Unfinished business

I had every intention of making this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.  This week, Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle chose Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding.  I've never made bread pudding.  Heck, I'm not even sure I've eaten bread pudding.  And this was chocolate bread pudding, and I love chocolate.  

Unfortunately, the picture above is as far as I got.  I made bread--I made hamburger buns for Sunday's dinner and turned some of the extra dough into a small loaf.  I cut slices of the bread and left them out all day Monday to get stale.  But I guess it just wasn't meant to be, at least this week.

This'll be familiar to a few people that I talk to on Facebook...  Gillian is driving me crazy.  She's two and a half, and it shows.  She's lucky she didn't go to school naked yesterday.  Jamie and I pretty much had to wrestle her into her clothes, with her screaming the whole time about how she didn't want to get dressed, or go potty, or pretty much anything else that we wanted her to do.  I remember Brianna going through a similar stage.  I just hope Gillian's is short-lived, because I don't know how much more of it I can take.  And to make things that much worse, this is exactly the sort of situation where I really wish I could just pick up the phone and call my mom.  I did talk to Dad, and one of my aunts, but it's not quite the same.  *sigh*  

So between kid issues and work issues, I just feel completely worn out.  I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to bake or to blog about the things I have baked.  I have 4 or 5 blog posts started that are just sitting there, waiting to be finished.  I am baking (check out the baking log on my sidebar), but nothing fancy.  But I'm trying to work through this funk and get going again--I think I'll feel better if I do.  I'll have an unofficial TWD rewind post coming in the next day or two, along with a Pay it Forward giveaway that's long overdue.  I'll also have some information soon about my participation in Adopt-a-Blogger.  (It's now closed to newbies, but if you're an experienced blogger who would like to be a mentor, head over to Kristen's blog and let her know.)  So be sure to check back!

Meanwhile, head on over to Lauren's blog for the chocolate bread pudding recipe.  And head over to Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll and see how everyone else did with this week's recipe.

Time for dessert

Yes, I'm down to the wire.  Fortunately, this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is perfect for that.  Holly of PheMOMenon chose 15-Minute Magic--Chocolate Amaretti Torte for us to make this week.  And I'm happy to report that it really did come together in a short amount of time.  Unlike some of my blogging friends, I didn't actually time it.  =)  But even with Brianna helping, it was in the pan pretty quickly.  And it didn't really tie up the oven for that long, either.  

The ingredient list was fairly short, but did have one key thing that a number of people had trouble finding.  Dorie recommends a specific brand of amaretti cookies, Amaretti di Saronno from D. Lazarroni & Co.  Some people had a hard time finding amaretti at all, let alone those ones.  Some people made their own.  I am fortunate enough to have a great place to shop, and I was able to find the small version of the cookies.  There was a spot on the shelf for the big ones, but it was empty.  

Besides the amaretti, you just need chocolate, almonds, sugar, eggs and butter.  And the batter comes together quickly in the food processor.  It goes into a parchment lined 8-inch pan and is baked until cracked on top and the center is still moist but not wet--25 to 30 minutes (mine took 33).  Once cooled, the torte gets a ganache glaze.  I didn't quite follow the recipe there--I just made some ganache with 2 ounces each of bittersweet chocolate and heavy cream and added a bit of rum to it.  

The verdict?  Jamie really liked it, which I expected.  I thought it was okay, but I'm not a big fan of almond flavor, and the amaretti are very strongly flavored.  Since it was so late, I didn't chill the torte at all.  I wonder if I might like it better cold.  I'll have to let the girls try it tomorrow.  Worst case, I'll keep some for Jamie and take the rest to work or to the teachers at the daycare. =)  

To give the torte a try for yourself, head on over to Holly's blog for the recipe.  And be sure to check out all the other wonderful variations on this week's cake by looking through the TWD blogroll.  

Monkeying around

I'm not entirely sure why, but Gillian really loves monkeys.  The first sign was when she started to carry around a small stuffed Curious George that belongs to Brianna.  Brianna wasn't exactly thrilled with that, so fortunately Santa Claus brought Gillian a Curious George of her own (yay for Kohl's Cares for Kids).  We have a couple of monkey cups that she's quite fond of as well, often arguing with Brianna about who will get which one.  They have a carpet with animals on it at her daycare, and she claimed the monkey as her spot to sit during circle time.  She likes to sing about the Five Little Monkeys (jumping on the bed and swinging in the trees, both).  And it's quite entertaining to ask her what monkeys say--"Ooh, ooh, aah, aah!"  

