have. =)  Everyone here loved them.  I ended up taking about half of the pan to work today and they were well-received there as well.

I'm definitely going to make these again.  The book also has recipes for some savory versions.  I have plenty of cookbooks already, but now this one is going to the top of my wish list.  Unfortunately, my library doesn't have the first Amy's Bread book; I'll have to see if I can find a copy at one of our local bookstores so I can see if I need that one, too.  

For lots of other yummy yeasted treats, be sure to check out Yeastspotting and the BYOB bakers.  

Beard on bread

Isn't technology great?  The photo above is a picture of my breakfast, as it was sitting next to my laptop one morning.  There's a card table in my living room, which is the home of whatever jigsaw puzzle Brianna is working on at the moment.  It's also the most common resting spot for my laptop.  I love wifi, and the flexibility of being able to move my computer around the house--especially onto the kitchen table. =)  (Our desktop computer is also in the kitchen, but isn't quite as convenient.)  I recently bought myself an iPod touch, and already I'm spoiled by the fact that it's even more portable than the laptop.  I'm still trying to make the most of it, though.  Any good suggestions for apps that I really need to have?

Speaking of things we need to have, good bread for toast is definitely high on the list.  I don't really like typical "sandwich bread" for sandwiches.  Give me some ciabatta or slices from a sourdough batard.  But those loaf pan breads with a soft crumb are the ones I reach for when making toast.  I have several that I really enjoy, but I like trying new recipes as well.  Thanks to some of my Twitter buddies, we're all trying new things, in fact.  We decided to focus on a different chef each month and make some of their recipes.  We're posting pictures of the things we've made as our Twitter avatars for the month.  Since I blog about baking, I'm looking for baked goods from each of the chefs.  For February, Nancy picked James Beard.  I was happy to find that there are a lot of his recipes online.  It didn't take me long to narrow down my choice to some sort of bread.  As it turned out, my final pick was from Beard on Food, rather than Beard on Bread.  

Since I was thinking about toast and breakfast, Oatmeal Bread sounded like a really good idea.  I hate eating oatmeal as cereal (it's the texture that I don't like).  But oats in baked goods are fine.  The recipe is pretty straightforward, and it gave me a chance to use my dough whisk.  I did make a few adjustments.  I only have instant yeast on hand, so that's what I used, reducing the amount to 10 grams.  I used a weight of 125 grams per cup of all purpose flour.  The recipe calls for 9"x5" loaf pans, but I used my 8 1/2"x4 1/2" Pyrex pans.  The recipe makes two loaves, and I added a cinnamon raisin swirl to one.  After patting the dough out into a rectangle, I sprinkled it liberally with cinnamon sugar and raisins.  Then I rolled it up and put it into the loaf pan.  I also sprinkled the top of the loaf with more cinnamon sugar before putting it in the oven.  The baking time of an hour seemed a bit long to me, and sure enough, my loaves were done sooner.  The plain loaf took 40 minutes, and the raisin one baked for 50 minutes. 

The verdict?  This is definitely excellent toast bread.  I especially enjoyed the raisin version.  Gillian was happy to help me eat it, too.  As I expected, Brianna liked the plain version better.  None of us liked it all that much for sandwiches, but that's okay.  More for toast that way. =)

Want to try this one for yourself?  You can find this recipe (and lots of others) on the James Beard Foundation's website.  

Apple of my eye

I had the following conversation with Gillian last night as she and Brianna were finishing up dinner:

Gillian: "May I please have some ice cream for dessert?"
Me: "No, because we don't have any."
Gillian: "Well, make some!!"
Me: *laughing so hard I can't respond*


In just about any other house, the kids would be asking their mom to buy more ice cream.  But not here, no.  My kids just naturally assume that I can and will make just about anything they want.  I suppose that's a good thing. =)  But I wasn't about to start making ice cream, so I offered her a piece of this wonderful homemade apple pie instead.  She was happy. =)

Pie is one of those things that I definitely prefer to make myself.  Especially with fruit pies, I just don't like the ones you can buy in the grocery store--too much crust, not enough fruit, and way too much gloppy goo around what little fruit there is.  With homemade, you can customize things to be the way you like, and it tastes so much better as well.  The only downside to homemade pie is that I like it way too much, and am likely to eat most of the pie myself.  That's why it seldom makes an appearance outside of Thanksgiving.  But for Tuesdays with Dorie, I'll make an exception.  I missed last week's pie (though it will probably show up here the week of Thanksgiving, I think), but there was no way I was going to skip the All-American, All-Delicious Apple Pie that Emily picked.  

