Bagels

Hi! I made bagels. They were round, and had a hole in the middle. See?

Just like a bagel should be. And it wasn't even too difficult! I followed the recipe in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Sure, there were a couple specialty ingredients, such as malt powder

I got this stuff from my local beer brewing store.

and high gluten bread flour, such as King Arthur brand, but all in all, the recipe is pretty straightforward. 

These bagels have a pretty crusty crust, and a dense and chewy crumb. I recommend eating them.

The recipe takes 2 days. The first day is pretty involved, but you only need an hour or so on the second day. According to Reinhart, allowing the dough to ferment slowly overnight allows it to develop deeper flavors. to get maximum flavor, this recipe uses both a sponge and overnight fermentation. 

The quantities listed will make 12 standard sized bagels

Ingredients:

Sponge

• 1 tsp instant yeast (none of that old fashioned active dry stuff)
• 510g / 18oz / 4 cups high gluten bread flour (It is generally better to measure flour by weight or mass rather than volume, because flour density is very variable.)
• 2.5cups water

Dough

• 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 482g / 17oz / 3.75 cups high gluten bread flour
• 2 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp malt powder

To Finish

• 1 tbsp baking soda (although this quantity doesn't mean anything because Reinhart does not specify the amount of water to dilute it in...)
• toppings: sesame seeds, poppy seeds, rehydrated dried garlic/onion, cheese, salt, etc... 

  

  to rehydrate, just add water!

Method (slightly simplified from the original):

1. Mix together the "sponge" ingredients, the dough should look like pancake batter.
2. Let the sponge sit, covered, at room temperature for 2 hours (until it is foamy and bubbly and has doubled in size.)                                          



bubbles!

3. To the sponge add the "dough" ingredients. Stir well with a spoon or your hands to form a coarse, shaggy dough. 
4. If you are kneading by hand, turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. If you have a stand mixer, have the machine knead the dough with the dough hook for 6 minutes.   Either way, the dough should be "satiny and pliable, but not sticky" (Reinhart).
5. Divide the dough into 12 pieces (each about 128g / 4.5oz). Cover with a damp towel and allow to rest 20 minutes.
6. To make the bagel shape, poke a hole into the center of a piece and shape the dough into an even bagel shape. The hole should be about 1 in in diameter. 
7. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper, and place the raw bagels on it. Let the dough sit for 20 minutes, then put it in the fridge overnight or for up to 3 days. 

   

   transporting bagel dough

8. The next day, preheat the oven to 500F and bring a wide pot of water to boil. Add the baking soda to the water.
9. Take the bagels out of the fridge and drop a couple of them into the water (only as many as can fit comfortably on the surface of the water)
10. Boil the bagels for one minute on each side. 

    

    boiled bagels

11. Sprinkle the baking sheets with semolina or cornmeal and place the boiled bagels on it. Top the bagels with desired toppings (I like sesame+poppy+garlic.) Note: to prevent the garlic from burning, you need to soak it in a bit of hot water to rehydrate it before using.

    

    toppings!

12. Bake the bagels for 5 minutes at 500F, rotate the pans and bake until golden, about another 5 minutes.
13. Let the bagels cool for 15 minutes on a cooling rack. 

    

    Om nom nom

14. Slice the bagel open, and spread with cream cheese! 

    

    No bagel is complete without cream cheese.

     



Cheese on top is also good.

Strawberry Cardamom Sour Cream Upside-Down Cake

Well, it certainly has been a while since I last posted here. Turns out having a job and taking a class at the same time is a lot of work. I've been taking a b&w film photography class this summer. At first I was a bit confused as to why film photo is a pre-req for digital photo, but the class is actually very interesting. Contrary to everyones expectations, I did not take pictures of food, because food in black and white is just not particularly exciting. So I have been exploring the bay area / my house in search of situations to take pictures of.

(Creepy?) Handbags in Half Moon Bay

Dragonfly

California + Bikes

Public Transit

Donner Lake

That last picture somehow became brown when I took a picture of it, probably because the white balance on my digital camera was off. I think it fits the landscape well though.

But anyways, back to food.

