Whole Wheat Loaves

This bread came out just fine.  A little bit of work, not too much.  A little bit of timing, not too much.   A little bit of flavor, not too much.  There are people in the baking group that make this every week and I understand why.  It's the all around good bread that goes with everything.  I would do this too if I had a mixer to make it a bit easier.   As it is by hand, it still takes some commitment, time-wise.  

This was a make up recipe from about a month ago.  To see the hosts' links for this recipe, click here or here.

The first rise.

Rolled out dough (too rolled out).

Ready to bake.

Done.

Bagels

Fun!  This recipe was actually fun.  Not that the previous recipes weren't  (the fun part is usually the eating part); this just had an extra element of playfulness.  It had to be the part of forming the bagels- taking the dough balls and pinching them just so, poking holes in them and then making them into giant rings.  I had always thought bagels were formed by making long snake-like formations and scoring the ends together, like you would clay.  This was way more cool.  

I just got way ahead of myself....  so here is the dough coming together, much like any basic yeasted dough.

This recipe does better with a high-gluten flour so I used Bob's Red Mill Bread flour (not sure of the percentage but it seemed to work well). And I did use shortening like the recipe specifies, but I got some non-hydrogenated stuff that I feel a whole lot better about (just pressed palm oil).

It had to rest in the fridge at least 4 hours or overnight (just like the last recipe, Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Loaves).   I chose overnight.  After the night in the fridge it was huge and gorgeous (forgot to take a picture).

Then it was divide and conquer.

The dough made 10 bagels total, 5 in the first batch and 5 in the second.  Here is the fun part of shaping the dough and making the rings.

After that it is a sugar/ baking soda bath, a brush with egg whites and a sprinkling of toppings.  I chose salt, plain and cinnamon/ sugar.  For the salt I chose to use some fancy Alea Volcanic Salt from our local salt shop.  It was red in color and only darkened in the oven.  The cinnamon and sugar did not work out at all and of course plain was just fine.

The baking required some steaming provided by ice cubes and water thrown into the oven underneath the bagels.  Crazy.  My oven is still making some odd "adjustment" noises from this maneuver.

They turned out ok.  The crusts of my first batch were quite hard and crispy.   The insides were delicious.

The second batch was a little better as I turned my oven down a bit (I think my oven cooks a bit hot).  I even limited the water bath time to 1 minute each side (as some of my fellow bakers had suggested) but I still got a harder crust than expected.  Not sure exactly how to change that.  Maybe even less water-bath time?  A quick dunk?  Less sugar in the water?  I will try it again at some point since it was so much fun to make (a bit less fun to eat).

Check out the full recipe and our host, Heather's, site.


And here is Rhiannon on her 1st birthday!  Or rather, us trying to take her picture on her 1st birthday...

 

Pumpkin Cranberry Walnut Bread

After missing last month's Whole Wheat Loaves, I made an extra special point to make time this past weekend to make this next recipe for the Tuesdays with Dorie/ Baking With Julia group.  I knew the recipe was going to take two days to make, so I penciled in a bit of time on Saturday and then a tiny bit of time on Sunday. This recipe involved a lot of waiting and timing, somewhat reminiscent of the Pecan Sticky Buns a few months back.

So on Saturday I set about making the dough.  My son and husband are about to leave on an adventure, and Rhiannon is taking a nice nap.   I read through the ingredient list again and realize the cranberries need to be thawed.  Out come the frozen cranberries from the freezer onto the sunny table to thaw.  And the walnuts need to be toasted.  Into the oven go the walnuts.   And the butter needs to be room temperature.  All butter frozen, deeply.  No microwave, just a sunny table.   Out comes the phone.  Call my parents (they live a mile away).  Load up Rhiannon.  Nuke my butter.  Back to my house, ready.  Sift the dry ingredients, start the yeast, cream the sugar and butter.   Ready to add the room temperature egg....     Go to fridge, no eggs.   Run over to neighbor's house, no eggs.  Neighbor bikes over to store for 6 eggs (he gets one of these mini-loaves).  Get egg.  Make dough.   No mixer.  Ask friend for mixer.  Miss her text.  Knead by hand (sticky!!!).   Cover, let rise.  Fold over.  Let rise in fridge. Sleep.

