Have been in a baking funk for a while. Nothing really seems to turn out.
I managed to burn my sugar caramel :( and splatter the book with a whole lot of rhubarb juice - something to remember this baking endeavour with… :)
On the plus side, the cake itself was nice and velvety and one of the best butter cakes I have had in a while.
Do have a look at the recipe at the host of the week: Erin at When in Doubt… Leave it at 350 (love the name of the blog!)
I should have put in the full amount of salt (I only put in three-quarters of the amount). Otherwise, the bread had a good texture and rose surprisingly quickly.
Please visit the host for the week for the recipe: Dawn at Simply Sweet
These cookies bring me back to a more innocent time.
Mid last week, my mum and I were held at knife point during a home invasion. It was, to date, the most terrifying point in my life and I am still working day to day trying to regain what I had a few days before that happened. I know it will be a slow process but I wish that there was some sort of mind wipe device that could just erase it. Living in fear of the dark is not how I would like to live.
I brought these cookies into work early last week after baking up a big batch. To me, they were a-ok (I preferred the ones that were a little more baked around the sides so as to give the crisp-ness before the chewiness. Also even though I used 2 tbsp of the coffee powder that flavour profile did not shine through owing to the predominance of the chocolate), but my co-workers lapped them up. There was even some hoarding going on!
…. these cookies will remind me of the time when life was a little simpler and less scary.
Please visit the host of the week for the recipe: Peggy at Galettista
I had attempted making croissants a while back and had got only to the rolling of the dough stage at which everything broke down and collapsed into a heap of unusable mess of dough and a sense of hopelessness. So when this week’s baking task was croissants, I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to subject myself to misery once again.
So, I gritted my teeth and cleared out some place in the fridge. It started off well enough. The dough and butter oval were easy to put together. Then, the baking weekend arrived - and lord was it a humid one! Why oh why are the weather gods trying to thwart me!
Decided to make half a batch so that I would not have a whole lot of waste if it went wrong. I went off track at the first rolling out when I think I rolled it out a little too long (and hence too thin). Spent the rest of the turns trying to cover up for that one. In the end, I ended up with some sort of laminated dough (slightly too thick with butter in some places and with butter poking out of others). Cut out the triangles, which did not end up stretching much as the butter sometimes came out of the sides! Proofed them. Coated them with egg wash… and stuck them in the oven.
Butter bubbled out over my baking sheet (did anyone else have this problem) and when I pulled them out I got an assortment of croissants, and I think about 4 perfect looking ones. They definitely had a load of butter in them and were somewhat flaky.
Will I try these again? Not for a while. I am dreading when we need to make these again for danish pastries…
… but I did manage to make it further this time….
Do get the recipe at Amanda’s blog: Girl+Food=Love
Baked these a little longer (15 minutes) and ended up with a dry looking top - as indicated in the recipe. However, when trying to get it out of the tin, it collapsed on me and was way too soft. So as soon as it cooled down a little, off it went into the fridge!
When it had firmed up a little more, it was a very dense and fudgy chocolate cake. Delicious because of all the lovely chocolate.
For the recipe, do visit the host of the week: Cathy of A Frederick Food Garden
I absolutely love the smell of bread baking in the kitchen and so decided to take the plunge and attempt to host a Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. In fact, it was Dorie that introduced me to the adventures of bread baking in 2007 as the first bread that I ever baked was her raisin swirl bread from “Baking: From my Home to Yours” and since it was a huge hit, I have never looked back!
So during the long holiday weekend that we had here, I set aside some time to bake up this bread (since it needed a 24 to 36 hour refrigerated rise).
The result? - sprinkled with some fresh rosemary, it was one delicious bread and a recipe which I will attempt again (though I may decide to give the Peter Reinhart focaccia recipe a try sometime in the future). I love the openness and air pockets which are characteristic of focaccia - it definitely gives the bread an artisanal feel.
My pastry skills need brushing up on but I managed to muddle through this one. Not an easy task - spent a whole afternoon making the pastry, mashing the apples (decided to be a bit lazy with that) and then baking the tart. The end result was a pretty tart but my pastry needs some work…
Please visit the host of the week, Laws of the Kitchen for the recipe.
This was a lovely bread to make - the dough silky and easy to knead, the way it rose beautifully, the lovely smell of cardamom as it was baking.
It was slightly odd having something called “finnish pulla” and have that flavoured with cardamom - because, to me, cardamom is a distinctly indian spice. Well, we do learn while we bake along with Julia!
I skipped the scattering of pearl sugar as I wanted it to be more savory and I don’t think it was the worse for wear.
Initially I didn’t want the hassle of forming a wreath but after braiding the dough and ending up with a long “rope”, I thought “heck it” and joined the ends up.
Do visit the host of the week for the recipe: Erin of The Daily Morsel
One word to sum up these cakes - molasses! There was lots of it - too much that it seemed to over power the taste of the ginger.(I also sorta discovered that I am not too fond of the taste of molasses… :()
I halved the recipe and got one 4-inch baby cake and two 4 and a half inch cakes (did not have enough 4 inch pans).
Overall, an interesting experiment but I would like to find a cake with less molasses and with a more distinct ginger taste.
The host for the week was: Karen of Karen’s Kitchen Stories.
I love brownies - what is there not to love about loads of chocolate! My go to brownie recipe are the Classic Brownies by Dorie. Those turn out consistently good every time and they have a lovely fudgy texture.
So did these brownies beat those? Unfortunately not. Mine baked up a little inconsistently (not sure why).
I took note of the longer baking time the other twd-ers needed and left them in the oven for an additional 10 minutes. When I took them out, the top was already cracked (like any good brownie top), I stuck a skewer into several sections and it came out clean - oops, had I overbaked it?
Left it to cool to room temperature (for 8 hours - was running errands) and cut into it… The result? A mixture of cakey, fudgy and downright runny. I had to junk the downright runny sections but at least the rest of the brownie could be salvaged.
What did get salvaged did taste good. But I am in a quandary now… if I do attempt this recipe again, do I increase the baking time? If I do, then how will the cakey and fudgy parts be affected? Perhaps I should just stick to the tried and tested Classic Brownie recipe.
For the recipe, please visit the host of the week: Monica of A Beautiful Mess
Going through life without a map
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted – Banksy
The reason people find it so hard to be happy …
Life is like riding a bicyle – Quote by Albert Einstein. Design and typeface (Ride My Bike) by Guisela Mendoza
Cookie Monster
Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.
The trouble is, you think you have time - quote by Buddha
Source: visceralmoue