Mmmm strawberries

Strawberries are good, right? And sour cream is pretty good with strawberries. And cardamom is just plain delicious. (While making this cake I discovered that chewing a cardamom seed is very refreshing.)

Mmmm cardamom

Joy from Joythebaker is a genius and combined these three flavors into a cake. The super thick batter is spread on top of sliced strawberries that are sitting in some butter and brown sugar. I decreased the amount of sugar from Joy's recipe because my strawberries were sweet enough for my taste. (And of course I doubled the number of strawberries!)

Also, if you look at her post, she somehow manages to keep her strawberries bright red, while mine went to a dull purple. I'm guessing that adding some lemon juice to the strawberries before baking might help prevent discoloration. 

Ugly but delicious. I'm sure your cake will be beautiful and delicious!

Anyways, recipe time!

But first some sliced strawberries

Ingredients:

     For the strawberries:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 cups sliced strawberries
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (opt, may preserve color) 

     For the cake:

• 6 tbsp butter, soft
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 2/3 cup sour cream

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix strawberries with lemon juice (if using.)
3. Put the 2 tbsp of butter in a 9" round cake pan and place in the oven until melted.
4. Rotate pan to coat all sides with butter, sprinkle the 2 tbsp brown sugar into the bottom of the pan.
5. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder + soda, salt.
6. In a large bowl cream together the butter and 1/2 cup brown sugar.
7. When butter is fluffy, add egg and vanilla, and beat until well combined.
8. Beat in dry ingredients and sour cream, batter will be very thick. 
9. Spread strawberries on bottom of pan.
10. Spoon batter over strawberries and spread evenly.



Spread it out more evenly than this

11. Bake for about 35 minutes.
12. When cake is cooked, run a knife along the edge of the cake and then invert over a plate. If the cake sticks to the pan, leave the pan upside-down over the plate and go read a book or check your email. After ~5 minutes, the cake will have unstuck from the pan (Yay gravity!)
13. Serve with a spoonful of sour cream

I brought this cake to a friend's house and it was gone in 5 minutes. Granted, there were three tall and skinny runner guys participating, so it wasn't particularly surprising. 

Gâteau au Yaourt: Yogurt Cake

This is a cake that my family has been making for a long time; I think we got the recipe from some of my cousins. It is a very simple and customizable snack cake that uses yogurt as a flavor base but doesn't actually taste like yogurt. The original recipe has all the measurements (except the eggs) based on the size of a pot of yogurt. Unfortunately, yogurt pots in France are smaller than in the US (they contain 150g of yogurt instead of 170g.) To make this recipe in the US, I find a glass that holds a bit less than a cup of water and use that as my measurement tool.
Once you have made the batter, you can pretty much add whatever flavor you want. The cake in the photo has chocolate chips and unsweetened coconut flakes, but I have also had success with pears, nutella  (mix nutella into some of the batter and swirl that into the rest of the batter,) dried fruit, etc. You could could probably make this a savory cake by removing most of the sugar and putting cheese or bacon or herbs in.
And to prove how easy this recipe is, I was able to make it in the kitchen of my college dorm with my bf.

Gâteau au Yaourt:

Ingredients

• 3 eggs (separated)
• 1.5 pots sugar
• 1 pot yogurt
• 0.5 pots oil or 60g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 pots flour
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• 0.5 tsp salt
• up to 1.5 cups filling (ie 1 cup chocolate chips + 0.5 cup unsweetened coconut)

Instructions

1. Preheat an oven to 350F.
2. Beat yolks with sugar until thick and white.
3. Add egg whites, yogurt, oil, and vanilla, still beating.
4. Add remaining ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) but not the filling. Mix by hand.
5. Stir in the filling gently.
6. Grease a cake pan or loaf pan and pour in the batter.
7. Bake for 40 (cake pan) to 50 (loaf pan) minutes
8. Enjoy on a picnic or as a snack or casual dessert! You can serve it with greek yogurt and berries or dress it up with whipped cream.

Crêpes!

Crêpe with onions, mushrooms, ham, and cheese

On Tuesday we celebrated my brother's birthday again (his actual birthday has not yet happened) with a crêpe party! In my family, "crêpe party" means that we pull out the gridle that has six holes for small crêpes so that each person can customize his or her crêpes and the meal goes on.