And then there's the fact that she acts like a monkey.  She was quicker than Brianna was to start climbing into and out of things.  Like the playpen, and then her crib.  It's still pretty funny to watch her climbing over the side, which stays lowered all the time now--she's quite capable of scaling it when it's up, which is rather scary to watch.  We have a very difficult time convincing her not to climb over the arms of chairs and the couch, not to mention actually getting her to stop standing on the furniture.  Brianna still wins for climbing the front of the refrigerator, though... =)

So with all the monkey business around here, it's kind of surprising that it took me this long to get around to making another monkey item--monkey bread.  What made me decide to make some was a great post about Monkey Bread Muffins over at Two Peas and Their Pod.  I'm not really sure why it's called monkey bread, but boy, is it tasty.  =)  Sort of like cinnamon rolls, but with the cinnamon on the outside.  And fun to eat, especially with kids, since you get to pull it apart.  I was home by myself when I decided to make some, but it would be a great thing to make with kids, as well--they'd have a lot of fun rolling the dough in the butter and sugar.  

I used the bread dough that I already had in my fridge, which was a result of my monkeying around with another Artisan Bread in Five recipe.  I was looking for dough that would make a good sandwich loaf.  The recipe for Buttermilk Bread caught my eye, and it was something I hadn't tried yet.  It's not that different from the basic dough, but you substitute buttermilk for some of the water and add a bit of sugar, both of which make for a more tender crumb.  However, I started to get everything together to make the dough and then discovered that I didn't actually have buttermilk.  I don't always have it around, since I have a bad habit of opening a pint container, using about half a cup and then forgetting that I have the rest.  What I did have, though, was plain yogurt.  I figured it was worth a shot!  

The verdict?  The dough turned out great.  I liked the bit of tang in the finished loaves of bread.  And it worked quite nicely for the monkey bread--not too chewy.  And not too sweet, which was good since there was plenty of sugar on the outside.  I will definitely make both the plain loaves and the monkey bread again.  I'd like to try it with part whole wheat, too.

For the full bread method, head over to the Artisan Bread in Five website, or check out a copy of the book.  For lots of other great bread, be sure to check out the BYOB roundups.  And I'm submitting this to Yeastspotting (this week hosted by Zorra) as well, another wonderful source of inspiration.

Monkey bread

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

20 ounces bread dough (see below for what I used)

Spray an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan (I use Pyrex) with baking spray.  Mix the sugars and cinnamon together in a small bowl.  Using a bench scraper, cut the dough into small pieces about the size of a walnut.  Dip each piece of dough in the melted butter, roll it in the sugar mixture, and then place it in the loaf pan.  If you have any butter or sugar left, drizzle/sprinkle it over the top of the dough balls in the pan. Don't pack the dough balls in too tightly.  

Loosely cover the pan with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at room temperature until the pan is about three-quarters of the way full.  While the dough is rising, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Place the pan on a rack in the middle of the oven and bake for about 50 minutes.  The dough will fill the pan and be nicely browned on top.  The center of the loaf should be 190-200 degrees F when done.  Let rest in the pan for about 5 minutes, and then invert the bread onto a serving platter.

Yogurt bread dough

(adapted from ABin5)

18 ounces room temperature water (I used spring water since my tap water is extremely hard)

8 ounces whole milk yogurt (Brown Cow)

2 pounds unbleached all-purpose flour (King Arthur)

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar

4 teaspoons kosher salt

4 teaspoons instant yeast

Place the water in the bowl of a standing mixer.  Stir in the yogurt.  Add the dry ingredients to the bowl.  Using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together.  Switch to the dough hook and mix on low speed for one minute.  Transfer the dough to a large (5-6 quart) covered bucket.  Let it rise at room temperature for about two hours, then refrigerate.  Use the dough within seven days.

Going bananas

My children can be picky eaters.  (I may have mentioned this before...)  Not all the time, but often enough.  Some of that is just because they're kids, of course.  =)  Gillian is actually a lot better than Brianna most of the time.  If she says she doesn't like something, it's usually because she really doesn't like it.  With Brianna, it's all about the power struggle.  It can be particularly infuriating when she claims to dislike something that I know darn well she ate with no problem the week before.  I even get mixed responses to dessert.  They both eat pretty much anything chocolate.  But they often disagree on other options.  For instance, Brianna claims to dislike raisins in all baked goods.  Gillian, on the other hand, sits there and picks the raisins out so she can eat them first.  There are a few other things like that.  But another thing that they agree on is a love of pudding.  (Well, except maybe rice pudding.)

For Tuesdays with Dorie, the month of April will be filled with lots of chocolate, so I know most of the recipes should go over well.  But for this week, we start off with something I wasn't too sure about--Banana Cream Pie.  It was chosen by Amy of Sing for Your Supper.  I didn't mention it above, but I'm pretty sure the girls get some of their picky tendencies from me.  =)  I don't like banana cream pie.  Honestly, I don't really like most things banana, unless I'm in just the right mood.  But I already felt really bad about missing last week, and didn't want to skip another recipe.  What to do?  

