Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Happy Birthday to Us!

My husband and my birthday fall within 3 days of each other so why make two cakes when you can make one gigantic one?


We almost had enough candles for both of us, two short.


Here's the slice the cake is 2 french vanilla cake mixes with the addition of lots of eggs, butter, and milk. The layers and blackberries and the new Philadelphia instant cheesecake stuff. It all worked out very well and the cake was delicious! Don't believe me we still have a TON in the freeze you can come try.

BBA: English Muffins

These made an amazing breakfast for dinner evening, and they were a lot of fun to make as well.

Here is the dough all ready to fry.

After being cooked in the griddle on both sides and baked for a couple of minutes.

Fork split. Not quite the big hole you see from the grocery store, but they tasted a million times better.

Sausage, cheese, and egg english muffins and hash browns for dinner! Unfortunately, none of the english muffins lived to see the next morning.

BBA: Corn Bread



The week we were supposed to make corn bread my and my husband were headed up to north Idaho with some friends to stay in their cabin. So, I pack all the ingredients and we made it up there. My husband loved this bread will all of it's flavor and texture. I however, felt that it was a little overloaded. I am more of a fan of fluffy cake like cornbread.
After one meal this was all that was left to come home with us!

BBA: Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

Now this is one of my favorite recipes so far in this book! This bread was simply amazing! My favorite thing to do with it is to toast it and make peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Amazing!

We almost didn't get any pictures of this one because we ate it so fast, but my darling husband took some before he finished it off.
The only thing I wish I could figure out is how to keep the bread moist and sealed up without the moisture making the cinnamon sugar mixture on top turn to goo.

BBA: Cinnamon Buns and Sticky Buns

The introduction to this recipe in the book states that this was the recipe he would give his students when the wanted to make cinnamon buns as good as the ones in the mall from Cinnabon. Well, that is a fantastic idea! Make homemade cinnamon rolls as goopy and delicious as those in the mall! Well, here's what I learned. If you want to make goopy cinnamon rolls you need to add more than a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar and maybe even butter! I think these turned out more like those cinnamon swirl donuts you get when their out of all the other good kinds. Danny thinks I'm crazy and that they were great and that I have just been brain washed by years of my parents making overly stuffed cinnamon rolls. I'm not sure but, when I want a cinnamon roll I am not looking to taste the wonderful bread, I'm in it for the goop!

Oh a word on the sticky buns. In the book it says that it takes practice to know just when to pull these from the oven when the glaze as been caramelized and the dough is cooked through. Well on the first try we were pretty close they tasted great but the caramel became a little too hard. However, this was solved by leaving them in the car all day at our family reunion then they tasted great soft and warm :)
Sorry, we made these on our way out of town so I forgot to take some better pictures.

BBA: Ciabatta :(

As you can guess by the frown in the title ciabatta and I are no long friends. I love ciabatta and was very eager to make it myself assuming it would turn out as amazing as everything else I had made from this book, but I was incredible disappointed!

However, from reading other baker's responses I think the second way the book states to make it, biga version, works better so next time I get the guts I'll try that.


Here's the crust. I guess in my frustration with my holeless ciabatta I didn't even take a picture of the crumb. Oh well it really wasn't worth looking at anyways. *Sigh*

BBA: Challah

Wow! It's been a long time. It seems that baking and blogging has proven to be too much for me, but I have kept on track with the baking at least. I am going to throw up everything I've made in my absence and recommit myself to writing better blog posts once I move. So here is my apology in advance for all the short posts I'm about to make. Stay tuned and they'll resume to their prior glory in a couple or months :)

A word on Challah: According to the book challah is the braided sabbath bread of Judaism symbolic of God's goodness and bounty. The braids traditionally separate the loaf into twelve distinct sections representing the twelve tribes of Israel.


Oops this on this loaf the top braid slipped off the top. It ended up more of a side-by-side double braid.

The crumb. This was a nice soft, light bread. Actually, I think this could make a delicious french toast as well.