Baking A Sweet Life

Oh my - was I excited about this one.  Here’s the next installment of SOB starring Charity of Sweet Charity Pie and myself :) It was my pick this time, and although we both already did a creme brulee for Tuesdays with Dorie, and although we had just done a vanilla sauce for the ice cream I was just so wanting to do this pumpkin creme brulee - since Thanksgiving was JUUUUST around the corner.  We had my in-laws over for a pre-thanksgiving dinner since we wouldn’t be spending the holiday with them, and this was the perfect dessert.  Everyone really enjoyed it.  It was fantastic! Read the rest of this entry »

Like most things I attempt for the first (or second) time, the results are mediocre.  Sometimes I get lucky, and sometimes I get persistent.  The latter was the case with the truffles.  You see, Charity and I had chosen truffles to kick off our SOB baking bonanza.  I did the first batch exactly according to her directions.  And they were a hopeless failure.  The ganache never set up firm enough to withstand the warm (90F) melted chocolate, and I felt more like a child in the kitchen, making more of a mess than an edible creation.

I did some research in other books I have, including Truffles by Dede Wilson, and on youTube, and I got a few valuable lessons.
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My experience with biscotti is limited at best.  I was never turned on by the whole idea of biscotti because to me it appeared to have the same texture as (very) stale bread sticks.  That and they’re not overly sweet and not overly savory, so their function seemed rather limited as well.  <enter complete and pure love for cappuccinos> What was I saying about biscotti? Oh yes - how perfect they are as dunkers for coffee and chocolately drinks alike.  I think what truly turned me off to biscotti in the past was that where its usually sold, its just plain old.  Fresh biscotti seems totally unheard of.  Its usually individually wrapped, loaded with preservatives, and sold months years past its expiration date. Luckily Gretchen of Canela & Comino gave me the chance to whip up some fresh biscotti, which I haven’t done in quite some time.
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Its time again for the monthly Bread Baking Day bake-off!  Zorra, the founder of BBD is hosting the one year anniversary edition - and the theme for this exciting occasion is Bread with Sprouts!  For my bread I decided to do a variety of sprouted grains - an equal mix of Hard Red Wheat, Kamut, and Spelt.  I chose these grains because I love the flavor of each, and for ease of sprouting - they are all roughly the same size.
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I’ve been so eager to try this bread, and I’m so glad I finally did! The reason I had put it off for so long is that the high extraction do-it-yourself-part had intimidated me. I don’t know why - it ended up being so easy to do, and so worth this 4 extra minutes that it took.

This bread was gargantuan! But so incredible. It was probably 14″ across, and about 8″ or 9″ tall. This would be my first jumbo-sized loaf, and it really could feed an army. Well, a small army. Maybe a small baseball team. Anyway. I have an electric mill and normally mill my own wheat, spelt, kamut, etc for my whole grain breads. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to sift anything out of it, since the entire wheat berry is milled at the same grind.
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When Holly of Phemomenon asked for participants in her one-off foodie event, “Blogging for Babies - An Invitation for Little Wonders” I didn’t hesitate to say yes. This is an event to promote the March For Babies, which does amazing work in the way of improving the life quality of infants, both full term and premature.

I have a particular interest in causes like this one because I work at a childrens’ hospital, specifically doing anesthesia on these little miracles. We sometimes have to anesthetize patients as little as 23 weeks gestation, and they barely weight ONE pound. They are so tiny, and are fighting so hard for their life. Its both heartbreaking and amazing, and I’m so glad that there are organizations like this that are able to help these little ones make it through this rough start to life. Please consider going to the link above to donate to this cause - your money will be truly well spent.  Please see below for Holly’s personal statement to everyone regarding this event/cause. Read the rest of this entry »

The difficultly level of this bread is marked as “advanced” in Maggie Glezer’s book. I took one look at that and thought, what the heck. I’ve got a bread class under my belt, and I just won’t take pictures of it if its inedible :).

I adapted the recipe from her book Baking Across America, and this particular recipe is from Della Fratoria’s Bakery. I happened to have all the ingredients on hand which was about 70% why I chose to get started on this recipe last night. The other 30% was that it used sourdough starter, and I’m always looking for a reason to use it! I keep my starter at 100% hydration, and adapted the recipe to account for that.
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I’d been daydreaming about trying my luck at English muffins ever since I saw Susan’s post at Wild Yeast. They just looked so tasty, and so much better than what you get out of a package! I’m so glad that I tried them - they are every bit as good as she promised. I didn’t know until I was about to make them, that English muffins are not baked - they are merely cooked on a griddle (or nonstick skillet in my case) on both sides, much like a stiff pancake batter. I was also surprised by how much milk they required.
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It’s that time again! Except this time I feel like a fool. Somehow I had it in my head that this month’s posting was to be done on the 31th (last day of the month, just like last month, which was my first time participating). But my assumption was wrong, and I just realized it today. I went to a few of my favorite DB‘ers sites and saw that they had put theirs up yesterday. I initially thought that they must’ve been breaking the DB rules, (gasp!!) but it was I that hadn’t paid attention. To my fellow DB’ers, I apologize!

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I was so excited when Susan of Wild Yeast posted that she was going to be hosting this current BBD, and I was also thrilled that the theme was celebration breads. That excitement didn’t last long though. I sat there for a while and thought about the different celebrations that I’ve been a part of. There were no breads that made a regular appearance, unless you count white sandwich bread, but that was merely a celebration of lunch time at school. There really was nothing that I could say was a heritage bread or a “from my grandmother’s family” bread… I come from a long line of non-cooks. If anything was baked, it was baked by Publix, or Nature’s Own. I liked that Susan had baked Hot Cross Buns for her entry. That got me thinking of a holiday celebration bread, even if it wasn’t my own. I liked the idea of a Pannetone, but I didn’t want to spend the 85 days doing it just as we were coming into spring. So I started to look into Easter breads, or spring celebration breads, and actually found a good number of them out there. **please see the second recipe in this post for my actual “submission” to this BBD - it was much better**

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