For our crêpe batter we use half wheat (not whole wheat) flour and half buckwheat flour. Traditionally, savory crêpes (called galettes) are made with 100% buckwheat flour, but the lack of gluten makes the batter hard to work with, and my family's hybrid crêpe batter lets us use the same batter for savory and sweet crêpes!

To make crêpe batter for 4 people (+ leftovers for breakfast the next morning):

Ingredients:

• 100g all-purpose flour
• 100g buckwheat flour
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp salt
• about 360g milk
• water

Method:

1. Mix the flours with the salt in a large bowl. (For some reason my family has a designated crêpe bowl)                                                           
2. Add the eggs and mix with a spoon            
3. Add the milk slowly, stirring between each addition to avoid making lumps (if you do get lumps, give the dough a whirr with an electric mixer)
4. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
5. Add water to the dough until it is liquid enough to run off the spoon quickly (if the dough is too thick to spread when you start cooking crêpes, you can always add more water)

To cook crêpes:

1. Heat your pan with some oil. 
2. Add a small ladle of batter to the pan and either use the bottom of the ladle to spread out the batter or rotate the pan so that the batter is very thin but not broken.
3. Cook one side until the bottom is browned, then flip.
4. Add desired topping if toppings need to melt.
5. Cook until bottom is also browned.
6. Adjust the temperature for the next crêpes if they are cooking too fast or too slowly.
7. Serve.

Remember: the first crêpe you make in the pan is always a failed crêpe. Don't sweat it.

For our savory crêpe toppings we had caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms, ham, cheese, and eggs. For dessert toppings we had nutella, honey, sugar, butter, bananas, and canned pears.

 

The classic "crêpe complète"  is ham, cheese, and a fried egg. I add onions and mushrooms because onions and mushrooms make everything even more delicious.

 

And of course, as crêpes (galettes) are from Bretagne, they must be eaten with apple cider. My dad found some legit unfiltered and unpasteurized cider at Piazza's that supposedly went very well with the crêpes. (As I am under 21 I obviously did not have any ;)

 And the great thing about making crêpes for dinner is that you get to eat the leftovers with nutella the next morning!

Cardamom Sour-Cream Waffles

Last week, for mother's day, I decided to make my mother a special breakfast. She likes waffles, so I searched up some new waffle recipes. In the past I have made light and crispy waffles and yeasted waffles, but this year I wanted something new. The epicurious newsletter presented me with an interesting idea: Cardamom Waffles. My family really likes cardamom, the spice used in carrot cake and Indian rice pudding, so I decided to give these waffles a try.

I followed Epicurious' recipe (which was published in the magazine Gourmet) almost to the letter; I, however, ground my own cardamom instead of using pre-ground, and my father made a delicious fruit salad (mango, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries) to serve with it instead of the lingonberry preserves specified the recipe.

Here is the recipe, pretty much copied word for word from the original!

Cardamom Sour-Cream Waffles

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• Rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom (You can also use 3-4 cardamom pods and grind the inner seeds yourself with a mortar/pestle or spice grinder)
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon mild honey
• 2 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Method:

1. Preheat a waffle iron until hot.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cardamom in a large bowl.
3. Whisk together remaining ingredients in another bowl, then whisk into flour mixture until just combined.
4. Lightly brush waffle iron with oil and cook waffles according to manufacturer's instructions.

Yay for simple directions!

These waffles were delicious fresh and were still good the next day when reheated in the toaster!

A little bit of maple syrup or honey brings out the spice of the cardamom.

The Simplest Apple Compote

Compote is a french word that is usually translated as "applesauce," but more generally can mean "cooked fruit." Many upscale restaurants in America like to use his word to sound fancier, but there is nothing especially complicated about compote.
I decided to name this post compote rather than sauce because I feel that applesauce tends to be associated with smoothness and liquidity. What I am writing about here has distinct pieces of apple and dried fruit and is more a dessert than a snack.

My mother and I decided to make this when we found 5 2-month old apples in the kitchen. We were a bit scared of eating then, and my mother realized we could cook them. We added a handful of extremely dry raisins and a of couple rock-hard dried plums.

