July 20, 2013 - Yeasted Doughnuts - Sugar, Cinnamon Sugar, Vanilla Glaze & Chocolate Glaze

I was really enjoying the Yeast Breads & Rolls section of the book, so I went for another recipe I had been eyeing up for a while....Yeasted Doughnuts.  I am a doughnut LOVER, so of course I was all about trying this recipe.  And, of course, I figured why not make all of the variations at once and have a variety! 

Let me also just say, my sister brother in law and nephew were staying over for the weekend, so I was not planning to eat all of these myself (although after tasting the finished product, I very well could have)!

Like with most of the recipes in this section of the book, I had been avoiding making these.  For some reason, I had this weird thought in my head that anything yeast based that required kneading and rising must mean its hard to make.  I couldn't be more wrong, especially with this recipe. 

Once the dough was mixed up it was a matter of letting it rise for a couple of hours.




After the dough had risen, I turned it out on the counter, rolled it out and cut the shapes out.  Not owning a doughnut cutter I used different size cookie cutters, which worked fine, maybe just a little inconsistent on sizes but who cares about that, right?

 

I had decided to try out a couple of shapes and sizes.  I cut holes out of some, left some whole, and then there were the small doughnut holes.  Once they were cut, I let them rise a bit while I heated up my shortening for frying.  After the oil came to temp, in they went in nice little batches.

 

 

This process was a little bit tricky for me, having never deep fried anything like this before, so I wanted to make sure the color was right without burning, but that they stayed in long enough to cook through.  Overall, the end products were overall great (only one or two ended up getting a tiny bit of burnt spots on them, but nothing major).  Next, it was time to decide how to top them.  Of course, thinking about the number of recipes I still have to make, I decided to go with all of the variations and cross them all off at one shot!

Regular Sugar Coated...

 

Cinnamon-Sugar Coated....

 

  

Vanilla-Glazed.....

And last, but not least, Chocolate Glazed.

 

Of course, I couldn't stop there.  I decided it would be an awesome idea to make some of the vanilla cream filled.  So I whipped up a quick vanilla cream, got out my pastry tip, and filled about 6 or 7 of the whole donuts with the cream.

 

Let me just say that my kitchen was an absolute train wreck after this afternoon.  I think I used every mixing bowl, mixing utensil and tray I own.  But the end product was so incredibly worth it.  The doughnuts were perfect.  The dough had that slightly sweet yet yeasty taste, not overly heave or dense, and the toppings each added their own special flavor (not to mention the vanilla cream filling).

 

So here we are.  Three months after this journey began, and I have 49 recipes/variations down.  I think so far I am making fairly decent progress, and so far mostly everything has been a decent success (at least no complete failures!).

July 19, 2013 - Challah

I really have no idea why I decided to make this bread.  This past Friday was probably the first one in a month that I didn't have somewhere to be or something going on, so I felt like baking.  For some reason, I settled on Challah.

 

What I have found about most of the Yeast Bread & Rolls recipes is that they follow a similar pattern: Mix/knead the dough, let it rise, punch it down, let it rise again, form and bake.  This one was no exception to that patter. 

 

First step, mix up the dough...

 



Then, it was time to let it rise....

After rising, it was time to form the bread....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This bread was interesting to form.  Basically it consisted first of dividing the dough into 2 unequal parts (one about double the size of the other).  Then, take the larger portion, divide into three "logs", and braid the logs together.  Then, repeat with the smaller portion of dough and set that braid on top of the larger braid.  Can't say I ever braided dough before!  Then, after the dough set for a bit and puffed up I brushed it with the egg wash and sprinkled with sesame seeds.  Into the oven it went.

 

 

 

 

I haven't called many of my creations beautiful, but this was one of the first things that I've made that came out of the oven and I was extremely proud of how it looked.  It was an awesome golden brown color, the braids had melded together perfectly, and the sesame seeds added a great topping.  The bread itself was great.  It was moist and the perfect amount of chewy without being heavy or overly dense.  Perfect with a little butter and honey on top!

 





July 9, 2013 - Cream Biscuits

So here we were again, parents coming over for dinner and I wanted to make a bread but didn't have a lot of time (sounds like deja vu from my last biscuit start, huh?).  This time, though, I decided to try out the Cream Biscuit recipe.

This dough mixed up very quickly (only 5 ingredients) so the dough was formed in no time.  I decided to go with the wedge shape, so I moulded the dough using a cake pan to get it in a circle first, then cut it with a bench scraper.  Then, the biscuits went in the oven.

 

These biscuits turned out perfect.  They had a perfect flaky center, and went awesome with some raspberry jam on top (which is my favorite way to eat a biscuit!).  This may very well be my go to recipe when in need of a quick bread or biscuit.

 

 

July 9, 2013 - Blackberry Jam Cake

I had taken some time off of baking (went to visit some friends, 4th of July, busy two weeks), so when I was looking at what I wanted to make after my break I settled for a cake.  Flipping through I was the recipe for Foolproof Sponge Cake.  This looked interesting and then I saw the Blackberry Jam Cake recipe.  I personally love anything with blackberry, so I settled on this, and I was not disappointed.