First, I decided to only make half the recipe.  And then I decided to skip the pie crust and just make small parfaits.  I asked Brianna if she liked banana pudding.  I wasn't sure if she'd had it, but it turns out they made it at daycare at some point.  She was quick to tell me, though, that she was sure I could make one that was much better.  Wow.  Considering the above-mentioned power struggles that we've been dealing with, that was quite the compliment! =)  She then told me how I need to make them--put pudding in the bottom of the bowl, put sliced bananas around the sides, and put whipped cream in the middle.  So that's what we did.

The pastry cream came together pretty easily.  Of course, I've had a few other opportunities to make pastry cream from Dorie's recipes, so I knew what to expect.  The brown sugar and vanilla added a nice caramel character, and the spices were a good addition as well.  After chilling, the cream was quite thick, but I got to vent some of my frustrations by whisking it until it loosened up. =)  For the whipped cream, I just added a bit of sugar (to taste) to some heavy cream, and skipped the sour cream.  I like the tang that sour cream adds, but I was afraid my young pudding eaters wouldn't care for it.  

The verdict?  This pretty much never happens, but Brianna and Gillian ate all of this week's TWD recipe by themselves (over the course of two days).  Jamie got to finish off a bit of pastry cream left in the bowl, but that was it.  The first day, I made them both dishes with all three elements--pastry cream, bananas, and whipped cream.  Brianna ate all of hers--amazing. =)  Gillian tasted hers, made me take the bananas out (even though she usually likes them), and polished off the rest.  I was pleasantly surprised--I expected some sort of complaint about the spices, but didn't get one.  For day two, Brianna requested that I leave the whipped cream off of hers.  (I was actually kind of surprised she ate it the first day.)  And I left the bananas out of Gillian's.  Again, gone.  All in all, a very good result.  

For the full recipe, be sure to head over to Amy's blog.  And I'm sure the other TWD bakers have come up with some creative takes on this week's recipe, so check the blogroll as well.  

Nothing to see here

I'm sorry to say that I'm missing this week's Tuesdays with Dorie.  I'm particularly disappointed that I didn't get it done since this week's recipe was chosen by one of my favorite bloggers, Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch.  She picked Coconut Butter Thins.  Part of my reason for missing this one is that I don't like coconut.  I did originally intend to make these cookies, just without the coconut.  However life has been rather crazy and I just didn't get as far as making much of anything this past weekend.  (I missed the March Daring Bakers challenge, too.  *sigh*)  

I'm sure there are lots of great versions of this week's cookies, though, so head over to Tuesdays with Dorie and check out the blogroll.  And I'm sure you can find the recipe on Jayne's blog.  

p.s.  Okay, now that I've been to Jayne's blog and seen how good these look, I'm even sadder that I didn't make them.  Maybe this weekend... (no work, yay!)

Mellow yellow

So far, I've been doing quite well with my goal of baking all my own bread.  Unfortunately, I haven't been doing as good a job of blogging about it.  One thing I may try for April is an idea that I love from Sandy of At the Baker's Bench (our lovely BYOB moderator).  She keeps a running baking log for the month on the sidebar of her blog, complete with links to blog entries about some of the items.  

The thing that has been keeping me going is still Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  It really helps with the daily bread need.  I've tried a number of the dough recipes in the book (a couple of which are still sitting as drafts that I haven't finished...) and have started playing around a bit as well.  One of the more recent recipes I tried was for bagel dough.  It's similar to the basic dough, but made with bread flour and a little sugar.  It was a bit stickier and harder to handle than my usual bagel dough.  I'm still not sure how I like it, but it is certainly convenient.  What I really liked, though was the loaf of bread I made from that dough.  It was fantastic--wonderful crust (the sugar in the dough helped with the browning, I'm sure) and really tasty.  I have to admit, much as I've been trying to be good and add whole wheat to my bread, the bread made with just white flour was so darn good! =)  (I know, all things in moderation.)

Because of the bread flour, the dough was a bit stiffer and easier to work with than the basic dough.  It didn't result in really big holes in the crumb of the loaves, but it still had a really nice texture.  For the next batch, I decided to play around a bit more.  I keep some semolina on hand because I like it in pizza dough, so I used it in place of some of the bread flour.  There is a recipe in the book for a semolina dough that uses about half semolina flour and half all-purpose.  I didn't think I should add that much, though, since all I have easy access to is coarse semolina, not the really fine durum semolina.  (I really have to do that order from King Arthur one of these days...)  So I went with about a cup of the semolina.  

When I first started making ABin5 bread, I went with the 16 ounce boules recommended at the beginning of the book.  For our needs, though, I find that a batard works well.  And we go through the small loaves very quickly, so my standard loaf is now made from 24 ounces of dough.  I preheat the oven and my baking stone (on the bottom rack) for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees F.  Then I bake with steam (often using this cool idea from Zoe, using a disposable pan to cover) for 10 minutes, then bake the loaf for an additional 25 minutes.  