I enjoyed this apple stew stirred into yogurt and spread on top of an English muffin, but I am sure it is delicious with ice-cream, waffles, cake, etc...

Ingredients:

• 4-5 apples
• 1/4 cup dried fruit
• 1/4 cup water
  

1. Peel and core the apples.
   
2. Chop them into small cubes (1/2 inch thick.)
3. Add apple, dried fruit, and water to a small-medium saucepan.
4. Cook over low heat with lid until apples are tender, stirring eevery 5-10 minutes.
5. Serve hot or cold.
   

Honey-Citrus Gingerbread

I know, I know, I should be posting about Thanksgiving and turkey and all that, but everyone else is doing it. How about a change from the pumpkin and potatoes?
This quick bread is based off a french Pains d'Épices, also known as gingerbread, but with more citrus zest and honey flavor. The batter is thick and takes a while to put together and cook, but I think it's worth the effort. Eat it for breakfast with a glass of milk, or slice it thin and dress it with not-too-sweet whipped cream for an elegant dessert. I recommend making it a day early because it gets denser and easier to slice with time. Store it wrapped in foil at room temperature.


If you don't have a scale, get one. Without a scale you can't make most European recipes, and most breads are by weight as well. Get one precise to at least .25 oz or 5 grams for flexibility.

Ingredients:

Main ingredients:

• 130g all-purpose flour (4.6 oz)
• 70g Rye flour (2.5 oz) (The rye can be replaced with regular flour, but I think it improve the loaf. And it's traditional!)
  
• 40g brown sugar (1.4 oz)
  
• 100g butter, melted (about 7 tbsp)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup raisins

Flavorings (This is where you can be creative, use your imagination and cupboard to find your favorite combination):

• 250g honey (8.8 oz)
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• anise seed, cloves (to your taste, can be ommitted)

Putting it together:

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Combine Flavorings in a saucepan and heat until the honey starts to bubble. Lower heat and cook for aout 5 minutes.
  
• Combine both flours, sugar, and baking powder in a medium bowl.
• Add the honey mixture and melted butter to the flour and blend completely.
  
• Let cool 5 minutes and add the egg and milk.
• Stir in raisins.
• Pour into a greased 9x5 loaf pan, bake 55-60 miutes. If the top starts to darken too much, cover with a piece of foil.
  
• The loaf is done when an inserted kife comes out clean.
  

Buckwheat Pancakes: With Wild Yeast!

Last week I decided to test out my sourdough starter to see it it was sour yet. I wanted to make something easy ans tasty, so I flipped through my secondhand copy of Beard on Bread by James Beard and found a recipe for Yeasted Buckwheat Cakes. My family loves buckwheat (it's what is used for real crèpes,) and the method looked simple.
The recipe called for mixing commercial yeast with flour, salt, and water the night before and adding butter, molasses, and baking soda the next morning. All I did was replace the yeast and part of the flour and water with the barm I made about a months ago.

Ingredients (Feeds 4-6):

The Night Before:

1. 1 cup liquid sourdough starter*
2. 1/2 cup All-purpose flour
3. 1 cup buckwheat flour
4. 1 1/2 cup water
5. 1 tsp salt

Mix all the ingredients together in a medium-large bowl. Cover with a cloth or plastic wrap and leave out in a warmish place overnight.

The Morning of:

1. 1 tbsp melted butter
2. 2 tbsp molasses
3. 1/4 tsp baking soda

The flour mixture should have bubbled. Stir it well and add the remaining ingredients. Heat up a griddle to medium-low heat. Cook like you would a pancake, but longer. Check for doneness by Opening one a peeking inside. The interior should be soft but not gooey.
Eat warm with honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, butter, or a combination!

*You can replace the sourdough with 1 package instant yeast, 1/2c flour and a 1/2c water. If your starter is dryer or more solid, diminish the amount used and add more water to make a liquid batter.