 

I had never made a sponge cake before, so this was going to be something new for me.  Being largely egg based, it consisted of a lot of beating of eggs and egg whites, mixing them together, and adding some sifted dry ingredients.  I tried my best to use a light hand at all times, because I had a feeling this could definitely be one of those cakes that if you beat or mix too much you could end up with a very thin, dense cake.  Once the batter was done it went into the pans and into the oven.

 

 

 

 

The cakes came out looking great.  They were very light and airy to the touch, and perfectly golden brown.  Once they cooled, the assembly for this cake was insanely easy:  Scoop out some blackberry jam, smooth it out on the bottom layer, slap the top layer on, and dust with confectioners sugar.  It doesn't get much easier than that!

I really enjoyed this cake.  It was lighter than a typical buttery cake, and I loved that strong flavor of the jam against the cake.  The only mistake (which you can see in the pic below) was that there were still some pockets of dry ingredients in the finished cake.  Obviously something I need to take better care of avoiding the next time I make a cake like this.  Overall though, another success!

June 26, 2013 - Buttermilk Biscuits

This recipe was a case of the recipe turning out fine, but my oven screwing it up!  My parents were coming over for dinner so I thought it would be a nice to make a bread to go along with the meal.  Since I didn't have time to make a full loaf of anything, I decided to go for the Buttermilk Biscuits.

 

This recipe was fairly easy, and in a bind for a bread is a great solution for something quick.  After whisking together the dry ingredients the wet ingredients were added and mixed together.  The dough was divided, formed into balls and then baked.

 

The problem with the end result probably won't be apparent by any of the pictures here.  Oh sure the tops were nice and golden, then insides were nice and flaky, but the bottoms of most of them were burnt.  I know what some of you might say/think, well you probably had the pan too low in the oven.  I thought the same thing at first actually but that would not explain why some of them were perfectly fine while others were dark dark brown, borderline black.  At the end of the day, we salvaged the good ones (which was enough for the three of us anyways), and enjoyed them thoroughly. 

June 22, 2013 - Whole-Wheat Bread with Wheat Germ and Rye

After my first successful stint with a yeast based bread (the awesome Cinnamon Swirl), I was excited to try another one.  I was out grocery shopping, and since I had settled on trying the Whole Wheat bread recipe, I needed to pick up a couple of things (since I didn't have any wheat germ or rye flour lying around the pantry...what kind of baker am I?!).  Unfortunately (and I am kicking myself), I do not have a finished product pic to share for this one, that part of the process just kind of got away from me on this one....and no, its not because it didn't look nice because it did!

 

 

I have come to find that of all of the things I have been making, I really enjoy the bread making process.  I used the standing mixer variation (I'll try the hand made version some other time and make sure I get a finished product pic that time) and the dough kneaded no problem, after that it was time to knead a little by hand before letting it rise.  I was a little surprised that this bread only needed an hour of rising time, but boy did that dough balloon up!

 



This recipe actually made two loaves, so the dough was divided, put in the pans, and then rose a little more.  The bread baked and turned out excellent, being dense but not overly heavy and had a great whole wheat flavor.  Like I said before, I'm really getting into this bread making process!

June 16, 2013 - Old-Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake with Rich Chocolate Cream Frosting

So, wow the title of this post is a mouthful, but it was definitely worth it!  My birthday being June 17th, of course I had to make a birthday cake for myself.  Chocolate cake sounded great, so that's what I went for.

I think I've pretty much gotten the hang of basic cakes (the Genoise still looks a little scary to me though!).  Whisk the dry ingredients, add to the mixed wet ones, pour into pans and bake.  Sure this one had a couple minor differences (mixing eggs and milk together separately and adding at different times), but overall it was fairly similar to the other cakes I've made so far.

While the cakes were cooling it was time to make the frosting.  A whopping pound of chocolate went into this frosting, but boy was it tasty!  Once the chocolate was chopped up it was just a matter of pouring hot heavy cream over top, whisking in some corn syrup, and vanilla.  Then, let it sit to thicken.

By the time the frosting had set, the cake layers were cool and it was time to assemble.  The only thing I maybe could have done maybe for a nicer presentation was level off the top layer, but I wasn't all that concerned about it (mostly because it was my own cake and I didn't need to impress myself).  The cake turned out great.  The chocolate flavor between the cake and frosting was intense and awesome, and the cake itself was moist and dense, but not overly heavy.  I gave my compliments to the chef for a great birthday cake!

June 13, 2013 - Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

Let me just start this post out with a couple of things...
1. I was much more sporadic with my baking in the last month or so.  Things this summer have been busy, and there just wasn't much time for it (or keeping this blog updated for that matter).  I'm back though so its all good!
2. This recipe annoyed me.

I remember this was one of those nights that I didn't really have any specific reason for baking but just felt like making something.  So I looked for something to make and settled on this.  And let me just say it was a frustrating experience!

The recipe started out fine.  I mixed up the ingredients and before I knew it I was rolling out the dough and getting ready to cut it.  Everything looked great, and then into the oven they went.

After they came out of the oven is about the time I got frustrated.  This was one of those cases where I followed the recipe exactly (like I always do), the dough looked great, it rolled out great, and cut great.  Then why, I asked, did these cookies come out as FLAT as a flippin pancake!?  Oh sure the flavor was awesome, and they were nice and chewy, but they sure weren't "Thick".  I was so mad.  I realize from time to time there are definitely going to be failures in my baking journey, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.