Apple pie is my favorite.  Without question.  I love apples, so I've been happy with all of the apple desserts we've been making for the past month or so.  What made me really happy was having my favorite apple show up at Central Market a couple weeks ago.  I love tart apples, and will happily eat pretty much anything related to a Macintosh apple.  But my favorite of these is definitely the Macoun apple.  (Thanks to Nancy for recommending them to me a couple years ago.)  And they arrived just in time for me to use them in this pie!  

Do any of the rest of you try to get the apple peel off all in one long strip?  I used 5 apples for this pie, and wasn't being that careful, so I only managed it with one apple. =)  My girls think it's cool that I can do that.  Nice that they like something that I do once in a while...

For pie, I like to slice my apples thin and pile lots of them into the pie shell.  I somewhat followed Dorie's recipe for the filling--I used the sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg as listed.  (I love freshly grated nutmeg--I use my microplane to grate it.)  I used flour instead of tapioca for the thickener, since I can't stand tapioca.  (I stood in front of it in the grocery store, but just couldn't bring myself to buy it.)  I also left out the lemon zest--I used it in the apple torte a couple weeks ago, and thought it overpowered the other flavors too much.

I skipped the crumbs to put in the bottom of the pie shell, too.  I have another method for avoiding soggy apple pie--dried fruit.  When I was growing up, my mom always put raisins in apple pie.  I love raisins, so that was fine with me.  It wasn't until I was baking on my own and tried making apple pie without them that I realized that they actually suck up a lot of the extra juice, keeping the pie filling from being too runny.  Cool.  I mostly use raisins, but dried cranberries are also tasty, and I'm sure dried cherries would be good if you like cherries.

I was already deviating a lot from the original recipe, so I did use Dorie's pie crust recipe.  I was only going to make a single crust, but started measuring out the ingredients for the double crust recipe (since it's listed first on the page).  I figured I'd go ahead and make the double version since I was getting out the food processor anyway, and freeze half for later.  Yes, the recipe does call for a double crust.  But besides adding raisins, the other thing my mom always did was put crumbs on top of the pie.  I thought about trying crust on top, but since I make pie so seldom, I wanted to go with my favorite. =)  I've tried different toppings over time, but my current favorite can be found in this recipe from Bon Appetit.  

Once last thing that I do that wasn't in the recipe...  To bake the pie, I first put it on a parchment lined baking sheet (to catch the juices that will inevitably bubble over).  Then I put the sheet directly on the baking stone in the bottom of my oven.  Baking on the stone ensures a nice browned bottom crust.  If you do this, you should make sure that the oven and stone are preheated for quite a while.  (I had good timing--I had the oven on for dinner before baking the pie, so the stone was already pretty hot. I just had to turn the oven up to 425ºF.)  I'm not used to turning the oven down partway through, and ended up baking my pie for 50 minutes at 425ºF.  That isn't a problem with my usual pie crust, which doesn't have any sugar in it.  For Dorie's, which does, I'll make sure to lower the temperature next time, since the edges of the crust got a little dark.  It was late when the pie finished, and I prefer to let it cool to just warm before serving, so I didn't get to try any until the next morning.

The verdict?  Well, if you don't already know, pie for breakfast is the best. =)  I'd much rather eat it for breakfast than for dessert, really.  (My husband thinks I'm a bit crazy. No, not just for that, either.)  As expected, I loved this pie.  I'm still a bit undecided on the crust.  Dorie's crust is definitely more tender than my usual, but mine is more flaky, I think.  Both are good.  And hers makes better pie crust "cookies."  Everyone else here loved the pie, too, even Brianna.  She loves crust, and was even willing to eat some of the raisins.  

For the original recipe, head over to Emily's blog.  And be sure to check out this week's Links to see what everyone else did with their apple pies.  As for me, I'm going to go eat another piece of pie for today's breakfast. =)

Almost fall?

