My Life by Design

Hello friends!!

It’s been so long! So many things have been going since I posted last. College has gotten the best of me – I have been baking, but so much less unfortunately. I am in a new Bible study learning about grief and how we deal with it…very interesting topic. I was just recently home for fall break and I wish I didn’t have to come back to S-burg. But, Thanksgiving is coming oh so soon – which means I need to bake more!!!!! I am missing my kitchen at home! While I was home at fall break, I managed to bake a homemade apple pie (courtesy of my aunt’s recipe), mini pumpkin cheesecakes, some halloween cookies, and a pear spice cake with walnut praline topping. MMmmmmm. Regretting leaving all of that cake back at home w/ dad.

So, I figured to get back in the swing of things I can show a few pics of just my recent fall break baking – but there is so much more that I need to catch up on! Including my senior interior design project, applying for grad school and jobs, etc. So many things to chat about!

first of all….fall break and bake!

fall =’s pumpkin, apples, cinnamon, spice, and fun halloween cookie cutters!

look at all the halloween cookies

frankenstein head!!!

so many!

witch’s hat, cats, ghosts, crossbones, witch’s broom!

oh the mess...

Now, on to the mini pumpkin cheesecakes – whew these were adorable.

in the pan

look at them!

I didn’t have time to decorate them with little jack-o-lantern faces, but you get the drift.

Thanks to Bakerella for this recipe – google it! it’s an amazing baking blog.

hello my new favorite cake!

 yes ladies and gentlemen, this is my favorite cake right now

wanna know what it is??

pear spice cake w/ walnut praline topping

yes please?!?!!!

for the recipe go to joy the baker  – google it!

My other NEW favorite for fall:

Pumpkin Cookies!

Sooooo goood!

they just melt in your mouth

Another BBA Challenge bread post. I know you all are loving these!!! This should be the last one for a little while. This bread was very good!!! Yes I definitely baked it at the hallway kitchen at my dorm! Whew – it was a little challenging. Convection microwaves can be a little dicey when baking loaves of bread (esp. when it doesn’t rotate – which means that the loaves will not be evenly-baked ugh). So although one side was a little bit more brown than the other – the little guys still tasted DIVINE. Let me tell you – I had people coming to my room to try it and I sent a half loaf home with a suitmate’s bf.

here is the dough rising!

here are the little loafs!

microwave/convection oven

there they are ladies and gentlemen! baking away!

oh so yummy!

Okay so my internet is now working…no wireless. but hey you can’t have everything in life right? Anyways, I have a lot of blogging to catch up with! Before I left for Converse, I did a lot of bread baking haha. I might have ended up with five or six zip-lock bags of sliced whole wheat bread. Well, I was definitely prepared for college with a year’s supply of frozen bread behind my belt. That’s a whole lot of sandwiches people…haha get it??? okay so I going to explain that I made two different types of whole-wheat bread. One was from the BBA challenge – toward the very back of the book…and the other recipe was from king arthur himself! the flour that is….and I have to say that I preferred King’s Arthur’s recipe…which can be found on the internet! It was very good: a lot more flavor, less dry, and oh so yummy!! First recipe that I have been disappointed in Peter *aka – the BBA Challenge*

First up is the BBA whole-wheat bread

the poolish!

the soaker!

the loaves themselves...

All baked and ready!

the loaves!!

look at that slice!

Okay so I have made yet another bread…mmmmm. This is oh so good. and so buttery and sooo flaky. It contains 2 sticks of butter so you are only allowed to have a little! I knew from the beginning that brioche was going to be good b/c my fellow partner in crime – aka Courtney had already made it and I had tried it at her humble abode. Boy was I excited to make this one.