Sunday goes much better.  I remember to set out the dough in the morning.  I shape the loaves around noon.  Let them rise a bit longer than 2 hours.  Put them in the oven for 30 minutes.  Let them rest for 5 minutes and cool the rest of the time on the rack.

And today we ate them.  And they were worth it.

Check out Rebecca's post for the recipe, complete with all the ingredient specifications should you choose to read them ahead of time.



And here is Rhiannon, trying to walk...

Nectarine Chiffon Upside Down Cake

Food is always better when shared, right?  I was able to bake and share this cake with some dear, dear, family friends that were in town this past weekend.  (Too bad I undercooked it- and they were too nice to say so.)   Attempting this cake after my previous flop with the French Strawberry Cake was a bit nerve wracking but I made none of those mistakes and instead just cooked it 5-10 minutes too few, as mentioned above.  Other than that, the recipe was a success.  And it did taste good, gooey mess and all, maybe that's why no one complained.

Here are the basic steps:

Make and bake the streusel filling.

Prep the pan with melted butter, sugar, and nectarines.

 Make the batter by mixing dry with most of the wet ingredients, save the egg whites which are whipped and folded in separately.

Bake and wait.  (Here is where it fell in and collapsed a bit due to being undercooked; good thing we had to flip it.)

Enjoy with friends.

For the full recipe see our hosts' Marlise's and Susan's pages.

And here is Rhiannon in my tupperware drawer keeping busy while we baked.

Popovers

Popovers proved to be pretty darn easy.  Pour ingredients into blender.  Pour mixture into muffin tins.  Bake.  Eat.  (It only could be made easier with an immersion blender, of which I will most certainly use next time.)

But even with this simple recipe, I managed to have challenges, primarily with the bake times and temps.  The recipe calls for baking for 25 minutes at 425 followed by 15-20 minutes at 350.   And no opening the door, ever.  Well, my oven has a not-so-great window to see in and at about 23 minutes these did not look poofed up high enough (as much as I could tell).   So I extended the bake time to 28 minutes and at that time I realized my mistake by ever so slight smell of burnt dough wafting through the house.  I quickly turned the heat down but the damage was done.  The outer crust was a bit crispy and burnt.  The insides were not so custardy, but they tasted fine (the insides only).  My husband managed to eat 4 in one sitting so they obviously were not that bad.  And one could tell what they were  supposed to be like.

So next time, I will trust the recipe and my oven and my immersion blender...










And here is Rhiannon, excited for her popover; this is the first recipe she has been able to eat!

For the full recipe check out the following hosts' blogs:
Vintage Kitchen Notes
Bake with Amy

Semolina Bread & Berry Galette

In honor of Julia Child's 100th birthday I decided to catch up on two recipes from the Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia baking group.

Cutting in the butter

First Berry Galette!  This has to be one of my favorites so far in this adventure of baking through this monstrous book (I am now realizing how long it is going take and how old Rhiannon is going to be when I am done).

Rolled dough

The dough was a cinch to make. Resting it in the fridge and rolling it with ample flour made it a dream to work with.  No more pie dough for me, if given the choice; this rustic dessert has pie beat for simplicity and ease.  And the taste was comparable if not better.  The additional cornmeal in the dough added an interesting complex crunch and bite.