It's hard to believe that Brianna heads back to school in less than a week.  I'm still not used to the idea of school starting in August--we always went back after Labor Day.  I think of the beginning of school as the start of fall, and the weather here is anything but fall-like.  I think we're pretty much ready, though.  School supplies are all purchased.  (That whole thing still bugs me--I'm amazed at the amount of stuff that parents are expected to supply at the beginning of the year.)  A new backpack is ordered and should arrive by the end of the week.  (We're trying one from Lands' End this year; the ones we've bought in the past don't last long enough.)  She has a new outfit for the first day. (Just one for now--all her spring/summer clothes still fit and it won't be cool enough for fall/winter stuff for quite some time, by which point she may have grown some more.)  She even has new shoes, thanks to my wonderful husband.  I've finally learned my lesson--no more attempting to shop for shoes with just me and the two of them.  That never ends well.  We split up this time; I took Gillian shopping Sunday morning, and Jamie took Brianna Sunday afternoon.

Besides finishing up the back-to-school stuff, I did get a chance to do some baking this weekend.  Sandwich bread, cookies, and a new focaccia recipe (hopefully to be blogged soon; I need to make it again and follow the directions correctly this time...).  I was on the fence about whether to make this week's TWD recipe.  Natalie of Oven Love picked Oatmeal Breakfast Bread for us to make this week.  It just didn't sound all that appealing to me, despite the fact that I really like "fall" flavors like apples and raisins and cinnamon.  I might have just been a bit tired of oatmeal, too, since I've made several things with it lately.  I asked for opinions on Twitter, and everyone responded positively.  I decided to sleep on it.

Monday morning, I decided to go ahead and make the recipe to take to work with me.  I decided to go with muffins so I'd be able to get them baked before I had to head out the door.  As with most quick breads, the batter is fairly quick and easy to mix up.  For the applesauce, I actually reverted to using a couple of the single serving cups I had in the pantry.  For the fruit, I used regular raisins, since I like them with anything apple-y.  The only change I made was to the topping--I substituted the streusel from our new favorite plum cake (using pecans).  I scooped the batter into my muffin tin, and had enough for 12 muffins plus a bit left over, which I put in a mini loaf pan.  I baked them for about 24 minutes, then let them cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before moving them to a rack to cool.

The verdict?  I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed these muffins--though I shouldn't have been, since I like all the things that went into them.  And they were a huge hit at work--everyone was surprised to learn that they're fairly healthy (lots of fiber from the fruit and oats and not a lot of fat).  I did leave a few at home so the girls could try them this morning.  Gillian liked the muffins except for the nuts on top.  Brianna took one bite, discovered the raisins, and requested toast for breakfast instead.  Oh, well, can't win them all.  =)  I'll definitely be making these again. 

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it here on Natalie's blog.  And to see what everyone else thought of this week's selection, check out this week's links.  

Bunny food?

Oops, just realized that it's Tuesday evening and I still haven't finished this post!  I guess that's kind of an odd way to "start" a post, but that's because I seldom write a post in order from start to finish.  Especially if I'm having a hard time deciding what to write, I'll start at the bottom, with the verdict.  And usually my baking notes are pretty straightforward to type up.  So all I had left after this morning was this first section.  I've been trying most of the day to come up with something interesting to put up here, but no luck.  So I guess I'll just get right to it...  This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was picked by Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina.  Her selection was Gingered Carrot Cookies.

Since there are a lot of other things on my "want to make soon" list, I decided to just make half the recipe.  As with last week's recipe, I changed the add-ins.  No coconut, of course, and no nuts again.  For the carrots, I went with a technique from my favorite carrot cake recipe, and finely chopped them in my food processor, rather than shredding them.  I think it gives a nicer texture than shreds.  Also for texture reasons, I decided to use some zante currants that I had in my pantry, rather than raisins.  I used about 100g of each for my half recipe.

As with most cookies I make, I mixed the dough by hand.  I started off with creaming together the butter and sugars (brown and white).  The recipe says to mix the ginger and nutmeg in with the dry ingredients.  I'm in the middle of rereading Shirley Corriher's Bakewise, and she recommends adding spices to the fat to bring out their flavors more.  So I mixed the ginger and nutmeg into the butter mixture, then added the vanilla.  Most of the ingredients divided easily, but the original recipe calls for just one egg.  To get half, I weighed the whole egg (out of the shell) and got about 50g.  So after beating the egg a bit, I added 25g of it to the butter/sugar mixture.  Next, I mixed in the flour, salt and baking powder, then stirred in the carrots and currants.  I used my #40 scoop to portion the dough, and baked the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  I ended up baking them for 15 minutes.  

