TWD-Gingerbread Baby Cakes

On Saturday I am hosting our neighborhood ladies' Christmas brunch.  So it is crunch time to get the house clean and the decorations out and the food ready and the silver polished.  I almost didn't make this because I thought I should be doing brunch preparations and we had a repairman in the kitchen fixing our disposal.  But I looked at the recipe and had all the ingredients including some fresh ginger my husband had bought to make some ancient-Chinese-secret cold remedy. So I made them on a whim and boy am I glad I did.  My husband and I have been married for over 21 years and I have baked consistently for those 21 years.  So when my husband said "Wow, this is the best thing you have ever made," you know you have a winner.  I thought the fresh ginger would give it an unpleasant bite, but I was wrong.  It had a nice grownup taste, but even my daughter enjoyed it. Since "this is the best thing I ever made" I can see this becoming a holiday tradition.

TWD-Brownies

Whenever a recipe claims to be the "best ever," I think it sets itself up for failure.  So I didn't set my expectations too high for this recipe.  I always prefer a brownie made with cocoa powder (because I always have cocoa powder on hand and it's more economical) and I just like the more rounded taste of a brownie made with cocoa powder.  So this recipe had 2 strikes against it before I even started baking.  Then throw in bad recipe reading on my part (forgot to add the butter until the end) and this recipe seemed doomed.  But despite all that, these turned out good.  I probably wouldn't make them again because I already have a favorite brownie recipe and I rarely have both bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate in the pantry at the same time.  If I were to make them again, I would bake them longer than the 27 minutes that I baked them.  I thought the center was a little too ooey-gooey, but my family liked that part.  So if this were a movie rating, I would give this recipe 3 stars out of 4.

TWD- Bagels

This week was one of those "Yes! I made that" moments.  Bagels are something I had never attempted prior to this week and really thought it was over my skill level.  That's what's great about Tuesdays with Dorie; trying things you might never try otherwise.

I thought the instructions for this recipe were great.  I used all bread flour because that's what I had on hand and I wouldn't change it.  For the boiling part, I did 90 seconds first and then 60 seconds after the flip and again I thought that worked out great.  My topping was coarse sea salt and it gave the bagels a taste almost like a soft pretzel. 

Boiling them - 90 seconds, then 60 seconds

I finished these up around 5:30 pm.  I had no intention of using them for dinner, but when I saw how great they turned out, I called my husband and told him to stop at the store and get some roast beef and Havarti cheese.  We had bagel sandwiches for dinner and everyone loved them.

I can't wait to make these again, but try flavors like cinnamon raisin or asiago cheese.  You know all the flavors that are tempting at Panera and Einstein Bagels.








TWD - Cranberry Pecan Pumpkin Loaf

Today was a high of 82 degrees in Sugar Land, Texas.  Even after 21 years in Texas, my internal clock is ready for  some cooler weather than 82 on October 1st.  So it was nice that at least the house smelled like fall with this bread. 

I was surprised like many others that this was not a quick bread and wondered if all the time invested would be worth it for a pumpkin bread.  But this is no ordinary pumpkin bread.  This is a whole other level of pumpkin bread.  I started this bread on Sunday afternoon and was not prepared for the overnight rise, but luckily I work from home on Mondays, so I could accommodate the three risings.  And what a great workday treat to have fresh autumn-smelling bread coming out of the oven at 3 pm.  On most days at 3 pm I am reaching for the 94% fat free popcorn, so my taste buds were in a real treat when this bread came out of the oven.  I let it cool for about 30 minutes, slathered it with butter and inhaled it. And then I had another piece.  And maybe another. It was that good.

I can't wait to make this again.  But if I do, I will use craisins if cranberries are not at their peak of ripeness. My only regret was using fresh cranberries that weren't ripe enough and they gave a tart bite to the bread. 


After the third rising

Ready to eat (after I pick out all the overly tart cranberries)

 

 

 

 

TWD - Whole Wheat Loaves

I made this bread while I also made some cookies to send to my sister in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.  She is running for prosecutor (vote for Molly!) Since I can't join in the campaign efforts from over 1000 miles away, I thought I could help feed the efforts.  The focus of my afternoon was the cookies and not the bread, so I was glad the bread was as easy as it was.  I had no issues making it and it was a nice addition for our Sunday supper.  And my husband said it was good without me even baiting him to say it was good.

I do think 35 minutes was a little too long of a baking time and probably it was done at 30 minutes.  Since it so easy, I could see myself making it again, but this bread recipe from allrecipes.com is still my favorite honey wheat bread.

TWD- The Sinking Nectarine Cake

 If anyone has ever taken a 4-H baking project, let me start by saying that I would be lucky to eek out a participation ribbon at the county fair if this was being judged by 4-H judges.  A couple bonehead moves on my part turned what should have been a lovely cake into an ugly cake.

 

My first mistake was I melted an entire stick of butter in the pan.  I didn't realize the mistake until I had already fanned out all the nectarine slices.  So I had to sop up extra butter with paper towels.  My second mistake was I only bought 1 lemon.  I don't know if I thought a loaves and fishes moment would happen upon me and produce 1/2 cup of lemon juice out of one hard tiny lemon, but that didn't happen.  So I had to fake lemon juice with lemon juice+lemon zest+water+vinegar.  Maybe this works fine for making a vinaigrette, but it didn't work out so well for making a chiffon cake.

 

 

 

At 45 minutes the cake was puffed up like a proud peacock, but the center was still liquid.  At 50 minutes I thought it was done.  Then the crack happened.  And the crack revealed that the center was still a mess of liquid.  So I put it back in the over for an additional 15 minutes.  I never could get the center to bake properly (probably all that excess butter was bubbling up).  So after 25 minutes, I turned it over and hoped for the best.  Well the best was a tasty cake but with the Louisiana style sinkhole.   In the picture below I covered up the sinkhole with the leftover crumb topping.

I think if this cake was executed properly, it would be swoon worthy.  But I think I would decrease the ginger to 1/4 tsp.  I noticed a somewhat bitter aftertaste that I thought was from too much ginger.  But if only too much ginger had been my biggest problem...

TWD - Popovers (and the missing Galette)

I've always wanted to make popovers but thought you needed the popover pan to do so.  I don't need yet another pan to fall out of my cupboard when I open it, so I never bought a popover pan.  I was encouraged by this recipe that made it seem that a muffin tin would work just fine.  And it did.  The whole popover concept was neat and I thought they were fun to eat.  I do think my initial oven temp was too high, so if I were to make them again, I might do them at 400 for the first cycle.   I felt like mine were too brown.  My family was less than crazy about these.  My husband said "what's with the fake rolls?"  I think the airy center threw him.  So I'm glad I made them because I have always wanted to, but probably won't make them again since I would have to eat them alone.

On a separate note, I got thrown off by the schedule and missed the week of the galette.  I was going to skip it, but my mom made it and encouraged me to try the tomato and cheese galette.  Boy am I glad I did.  I loved it.  Loved the crust, loved the filling, loved it with a glass of wine.  Loved it. End of story.