Poll Results: Pancakes or Waffles

My dear readers,
I am sorry that I didn't give the results for this a month ago. I was just too busy. But, things should be going back to normal now. I am going to try to give you at least one post per week
-Coline

Anyways, here are the awaited results (because you couldn't at all see them on the blog before):

Pancakes	6 (33%)
Waffles	11 (61%)
neither	1 (5%)

Votes so far: 18

This is definitely a record turnout: 18!! So waffles are clearly favored by you all, and by me as well. Either way, they both are delicious with real maple syrup (none of that "breakfast syrup" stuff for me), and you are the person who doesn't like waffles or pancakes, you can still enjoy the wonders of maple syrup. It goes wonderfully with plain yogurt (my dad's idea) and oatmeal.

Please vote on my next poll to express your opinions about frozen desserts with just one click of the mouse!

Light and Crispy Waffles

More pics!

This recipe is from Catherine Martineau, who says she got it from Bon Appetit the magazine. It's a great recipe if you are looking for airy and crispy waffles; they are not floppy or soggy.
The recipe Originally called for Self-rising flour, but since I don't believe in Self-rising flour, I translated it into all-purpose. If you have self-rising flour just leave out the baking powder and salt.
I made the 15-17 waffles batter and it fed about 7 people.

Here is a handy chart:

# of Waffles (7" diameter)	8-12	15-17	17-20
Flour	2 cups	3 cups	4 cups
Baking powder	3 tsp	4 1/2 tsp	6 tsp
salt	1/2 tsp	3/4 tsp	1 tsp
eggs	4	6	8
milk	1 1/2 cups	2 1/4 cups	3 cups
vanilla extract	1 tsp	1 1/2 tsp	2 tsp
melted butter	1/6 cup	1/4 cup (2 tbsp)	1/3 cup
oil	1/6 cup	1/4	1/3 cup

1. Separate the eggs putting the yolks in a large bowl and the whites in a medium bowl.
   
2. Add the milk and the vanilla extract to the yolks.
   
3. In another medium bowl whisk the dry ingredients (the first three) together, then add them to the wet ingredients (the egg yolks, milk ...).
   
4. Add the melted butter and oil to the batter and whisk until smooth.
5. Beat the egg whites, and fold them into the batter. To fold into the batter use a whisk and, with a rotary motion, gently pile batter on top of the egg whites and pull the egg whites into the batter.
6. Keep doing this until the batter is smooth.
7. Heat the waffles irons and cook to desired doneness. (I like brown and crunchy)

I recommend you use real maple syrup on these waffles. The Aunt Jemima's stuff just doesn't taste good. Powdered sugar or jams also work fine. If you are a fan of maple syrup, heating it in the microwave before pouring it onto the waffle helps retain heat and makes the syrup less viscous.

Chocolate Raspberry Scones

More pics on Flikr!

Sounds good eh? Well, they were ok. They tasted fine, a bit too sweet for breakfast though. If I ever make them again, I'll leave out the chocolate chips and add more raspberries. My main problem is that weren't scony. The crust was too hard and the inside that chewy. I don't know; I Wasn't crazy about them.
The recipe (from joyofbaking.com) used yogurt, which is not a traditional part of scone physiology, and this might have caused the unsconeness. Another possible cause of the crust may have been that I made the dough Friday night and left the formed scones in the oven programmed to turn on in the morning. This system usually works, but a problem is that the scones are in the oven while it is preheating. This should not have formed a crust though because it did the opposite of crust-making. A hard exterior is usually produced by a too high temperature, but I used a lower temperature than the recipe asked for because I have a convection oven. So I'm confused, but whatever.
If you do not mind crusty scones, here is the good but not amazing recipe at http://joyofbaking.com/RaspberryScones.html

Note: I used frozen raspberries from a fine brand "Wyman's" They always work when I use them in recipes, but as the website says, they did break and bleed into the dough.

Monkey Bread

More pictures here!

Bread for Monkeys! (I wouldn't give mine away, too tasty) Monkey bread is, in short, blobs of of yeasted bread dough dipped into butter and then sugar and cinnamon. The balls are piled into a pan and baked to result in a soft, sweet, yeasty, and most of all, addictive dessert or breakfast. The strange name comes from the way it is eaten: by individually pulling off the blobs with your fingers, just like a monkey eating lice of its neighbor's head. Some recipes substitute store-bought biscuit dough instead of the homemade yeast bread for the sake of time, but my family and I love the addictive flavor of yeast. The dough is easy to make, so I think the extra flavor and texture is worth the time.