I decided to add some icing to the cookies to dress them up a bit.  Several people mentioned the idea of a cream cheese frosting or glaze, and I thought about that.  But I decided to go with something different.  I have a wonderful recipe for pumpkin cookies that has a really yummy butter-based cinnamon icing.  I changed the spice to ginger for these cookies.  I whisked together 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 70g of powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger, a pinch of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla, and 1/2 teaspoon of milk.  The icing hardens somewhat as it cools, so it's best to use it quickly and apply it to cookies that are still warm.

The verdict?  I wasn't sure about how we'd like these, but they were quite tasty!  I did try one plain, but I have to admit, I like them better with the icing.  They have a nice soft texture that works well with the currants and bits of carrots.  I'd like to make them again with walnuts or pecans, though I don't know if B or G would eat them that way.

If you'd like to try these for yourself, you can find the recipe on Natalia's blog.  And to see how everyone else did this week, check out the links for this week's recipe.  

There's 104 days of summer vacation...

I was trying to figure out earlier why I've been in a better mood lately.  I feel like I'm getting my blogging mojo back.  I've been baking all sorts of great stuff, and actually want to write about it!  I finally decided that the reason is that it's summer vacation.  Sure, I still have to work, but life is definitely less stressful.  My kids are in one place (well, across the parking lot from each other) rather than two, so there's less travel time.  If I'm going into work later, I don't have to get us all up early anyway so we can get Brianna to school on time. Which means it's less critical to get the girls to bed early, since they can sleep in some.  And then we can have breakfast together without having to rush out the door... 

Which brings me to this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.  Susan of Food.Baby picked Raisin Swirl bread for us to make this week.  She says in her post that she picked the recipe because baking bread is comforting.  I have to agree with that.  I know yeast is scary for some people, but the more I bake bread, the more I love it.  One nice thing about this sort of enriched bread is that it's pretty easy to make, since you don't have to do a lot of advanced planning (unlike with breads that have preferments).  

I made the recipe more or less as written, but I did tweak a few things.  First off, I used instant yeast rather than active dry, since that's what I keep on hand.  I adjusted the quantity to 1 1/2 teaspoons, but still mixed it with the warm milk to give it a bit of a head start, since I knew it would have to work harder in a dough with fat and sugar.  The only flavoring I included was the vanilla.  Rather than put the raisins in the swirl, I kneaded them into the dough before the first rise so they would be distributed throughout the dough.  For the swirl, I left out the cocoa (I don't like chocolate and cinnamon together) and skipped the butter that was to be spread over the dough before adding the cinnamon sugar.  I did the latter because I was afraid that the butter would prevent the dough from sticking together well, causing it to unravel when cut.  I ended up baking my loaf for 55 minutes, at which point it registered about 195F on my instant-read thermometer.  

The verdict?  This raisin bread is pretty good, though I have to admit that it's not my favorite.  That honor still belongs to the BBA raisin bread.  I can't quite put my finger on what wasn't quite as good with this bread, but I think part of it is that it was a bit dry.  And the long bake time resulted in a tough crust.  In retrospect, I think I should have brushed the crust with melted butter when it came out of the oven, to soften it somewhat.  That said, the bread makes very good toast for breakfast, which is my favorite way to eat raisin bread anyway.  And hey, it's still homemade bread, and that's always a good thing.  =)  Most of the loaf got sliced and stashed in the freezer, and Gillian is happily helping me finish it off.  Brianna, of course, wanted nothing to do with it, since she doesn't like raisins baked into things.  (I'm working on some non-raisin cinnamon swirl bread for her.)  

If you'd like to give this one a try for yourself, you can find the recipe on Susan's blog.  And to see how everyone else did with this week's recipe, head over to the Leave Your Links page!

