Baking A Sweet Life

Is there a flavor that more defines fall than pumpkin? I think not. I think I’m often more excited about pumpkin than Christmas.  Sure, the gifts are nice, but the taste and the smell of pumpkin is nothing short of amazing.  To kick off the fall season, my new friend and blogging buddy, Charity of Sweet Charity Pie picked an appropriately themed cake for us to bake.  You see, we’re starting this buddy blogging project, where we are going to work our way through Sherry Yards “Secrets of Baking” and before we both had the book in hand, we wanted to get started.  I’ll explain more about our project in the next post or two, so stay tuned!
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Today is the World Day of Bread - and truthfully, is there a better way to unite hundreds of countries than to celebrate a staple.  This staple is evident in all ethnicities and religions.  Oftentimes in celebrations.  Thank you to Zorra for putting on this blog event to celebrate! “Let’s break bread together”…

Its story is rooted in our history.  I was just reading Jeffrey Hamelman’s book “Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes“. In the ingredients chapter he talks about rye and his surprise that true pumpernickel bread hasn’t enjoyed nearly the popularity that it maintains in Europe, despite the large numbers of European emigrants that we’ve seen in the last century.  It had never occurred to me to think of bread as crossing boundaries in that way; as would religion, or other family heirlooms.  But why wouldn’t bread? We’re raised on it. We celebrate with it.  Not long ago some people may have survived on it.  At the expense of sounding mellow dramatic, think of all the memories we’ve created while bread has been at the table.
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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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SIGH! I don’t know where to start! I’m underwhelmed and disappointed! Sigh! I had such high hopes!  I was so excited when Tammy of Wee Treats selected the Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake! It had all the right components. Brownies. Caramel. Peanuts AND Cake! How on earth could this go wrong? In more ways then one!
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There’s always desserts that linger in the back of our minds as “ones I’d like to make someday” but am too chicken to do it. Why? I don’t know. Just am was. Not anymore! Tuesdays with Dorie member Mari of Mevrouw Cupcake has selected this weeks bake off and creme brulee was it! Off to the races I was.. I couldn’t wait to make it.  I had a girls-night-in with my sweet friends Karen Rose and Stephanie, and thought this would be an appropriate dessert.

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I live in Atlanta. And normally that resonates with the Braves, Turner TV, Delta, Home Depot, Coca-cola, etc, but lately its translated to GAS CRISIS. At this point in time my husband and I have been fortunate enough to regularly come across gas stations with fuel, but yesterday we did end up waiting for just over an hour to get a full tank. All the gas stations near us were totally empty. So we checked our local new station’s web site where they have this gas finder link and we saw that some stations north of us had residents reporting gas recently. We trucked on up. We passed many vacant stations, but finally came across one that had multiple cars there, and NO LINE. We drove on in and when we inquired why these people were there, we were told that the gas station is expecting a delivery before 10pm (its 8pm at this time). There’s only 2 spots left next to actual gas pumps, and we take one. Here’s the sweet folks to the left of us:

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Okay, I’ll be blunt. This dimply plum cake was fantastic! The recipe had very few ingredients for a cake.. and I just wasn’t expecting much.  IMO, what really does this cake in is the orange zest.  Its SO flavorful, and the smell is out of this world.  Because of this recipe and my Greek Celebration bread, I’ve realized just how much I love orange zest.  The two items both smelled so divine.

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie bake-off is for the Dimply Plum Cake, chosen by Michelle of Bake-En.

I brought this to an evening barbecue as the dessert, and most people were just intrigued that there were plums in it.  Everyone agreed that it tasted fantastic.  I served it with cool-whip because I didn’t have time to make whipped cream from scratch.  The BBQ that I thought started at 6pm actually started at 5pm. OOPS! So hubby and I stopped off at the local grocer on our way there.
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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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The next BBDay is up! and the theme is sprouted breads! This should really put out some great breads, and now I’ve got to think of what I’ll bake. My only concern is that my oven’s minimum baking temperature is 175F, and I think for sprouting you need around 110-130F. Any suggestions?

It is my pleasure to present to you the fine collection of Breakfast Breads baked up for this month’s BBD challenge. We had 53 54 55 submissions from 16 different countries - quite a variety of breakfast goodies!

Before I showcase all that breakfast is made of, I’d like to thank Zorra for founding this inspiring event and to let you all know to head over to her blog to get the theme of the one year BreadBakingDay anniversary edition!

Also, a big thank you to everyone that participated in this event - it was honor to not only host BBD for its 10th installment, but to get to (virtually) meet each and every one of you - I think that this diversity is what the essence of food blogging is all about - From sisters in Saudi Arabia, to California (our most popular state this month), people coming together from all parts of the world to share a common passion is so incredible - thank you for letting me be a part of it! And I’d like to say a special thank you to Antonella; she doesn’t have a blog but was so eager to still participate.

And the fun begins!
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