baking intimidation

So, my copy of Baking With Julia arrived today. I tore open the amazon box, and immediately started looking through it. I’ve never opened a cookbook knowing that I would cook almost every recipe in it.

• Puff Pastry
• Croissants
• Breads with multiple pre-ferments.
• Breads that require 2 days of ‘work’ to end up with a finished loaf

holy crap. I’m going to learn a lot.

 

signed up

I’ve done it.

I signed up to do a cook-through-blog. A group just finished Baking from My Kitchen to Yours, and are moving on to Baking with Julia”. So follow my baking escapades. I’ll be baking at least twice a month (but who are we kidding, we know I bake more than that) and we start on Feb 7 with a basic white bread from the book.

I’d better keep running….and faster. this has potential to be a fattening project!

Thai honey peanut chicken

I found this recipe about a year ago through tasty kitchen–the Pioneer Woman’s version of recipe.com
We make it about twice a month to relatively high success when it comes to how the kids eat it. In the beginning, I made it just to see if the boys would scarf down as much as they had the previous time. I couldn’t get enough of seeing my 3 year old boys eating a peanut curry

Thai Honey Peanut Chicken

1lb chicken, in chunks
1/4 cups soy sauce
2T honey
1T like juice. (I’ve substituted lemon to no ill effects)
1t minced garlic
1T or slightly more natural peanut butter
1/2t curry powder
1t Sriracha–optional

Mix ingredients in the pot you plan on using to cook it in. Let marinate for at least 1 hour and as many as 3 hours

Cook chicken in the sauce over medium high heat for 7-8 minutes or until cooked through

If you want to thicken the sauce, make a mixture of 1t cornstarch and 1T water. Stir that into the chicken and let cook for a minute

Can substitute chicken for tofu, replace peanut butter with tahini or another nut butter. If using regular peanut butter, just reduce the honey by 1T

I serve with peas or broccoli and rice. Enjoy!

two blueberry muffins

the other day after picking blueberries, I was obviously hit with the desire to bake muffins. I went looking for a lowfat recipe.

I made the blueberry muffin recipe from Mark Bittman’s “how to cook everything”.  Here is his basic muffin recipe:

3T melted butter
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 t salt
3 t baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk, plus more if needed
and per his instructions I added:
1/4 cup sugar (additional
lemon zest (about 1/2 lemon’s worth)
1 t cinnamon (which I forgot)
1 cup blueberries, I used frozen

• Mix the dry ingredients together
• Mix egg, butter and milk together and add to dry ingredients.
• make sure to leave lumpy–don’t stir too much
• fold in the blueberries
• spoon into muffin cups and bake at 400 for 20-30 minutes

now, here is the recipe I’ve been making for years. I think my mother found it in the NY Times a long time ago:

½ cup unsalted butter (I use salted margarine)
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 cup plus 1 Tbs. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour (I use regular flour)
2 tsp. baking powder
1½ tsp. kosher salt (I omit altogether)
1½ cups fresh blueberries (I often use frozen)
½ cup milk

• Preheat oven to 375. Using an electric mixer combine the butter and lemon zest.  Add one cup of sugar and beat until light.  Mix in the egg and then the vanilla.
• Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Place the blueberries in a bowl and toss with ¼ cup of the flour mixture.  Add the remaining flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the milk, mixing just to combine.  Gently fold in the blueberries.
• Line a muffin pan with paper muffin cups.  Spoon the batter into the cups, filling them about ¾ full.  Sprinkle the tops with the remaining sugar.  Bake until muffins are lightly browned and spring back when touched in the center, about 30 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.  If you use frozen berries, it will need a little longer.

Mr Bittman’s muffins were…fine. they have much less sugar, which was nice, but they’re not as earth-shatteringly-good as the 2nd recipe.

like a bakery

I baked for a fundraiser on thursday and friday. I managed somehow to produce 6 loaves of bread, 2 pizza shells and about 20 blueberry muffins.

I only made sourdough. I overproduced on the starter, so I had to keep on baking in order to use it up.

the first up was the english muffin bread. I’ve made it before without sourdough and really love it, so I mixed up a batch with my starter and away we went. the process couldn’t be easier, you dump all the ingredients in the bowl and mix it up, let it rise, add one more ingredient and mix, dump into greased loaf pans, rise and then bake. really, how much easier could it be. no kneading. one bowl. not even any measuring cups/spoons because its all by weight. here’s a shot of the batter after rising:

it looks kinda scary and bubbly. Like it might take over the kitchen if allowed. I guess if the bowl isn’t big enough, it might!

then I got to work on the “deluxe sourdough bread” its a more traditional bread recipe that involves kneading. the thing I learned with this recipe is that when it says to “let the dough rest” they mean it. I had never really done that before. so it rested, and it became the most silky beautiful dough I’ve ever seen. when I shaped it, it stayed where I put it. the gluten had relaxed enough not to fight with me. I couldn’t believe it! Here’s a shot of that beautiful dough after resting:

and here’s a picture of it shaped:

then you put it in the fridge and let it stay there overnight. take it out in the morning, let it rise and then bake it. here it is all fresh from the oven:

I kept one for myself, and it was GOOD. David thought it was quite sour, but I’m not sure.

Bake along with me…

I’ve been thinking about this alot, and this weekend I decided that we’re not buying anymore store bought bread. I made this announcement to David, who promptly laughed at me.  But then he asked me a bunch of questions, and thought it was a really good idea. but he ended the conversation by asking if I really wasn’t going to buy anmore bread? and what would happen to the good people at arnold bread? I told him that other people will have to step up and buy their own.

Then he asked if I’d be bringing my sourdough culture out to Idaho in July. I think we’ll have to wait and see about that.

I have 2 sourdough cultures bubbling away on my counter–one white, one whole wheat, and a copy of James Beard’s “Beard on Bread”

My plan is this: bake enough bread for my family.

I’ll be using the following resources: Beard on Bread, sourdough home, and other sourdough internet resources.

I’ll be blogging every time I bake a loaf of bread. If the recipe came from the internet, I’ll post the recipe. but if it came from a book, I’ll give you the reference. (copyright issues)

I hope that this blog keeps me honest, and really not buying bread.

So, come along and bake with me!