A jumble of good stuff

When I was a kid, my mom thought nothing of throwing us in the car and driving to my grandparents' house for the weekend.  It was only about a three-hour drive.  I have lots of good food memories from sitting in Gramma's kitchen.  It was even better when there were other people there, too.  One of my favorite people to see was my Aunt Maureen.  She and I share a birthday, nine years apart.  (My mom was the oldest and Aunt Maureen the youngest of seven kids.)  Aunt Maureen liked to bake (still does, as far as I know).  And I think she may be responsible for my tendency to eat baked goods for breakfast.   Not that she let us kids have any, but we saw her doing it.  =)

As I was making this week's TWD recipe, I was reminded of one particular thing that I recall her baking (and eating early in the day).  I can't remember the exact time frame, but it had to be sometime in the 80s.  There was a box mix for something called Jumbles, which consisted of a brownie-ish layer with dollops of oatmeal stuff on top.  They were really good.  And hey, with oatmeal, they qualified as perfectly acceptable breakfast fare, right? =)

This week's pick is from Lillian of Confectiona's Realm.  The title of the recipe is another mouthful--Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars.  I made half the recipe, so I went with an 8" square pan.  To make my life easier, I lined the pan with non-stick foil.  The bottom layer is an oatmeal cookie-like dough, with nuts added.  The recipe calls for peanuts, but I substituted cashews.  Since I know that I don't really like cinnamon and chocolate together, I left the cinnamon out of the oatmeal mixture.  You reserve some of the dough for topping, and press the rest into the pan.  For the middle layer, you melt together sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips and a bit of butter and salt.  Once that mixture is whisked smooth, you add raisins and more nuts.  After spreading the chocolate on top of the oatmeal layer, the reserved oatmeal dough is dolloped on top of the chocolate.  I ended up baking the bars for 25 minutes.  I let them cool until room temperature before sampling.  Dorie mentions that they're good cold, but I haven't tried them that way yet.

The verdict?  Very good, but hard to eat much at once.  I cut the bars small and still had a hard time finishing one.  I enjoyed them a lot, though.  I love raisins with chocolate, so I'm not surprised that I liked the middle layer.  And the oatmeal was a nice contrast with the chocolate.  I'm not always a big fan of nuts in my desserts, but I liked the cashews, too.  Brianna and Gillian both seemed to like these, too.  (Though as usual, Gillian liked them more.)  I figured it would take us forever to eat even the half recipe I made, so most of the bars went to the daycare and B's after-school teachers.

If you'd like the recipe, head on over to Lillian's blog.  And be sure to visit some other TWD bakers to see how they did this week!

To swirl or not to swirl

Do you ever have foods that you like, but you just don't eat them all that often so you forget how much you like them? Raisin bread falls into that category for me. When I saw that the next bread for the BBA Challenge was Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread, I was excited. I don't recall ever making raisin bread before. And I like just about anything with cinnamon.  (Oh, and for the record, I did make the Cinnamon Buns that came before this bread.  I just didn't blog about them, since I didn't manage to take many pictures.  I've actually made them before, and you can read about that here.)



I mostly stuck to the recipe, but I did substitute white whole wheat flour for some of the bread flour (swapped out 4 ounces).  I've been trying to do that with a lot of the bread that I bake.  It's not enough for my girls to notice (or me, for that matter), and I figure it's a step toward eating more whole grains.  Eventually I'll get a copy of Peter Reinhart's whole grain book, but in the meantime, I'll just play around a bit with the recipes I have.  I did leave the walnuts out, since I figured the girls wouldn't be excited about nuts in bread, and I'm not that keen on them either.  I did try one of the variations in the recipe, as well.  Reinhart gives instructions for how to add a cinnamon swirl.  I decided to do that with one of the two loaves, so I could see which one I like better.



The verdict?  I loved this bread.  I'm pretty sure I'm responsible for eating most of it.  Gillian liked it quite a bit as well.  Brianna wasn't as big a fan, but I know she doesn't like cooked raisins.  I think Jamie got a slice or two, but that was it.  The only issue I had was that I think my bread overproofed a bit during its last rise.  As a result, I ended up with a big gap above the swirl under the top crust, so slices from that loaf tended to unravel.  The plain raisin loaf worked better for toast.  Oh, darn, I guess I'll have to make the swirl version again to see if I can get the swirl to work better.  =)

If you'd like to try this wonderful bread for yourself, check out the book!  And be sure to take a look at the BBA Challenge blogroll to see what all the other bakers have been up to.  You can also see a list of the other bakers in the Slow and Steady subgroup here, on Margaret's blog.
  