So, the recipe is adapted from Cook's Country, but really any soft bread recipe will do. For example, I had a leftover egg yolk in the refrigerator from the soufflé, so I added it at the same time as the yeast mixture. If you add a whole egg though, you might need to compensate with extra flour.
The recipe said to use one cup of brown sugar and one stick of butter for the coating, but that seemed a lot to me. I prepared only a half cup of cinnamon sugar, but I melted the entire stick of butter. After having dipped all the little blobs, I had used exactly all the sugar, but I had a lot of butter left over. If you prefer desserts on the sweeter side, use more sugar, but the entire stick of butter is not necessary. The ratio of sugar to cinnamon I used was strong enough to taste the cinnamon, but not so strong that my mother did not like it. My mother does not enjoy overpowering cinnamon flavor.
Concerning the frosting: At first my mom and I were dubious, but in the end my dad convinced me to make some. I made half the amount from the recipe, a half cup instead of a whole, and added a splash of cinnamon. It truly is a simple glaze; just whisk confectioners sugar with a bit of milk or water; and it begged me for some flavoring.

The recipe used a bundt pan, but I do not have one of those. Instead I used another kind of deep pan, but I'm not sure what it's called. The dough overflowed after the second rise, so I was forced to put part of it in a loaf pan.

By the way, I'm getting more organized! I started a little notebook I'm going to write all my recipes into, and I just received the tripod I ordered! (the pictures here were taken before the tripod arrived though)

Anyways, Ingredients:

Dough

• 1 c. milk
• 1/3 c. water
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 1 pkg rapid rise yeast
• 3 1/3 c. flour
• 2 tsp salt

Sugar Coating (I used 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon, but a larger amount with the same ratio works too)

• 1/2 c –more brown sugar
• 1 tsp –more cinnamon (find a ratio you like)
• 3/4 c melted butter
  

Glaze

• 1/2 c confectioners sugar
• 1 tbsp milk or water
• a pinch of cinnamon (if you need numbers, how about a 1/4 tsp)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 200F. When the temperature is reached, turn off the oven. (later you will let the dough rise inside the warm oven)
2. In a 2 cup measuring cup mix together the first four dough ingredients together in and microwave all of it on medium until the liquid feels warm to the touch (not hot). This may take 1-2 minutes. The butter will float on top and look gross.
   
3. Add the yeast and stir.
4. Pour the liquid mixture on the salt and flour in a large bowl. This is when you can add any leftover egg or yolk you have.
   
5. Combine everything together and knead the dough for about ten minutes. The dough will be very sticky.
6. Cover the bowl with a cloth or plastic wrap and let the dough rise for an hour in the warm oven (the oven is turned off!)
7. Butter the Bundt pan.
8. Prepare the cinnamon-sugar mixture by combining the brown sugar and cinnamon. (Amazing!)
9. When the dough has finished rising cut it into 64 pieces in the manner described below*.
10. Melt the butter.
11. Dip each piece of dough into the butter and then into the sugar-cinnamon. Layer the blobs in the bundt pan.
12. When all the dough has been dipped and placed into the buttered pan, cover the pan and let the bread rise for another hour.
13. Uncover and bake for around 30 minutes at 350F.
14. Let the bread rest 5 minutes, then remove it from the pan.
15. Make the glaze by whisking together all the ingredients
    
16. Eat warm pulling apart the blobs with your fingers and dipping them in the glaze. :)
    

* To divide the dough evenly, first cut it into fourth, then each quarter in fourth, then each 16th into fourth again.

My first Bread!