And the uncooked filling allowed the the fruits flavor to come through and shine.  The better the fruit, the better the galette.   (So, if I had sub par fruit, I guess I would consider a pie again which would allow me to cook the filling, hiding the fruits' imperfection.)  For this go around, I chose blueberry apricot since this is what I found most abundant and interesting at the farmer's market.  It turned out to be a fantastic combination.  Although I did forget to add the tablespoon of butter over the fruit prior to baking and this left the fruit to have a bit of tartness the butter would have balanced.  Next time.  Because for this recipe, there will be a next time.  Maybe next week?  Maybe tomorrow?

Here are the links to this great recipe: Tomato Thymes and The Kitchen Lioness


And now for Semolina Bread which I did bake in time to post but never got around to posting about.  It might have been because I didn't care for the end product, as the loaf slowly grew stale on my counter top.  The recipe was simple, easy and interesting with the excessive salt content and addition of semolina flour.  But I can't imagine baking it again as I can't imagine wanting to eat it again.

The sponge

The final product

After that review, if you are still interested in making the recipe, check out the hosts' blogs at Keep it Luce or Way to My Family's Heart to find the exact recipe.

Here is Rhiannon, the now-crawling-monster, getting into her older brother's toys much to his chagrin.

Blueberry Nectarine Pie

Nectarines?  Really?  Nectarines?  Don't they mean peaches?  Prior to trying this recipe, I had never heard of or even thought of using nectarines in a pie.  But really what is the difference between the two?  Not much really.  Genetically they are extremely similar.  Peaches are fuzzy, nectarines are not.    Beyond that, nectarines have a bit more nutritional value with more Vitamin A and C and potassium.  And as far as pies are concerned, taste is the only thing that matters, and they basically taste the same, do they not?

I had planned to do this recipe while at home last week but time escaped (as it usually does) and I found myself copying the recipe and packing it in the car for our trip to central California this week.  I was hoping to employ the baking expertise of my mother-in-law as well as the babysitting expertise of my sister-in-law.  Pies have never been my friend in the baking world.   My crusts are always difficult to rollout regardless of what recipe I use.   It's always in pieces with jagged edges and holes.  I have never gotten the crust to look like pictures in recipe books.  How do they make it look like pizza dough anyway?  And believe me I have tried almost all the tricks in the books (except for a marble counter- is that the key?  a marble counter?).  

We picked up local, fresh nectarines and blueberries at the grocery store; the nectarines were not as ripe as I was hoping but as the recipe called for cooking them, I figured it wouldn't matter too much.   My mother-in-law picked a lemon from her tree for the zest and juice (gotta love California).  The filling was simple and easy to prepare and definitely needed that lemon juice as it was cloyingly sweet without it. 

The crust calls for a mixture of shortening and butter.  I tend to avoid shortening at all costs in my baking as it scares me to eat it. Had I been home, I may have tried all butter but my mother-in-law had a container of Crisco right there in the pantry so I figured, this one time will be ok, right?  I mixed everything by hand and it came together easily even in 97 degree heat.  Rolling it out, I had my same old troubles: jagged edges, holes in the middle, transfer mishaps.  I patched it altogether and even had to roll the top crust twice- yikes.  It looked rather perfect, but I feared the crust would be as tough and hard as all my previous pie attempts.

It baked for the full 50 minutes the recipe called for and the house smelled amazing.  We had the patience to let it cool mostly because warm pie at 4pm in central California sounds almost miserable.  At 7pm, it was almost divine.  

This crust recipe worked!  It remained flaky and light despite the double rolling and all the patching.  The flavor balanced the filling well with a healthy amount of salt but it did lack a bit of the all butter creaminess.  Overall, I think I have found a winning crust recipe if I can bring myself to use shortening again.  Maybe I can justify it by always using nectarines instead of peaches.

And here is Rhiannon cheering on her favorite Olympians.

As a side note, I did indeed complete the Semolina Bread recipe from 2 weeks ago but never got around to completing a post about it... maybe I'll post in the next week.

Here are the links for the recipes:
http://thatskinnychickcanbake.blogspot.com/
http://manchegoskitchen.typepad.com/