Spice girl

One of the things you do as a parent is worry. Am I doing this right? Am I teaching my kids the right things? It's easy to make yourself totally crazy. It seems like lately I have a harder time with it. I miss my mom being on the other end of the phone, reassuring me that I'm doing okay, that things will turn out just fine, that my sisters and I were the same way as kids. I know these things, but it's nice to have someone else tell me, too.

From day one, food is a worry. Is the baby eating enough, often enough? When should you start solid food, what to feed first? What if my child won't eat any vegetables if I give her fruit first? I realize now that I didn't know how good I had it before they could talk back to me. =) Gillian still eats most things put in front of her, but Brianna is definitely more picky. (Though I swear, lately, she must be gearing up for a growth spurt because she's been eating everything in sight.) But I also realize that I'm lucky--my girls will at least try just about anything. While Brianna and Gillian have a certain fondness for mac & cheese (Annie's from a box; they don't like my homemade) and chicken nuggets, they eat a lot of other stuff too. At two, Brianna loved pesto even more than ketchup. Of course, these days she likes to tell me that she doesn't like it at all. But she'll try things like sushi, though she doesn't like the vinegar in the rice. And we're still working on some of the veggies... =)

Brianna will even be picky about dessert at times. She doesn't like nuts except to eat out of hand (mainly pistachios and cashews). She likes fruit, but not in things. And she doesn't usually like things with spices. Chocolate anything is what she prefers. A girl after my own heart. =) And yet, Gillian is the one truly like me. Sure, she won't turn down chocolate. But she also really likes things with cinnamon and ginger and other spices. I love chocolate, but sometimes it can be a bit too much (not often, mind you!). I never get tired of what we think of as fall flavors, though. (Now if only the weather here would cooperate!) Gillian loved the cinnamon chips scones. Brianna asked me to make them with chocolate chips instead. Gillian is the one asking me to make coffeecake (with cinnamon streusel, of course). So it's no surprise that she and I really liked this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.

This week's selection comes from Karen of Something Sweet by Karen. In anticipation of fall (which can't get here soon enough), she picked Applesauce Spice Bars. The method reminded me of my favorite blondie recipe, but I found the result more cake-like. I actually made them early for a change, which was easy to do, since the recipe is very straightforward. I used a Golden Delicious apple, since the selection isn't very good around here this time of year (normally I'd go for a tart apple, but the only option was Granny Smith). I used a bit of Calvados for the flavoring. And in the hope that Brianna might actually the bars, I left out the nuts, though I kept the raisins (I love raisins!). The bake time wasn't that long (23 minutes for mine). While the bars cooled, I cooked up the caramel glaze, which was quite tasty right off the spoon. I let it cool slightly before spreading it on the bars, so it wouldn't run right off the sides. It didn't, but it did soak in more than I expected.

The verdict? Very tasty! But as I said, more cake-like than I was expecting. I'd like to try this one again when a better variety of apples is available, and bake it in a 9" square pan so I get something more like a snack cake. Plus then I'd have a thicker layer of glaze on top. =) I'll also add some of the Calvados to the glaze, since I couldn't taste it in the cake. Gillian was definitely a fan; Brianna not as much. Jamie enjoyed the flavors and different textures. As you can see, I enjoyed mine with tea.

For the recipe, head on over to Karen's blog. And be sure to check out what all the other TWD bakers have been up to this week!

It's a bread! It's a cake! It's Kugelhopf!

One of the things I love about Tuesdays with Dorie is that it makes me bake things that I might not otherwise try for a long time.  Who knows how long I would have been intimidated by brioche if it hadn't been for Peabody and the Brioche Raisin Snails? =)  And after making brioche (twice, since we also made Sticky Buns),  kugelhopf wasn't bad at all.  