This bread called for a sponge – which just ferments for 20-40 mins. before making the dough. The dough has to chill for 4 hrs +(and a few ferments in-between)  in order to be able to shape it into loaves. I made one large loaf and then a few smaller ones so I can give them away haha. All of this bread is starting to get to me…and my dad. Pretty much, I am trying to pawn bread off on people – so if you would like to volunteer…comment and offer your services. RIGHT NOW. haha. Anyways – This bread was the medium-richness version of brioche -meaning it had medium amounts of butter. Not too rich, but not too “poor.”

loafs!

mmm....golden, flaky, and buttery

It’s okay…….go ahead and drool a little bit!!

even brought one over for dinner w/ joey's family lol

Okay so this is my second bread from Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice Book. Sorry it has taken me so long to pass this info along. I have been traveling everywhere for the past 2 weeks! This bread was very challenging for me – my dough was very sticky at first, but eventually I got it under control. 

First of all, there was a soaker.

soakaaa

One thing that I did wrong on this little guy is that I let it sit a little too long! then did not refrigerate it promptly. So, you will see the consequences of that decision later on in the blog haha. But, overall, the bread turned out really well! I enjoyed braided it, and watching it blow up like crazy! I feremented twice, plus a soaker! Oh and this bread is really good for french toast! It has a few spices like nutmeg, cloves, all-spice, I put a little pumpkin pie spice haha (mostly because I am obsessed with pumpkin things)

dough

braid!!

Then finished it off with a little almond-flavored glaze and some sesame seeds! Check them out!! Biggest loafs of bread I have ever seen!

look at the loaves!!

the finished product

I did it!! I did it!! I made my first loaf of bread!!!!

Peter Reinhart, you are my hero.

I am starting to realize that every recipe in the Bread Baking Apprentice Book is genius. and will never let you down. Okay so this bread, Anadama, was very intense. It took two days to make and had to proof or ferment three different times. One thing that was very different about this bread was that it incorporated a “soaker.” This soaker was just a cup of cornmeal and a cup of water mixed together in order to sit overnight. It allowed complex sugars to be released – incorporating more flavor into the end product – BREAD! lol. Since this bread had cornmeal in it (same thing that is used to make cornbread), it was very grainy, hearty if you will haha. Wow my bread vocabulary is expanding! This bread also incorporates molasses and unbleached bread flour (which is something else that is a little different).

the soaker before a night hard at work

after the soaker...little gas bubbles were blowing up at me!

the little loaf before it rose for the third time!

after the third rise! right before the oven

straight out of the oven!!

pretty loaves!

side view

Okay now onto the baking and cooking…couldn’t fit it all in one post haha. So hmmm first of all the southwestern pizza….was SO good. Again, I got the recipe off of a food blog that I LOVE. She never lets me down. This pizza includes a homemade dough, no sauce (replaced by refried black beans-I know this sounds strange but oh no my friend…it was delish), fresh vegetables, and two different types of cheese (one mexican – queso fresco, and sharp cheddar).

oh yeah!

okay now onto the sand dollar cookies…these are from a martha stewart recipe. I have wanted to make these for years now, but never got around to it…they are just so pretty and charming. This recipe is not difficult, but the preparation of the dough, and decoration is a little time consuming – but totally worth it if you are entertaining. Check it out….

before they went into the oven!

almond as the sand dollar part...cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on the top

after they came out of the oven - crispy and warm

decorating - i've been practicing

I would say that they turned out pretty good! Okay so the other day I made homemade spaghetti – which isn’t anything too exciting, but I think I have finally perfected my mom’s version of spaghetti. It was oh so yummy. I like my spaghetti a little more meaty than saucy…but that’s just me… Check it out

yummy!

 oh and the banana pudding ice cream. I also got this recipe from a baking blog. It was very interesting to make – we had an ice cream churn not the on-the-counter machine. This made things a little more difficult, but it was still oh so good. A little preview: nilla wafers, bananas, pudding, and cool whip. Lets just say that it was first ice cream to be gone from our church ice cream social. It was a hit…

before the churn...

 I did not capture a picture of the finished product: we were in too much of a hurry

to be continued……