I've always wanted to make real yeast bread, but not until recently did the want turn into a craving. Ever since I got that friendship bread starter thing, I have been aching to knead a soft sticky dough. This weekend, I finally got the opportunity I had been waiting for. Though it was completely unplanned, I think this bread-making went rather well.
When we came back from the cross-country skiing place at around three on Saturday, I realized they were a few packets of rapid rise yeast left over from the time I made monkey bread with a friend a long time ago. The packets said "Best if used by Oct 2007", and I decided to see if the eukaryotic fungi were still alive (I'm learning about classification in Biology.) To do this, I heated a cup of milk to a lukewarm temperature stirred half a packet of yeast into it. After 20 minutes, nothing had happened. I added the second half, and in 5 minutes the mixtures was bubbling. Success! Unfortunately, I didn't have a clue as to what to do next. Fortunately, a family friend who knew how to bake bread was with us in Tahoe. This family friend (Laurence) and her family were spending the weekend with us at our cabin. Laurence explained to me that I had to feed the yeast before starting the actual bread. We added 3 tablespoons of flour and a bit of sugar to the milk and yeast and left it to rise for half an hour.
After that amount of time, I combined 3 cups of flour with 1/4 cup sugar, 1 egg, and a pinch of salt using my fingers (sticky!) and then added the yeast mixture. Laurence told me to add water until the dough became knead-able. I then took the dough out of the bowl and kneaded it for a while using a "flatten and roll" motion. After that we put it back in the bowl and let it rise for an hour.
When it doubled in size, I kneaded it again, but this time I added 3 table spoons of butter and bi t of flour the maintain the correct dough consistency. Then I shaped the dough into a "twist" (see photo) and 2 small loaves. We let it rise 2 more hours, and when it doubled in size again, we brushed the dough with an egg yolk and cooked it for 30 minutes in a 375 oven.
The bread was delicious. It turned out as a kind of breakfast bread because it was slightly sweet and buttery. I think it tasted best toasted with a bit of jam, and my parents liked it with salted butter. The texture was close to Mexican pan, a light bread with many small bubbles.
I had put little pieces of sugar on the loaves, but I think I should have placed them underneath the egg yolk. They didn't melt or caramelize.

Since I have lots of pics, see them here.

Easter Muffins!

I was browsing through one of the food blogs I read, and I found a recipe for muffins with a chocolate egg inside! My family doesn't really celebrate easter too much, but the recipe looked tasty and visually appealing. I found this recipe on Baking Bites, and it is the first recipe I have tried from this blog. The recipe called for Mini Cadbury Creme eggs, but as I was unavailable to find any of those, I used Mini Cadbury Caramel eggs.
As usual, I made a small adjustments to the recipe. I lessened the sugar from 3/4c to 1/2c, but I did not use whole wheat flour like I often do. These muffins just didn't seem to ask for the extra flavor. When I finished making the batter, I was surprised at how thick it was. The muffins I made last week had liquid batter, but this batter was like dough. Also, there didn't seem to be enough for 12 muffins. My dad encouraged me to add more milk than the recipe asked for, but I decided that I would follow the instructions and see what happened. So I divided the batter equally into the 12 muffin holes and pressed the eggs into each muffin-to-be. I had to use a spoon to fold the batter around the eggs to cover them, and I got my fingers all stickied. Since I am in Tahoe again (in the mountains), I cooked them in a 375 oven instead of 350 and for 18-20 minutes instead of 14-16.
We ate these for dessert Friday night. They were drier than average muffins, more like a dry biscuit. The soft caramel-filled-chocolate-eggs created a pleasant contrast with the crusty muffin. When I compare my muffins with the picture on Baking bites, they look... different. Mine rose much more and look drier. I don't know why, because all I changed was the amount of sugar. Well, they were good anyway, but if I make them again, I might add a bit more butter or milk.

Well, here is the recipe from Baking Bites, with my comments in parenthesis.

Cadbury Creme Egg Muffins
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder (This will make them rise more than in the picture on Baking Bites)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar (I used a 1/2 cup)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
12 mini Cadbury creme eggs (make sure you use minis, but any filled type should do)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, melted butter and vanilla until smooth. Whisk in milk.
Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until just combined and no streaks of flour remain. (there won't seem to be a lot of dough, but it works out) Evenly distribute muffin batter into prepared pan. Place 1 mini Cadbury creme egg in the center of each muffin. You can use a small knife to pull a bit of batter over the top of the muffin, if you like.
Bake for 14-16 minutes, until the top of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed and the edges are a light gold.
Cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Makes 12.

Thank you Baking Bites!