Both brioche and kugelhopf are yeast breads enriched with butter and eggs.  But for the kugelhopf, I got to buy a cool new pan!  Dorie says that the cake can be made in a regular bundt pan in a pinch, but I'm not all that thrilled with the bundt pan I have, and I've been looking for a good reason to invest in a better one.  So on our way home from grocery shopping Friday night, Brianna and I stopped by Sur la Table.  We also came away with one of these for Brianna.   (Chocolatechic, that one's for you. =)  )

This recipe is definitely not a quick, throw-it-together-at-the-last-minute sort of thing.  First you have to mix and knead the dough, which can take a while (though at least your mixer can do most of the work).  Then it can take a couple hours to rise, which isn't surprising with an enriched dough like this.  Then into the fridge it goes for an overnight rest.  In the morning, you transfer the dough to a kugelhopf or other pan and let it rise again.  Since the dough is so cold to start, I definitely recommend finding a nice warm spot for it.  Warming up your oven just a bit then turning it off before placing the pan inside works quite well.  Once the dough has risen almost to the top of the pan, you take it out to preheat the oven.  The actual baking time isn't too bad--about 25 minutes for mine.  The only problem I had was that there wasn't really enough dough for my mixer to knead well.  I think I'd be better off doubling the recipe and then freezing half the dough for later.  

A few notes I forgot when I was writing this last night...  I used 4 1/2 ounces as my weight for a cup of flour.  I used instant yeast instead of active dry, and cut it back to about a teaspoon.  Since I was using instant yeast, I mostly ignored Dorie's mixing instructions.  I mixed the dry ingredients together in my mixer with the paddle.  Then I whisked the milk and eggs together and mixed them into the flour mixture.  I switched to the dough hook and worked in the butter, then kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes.  Then I stirred in the raisins.

The verdict?  I really enjoyed it.  Brianna tasted it, but didn't care for it; no surprise there.  Gillian liked it just fine.   Jamie liked it, but expected it to be sweeter.  Of course, maybe it would have been if I hadn't forgotten to put the powdered sugar on it.  Oops.  I'd like to try a few changes next time, though.  I think a bit of nutmeg in the dough would be tasty.  And it definitely needed more raisins (or other dried fruit, for all you raisin-haters =) ).  I did try Dorie's suggestion of toasting some leftover bread/cake and putting jam on it--that was really tasty.

This week's recipe was chosen by Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl.  You can find the recipe on her blog.  And don't forget to head on over to the TWD blogroll to see how everyone else fared this week!

The raisin lovers meet the chocoholics (TWD)

So this was my week to pick!  I had no idea it would be so hard to make up my mind.  I had some different things that I've been considering over the past few months since I got the book.  But when it came down to actually deciding, it was tough.  I had a couple criteria in mind.  I wanted something not too complicated.  And a recipe that didn't make a huge quantity of something.  In other words, no big cakes or pies.  I seriously considered something from the breakfast/quick bread section of the book.  Then I started thinking about the fact that we haven't had very many recipes that were chocolate-intensive.  I'm a diehard chocoholic--as you can see from my pantry.  So I turned to the brownies.  

Dorie has quite a few brownie recipes in there--more than I realized until I started looking closely at them.  As I went through them, I kept turning back to the French Chocolate Brownies.  I love raisins.  I put them in my chocolate chip cookies.  I love them in cinnamon rolls.  And in anything with apples.  But in brownies?  That seemed like it might be a bit weird. So I decided to get my husband's input.  I ran through the different brownie options for him and when I was done, he immediately said that the French Chocolate Brownies sounded the most intriguing to him because of the rum raisins.  So that's what I went with!

When I sent my selection in to Laurie, she cautioned me not to be upset if people didn't seem to like the raisins in there.  But I was already expecting that, after all the posts I read about the Brioche Raisin Snails and the Russian Grandmothers' Apple Pie-Cake.  I was hoping that most people would try substituting some other dried fruit.  I imagine that dried cherries would be good, if I liked cherries.  =)  

The brownies were pretty easy to make.  I did the raisins the evening before, since I like to give them lots of time to soak up the rum.  I had some trouble flaming them this time.  I checked the recipe for the snails (where I didn't have any problems), and it has twice as much rum.  I'll have to try that next time.  I want more raisins anyway.  I went with my usual bittersweet chocolate, El Rey Gran Saman 70%.  My baking time was at the shorter end of what the recipe indicated (50 min).  