The verdict?  I really liked the way this variation turned out.  The semolina was enough to give the crumb of the loaf a very pale yellow color and a nice flavor.  The crust was excellent.  Fresh bread is a hit with everyone in this house. =)  And Brianna and Gillian were happy to eat some of the older bread as French toast. 

Be sure to check out lots of other wonderful bread creations at Yeastspotting. 

Semolina Dough

(adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day)

26 ounces room temperature water (I use bottled spring water since my tap water is very hard)

5 ounces semolina

27 ounces bread flour (King Arthur)

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar

4 teaspoons kosher salt

4 teaspoons instant yeast

Place the water in the bowl of a standing mixer.  Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl.  Using the paddle attachment, mix at low speed until the dough starts to come together into a ball.  Switch to the dough hook and mix at low speed about one minute.  Transfer the dough to a 6-quart container and let rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, about two hours.  Place the container in the refrigerator and store until needed.

Signs of spring

It's hard to believe it's spring already.  The days on the calendar seem to be going way too quickly.  As far as the weather, well, it's felt like spring for a while around here in central Texas.  Most of the people I talk to are quite happy that it's getting warm.  Personally, I think March is too early for it to be in the high 80s like we had a week or two ago.  Right now it's a more temperate 66 degrees, and it's actually overcast and drizzly.  We need more days like this (and not just because we're in a drought).  It's a great day to be off from work and here at home, drinking tea and reading and baking and generally being lazy.  Of course there are things I should be doing (aren't there always?).  Maybe this afternoon.

First, though, I need to writing about this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.  For this week, we have Blueberry Crumb Cake, chosen by Sihan of Walking in the Rain.  I mentioned last week that I've been craving coffeecake.  So I was happy to make one two weekends in a row.  

I obviously was so happy with the yogurt in last week's cake that I just had to use it again this week.  Or maybe I forgot to read the recipe thoroughly before grocery shopping and didn't buy buttermilk... =)  And then there's the fact that I don't like blueberries.  Every so often I'll try them again, but I still don't like them.  I really wanted to try cranberries instead, since I knew I had some in the freezer.  Except I didn't.  Apparently I should check to see what ingredients I have on hand before shopping in addition to reading the recipe. =)  Fortunately, I did have a bunch of blackberries--Brianna likes them in her lunch and they were on sale this week, so Jamie suggested I should get extra.  Next, I thought that lime zest would be good with the blackberries, since I've seen a number of delicious-looking recipes that use that combo.  Yep, you guessed it--no limes in the produce drawer.  (Again, could have sworn I had some...)  But I did have lemons.  And for one final change, I left the nuts out of the topping.  That one was on purpose, since Brianna doesn't like nuts in her baked goods and I didn't want to hear any complaints from her about the cake.

Since Dorie mentioned in the recipe that a Pyrex pan would work well, that's what I went with.  I coated it with baking spray.  I mixed together the crumb ingredients in the small bowl of my food processor and put the crumbs in the fridge to chill.  Then I mixed up the batter (pretty straightforward creaming method).  The batter was quite thick, and I had a hard time folding the blackberries in evenly.  Once I got that done, I spread the batter in the pan, put the crumbs on top (sans nuts) and popped the cake in the oven.  I ended up baking it for 50 minutes (the recipe suggests 55-60) at 350 degrees F, at which point the middle seemed done.  We let it cool in the pan for a bit, then dug in.

The verdict?  Mixed.  It seemed rather dry to me.  I think I should have added more fruit.  I didn't really measure, but the blackberries were pretty big and there just didn't seem to be enough of them in the cake.  I think I should have cut them in half or just added more.  And even though I've heard that you should lower the baking temperature when using Pyrex pans, I didn't, since Dorie said that sort of pan would work well.  The taste of the cake was pretty good, but I liked last week's better.  The one part I really did like was the topping.  It was crisp and browned and buttery.  I can see myself using it on another coffeecake or on muffins.  But I think I'd adjust the quantity.  My cake rose a lot, and it seemed like there was way more cake than topping.  I'm definitely in the as-much-crumbs-as-cake camp. =)  Everyone else around here thought the cake was okay.  Brianna ate all of hers.  Jamie agreed that it was a bit dry.  Gillian picked the topping off and pulled the blackberries out and ate both of those, leaving most of the remaining cake on the plate.  Girl after my own heart... =)

If you'd like to try this for yourself, head over to Sihan's blog for the recipe.  And check out the creations of the other TWD bakers over at Tuesdays with Dorie.  And one last thing...  It only seems fair to share a picture of Brianna this week, since we had chef Gillian a couple weeks ago.  Last week was Spring Break, and they had facepainting one day at day care.