A number of people mentioned that the brownies have an odd thick crust on top, and I did get that.  But the taste was still terrific.  The raisins were a fantastic addition, except that there weren't enough of them.  I'm not sure if this particular brownie recipe will make it into my regular rotation, but I definitely want to try adding the rum raisins to some of my other favorite versions.  The brownies are good on their own, but I couldn't resist trying one of Dorie's recommended garnishes, to dress up the photos.  Plus I got to add a bit more rum to the whipped cream.  =)

Don't forget to head over to the Tuesdays with Dorie page to check out the blogroll and see what everyone else did to put their own stamps on this week's recipe.  

French Chocolate Brownies

(adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 92-93)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt (I used 1/4 tsp--guess I can't read instructions)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup raisins (dark or golden)
1 1/2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used El Rey Gran Saman 70%)
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces, at room temperature
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil and place the pan on a baking sheet.  (I lined the pan with non-stick foil and skipped the butter.)

Whisk the flour, salt and cinnamon together.

Put the raisins in a small saucepan with the water, bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until the water almost evaporates. Add the rum and let it warm for about 30 seconds, then turn off the heat, stand back and ignite the rum with a long match. Allow the flames to die down, and set the raisins aside.  (I had trouble with flaming the raisins--not enough rum?  Also, I like to do this quite a while before I make the rest of the recipe to give the raisins lots of time to soak up the rum.)

Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate melts. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the butter, stirring until it melts. It’s important that the chocolate and butter not get very hot. However, if the butter is not melting, you can put the bowl back over the still-hot water for a minute. If you’ve got a couple of little bits of unmelted butter, leave them—it’s better to have a few bits than to overheat the whole.  (I used the microwave.)

Working with a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until thick and pale, about 2 minutes. (I used the hand mixer.)  Reduce the mixer speed and pour in the chocolate-butter mixture, mixing only until it is incorporated—you’ll have a thick, creamy batter.  (I just used a whisk, not the mixer.)  Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds—the dry ingredients won’t be completely incorporated. Then finish folding in the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula. (I used the spatula for all the mixing of the dry ingredients.)  Fold in the raisins, along with any liquid remaining in the pan. Scrape the batter into the pan.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is dry and crackled and a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to warm or room temperature.

Carefully lift the brownies out of the pan, using the foil edges as handles, and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side, taking care not to cut through the foil.

Serving: The brownies are good just warm or at room temperature; they’re even fine cold. I like these with a little something on top or alongside—good accompaniments are whipped crème fraiche or whipped cream, ice cream or chocolate sauce or, dare I suggest, all three!

Storing: Wrapped well, these can be kept a room temperature for up to 3 days, or frozen for up to 2 months.

Breakfast for lunch...

...again.  I've got to quit trying out new recipes on Sunday mornings.  Actually, that should read "time-consuming new recipes."  New muffins or pancakes aren't the problem.  It's the yeast breads that are messing with my timeline.  =)  A couple weeks ago it was doughnuts.  Today it was cinnamon rolls.  

You'd think after my comment last week about running out of room on my kitchen bookshelf again, I would have known better than to open my Borders email.  But how could I pass up a 40% off coupon, especially since I needed to spend my Borders bucks by the end of the month? Since Jamie got me Pure Dessert for Mother's Day, I decided to pick up something else that I've been eyeing for a while...  Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I've seen recipes on a number of blogs.  There was also a great article by him in my last issue of Fine Cooking that gave me some pointers that improved my pizza dough.

I'm still working my way through the beginning part of the book, which talks about the whole bread-baking process, but I decided to thumb through the recipe section to see what I might want to make first.  The cinnamon rolls caught my eye.  It wasn't until I was reading through the whole recipe that I realized why.  I've seen them before, here.  This was the recipe chosen by Marce of Pip in the City as the Daring Bakers challenge for September 2007.  (You can check out her post or Peabody's for the full recipe.)  

I did make a couple changes.  I left out the lemon extract/lemon zest and added a teaspoon of vanilla instead.  I didn't end up using all of the cinnamon sugar mixture, either.  Since I love raisins in my cinnamon rolls, I used the flambéd raisins from Dorie's Brioche Raisin Snails in the filling.  But since Brianna doesn't like raisins in her baked goods, I only sprinkled the raisins over about three-fourths of the dough.  I used mini chocolate chips for the rest.

The result?  Brianna, Gillian and I all loved them.  And as a bonus, now my house smells fantastic... =)  I'll definitely be making these again, once I figure out how to get them done in time for actual breakfast (without getting up at 4am!).