"It's ok"

Halloween is my mother's birthday. So being the good daughter that I am, I asked her what she wanted for dessert.  She settled on Apple Pie.  I have to admit, I took the easy way out and bought pie crust, then did a crumble on top (mainly because I used the other crust in the pack of two for the most DELICIOUS chocolate pie I've ever had - more on that later).  Honestly, I do not like apple pie, but it's what she requested.

Here is how it turned out:

I must say it looked and smelled so yummy!  I presented it to mom.... and got "It's OK"  High praise.  The next day she did say it was good but she was trying to watch her figure...

Not everyone can be like be like Chef Sister, who made a cake with Ursula on top!!!

Overly ambitious

A few weeks ago my parents both underwent a minor medical procedure, together.  I found out the only way my dad would see the doctor was if mom also went.  Now that's love.  Anyway, after the procedure I picked them up (they had been under anesthesia so no driving) and took them home.  They both hadn't eaten in almost 24 hours and what were they craving?  Pancakes.  I wasn't really up for that challenge.  I'd like to think my parents are both oblivious to the fact that I am not the baker. There was a slight unreasonable fear, that if they found out I was a dud, they might realize I was switched at birth.  Before I could even find a mixing bowl in my mom's kitchen, she had the batter made.  Ok.... how did she do that while she was still coming off sleeping drugs?!  I figured I would just flip pancakes then....nope she ninja'ed that as well!  Whew, my secret is still safe from my parents at least...

Needless to say, that image of my mom making homemade pancakes before the anesthesia had even worn off had stuck in the back of my brain so, on Monday I was feeling overly ambitious and decided to make sandwich bread AND New York Pizza dough.  Sandwich bread because we were out and the pizza dough because my husband's family is from New York and he has been begging me to try and make it.

Full disclosure - I also bought sandwich bread because I was skeptical how it would turn out.

The pizza dough seemed easy enough.  It rises in the refrigerator for 1-5 days so you have to pre-plan your meals in enough time to make the dough (no making it 2 hours before you want pizza).  We are having it on Friday so I'll have to let you know how it goes, but after one day it already looks like it's doubled.  Hopefully it won't take over my fridge!

The sandwich bread recipe didn't seem too difficult; just a lot of time rising.  I noticed that the directions mentioned it could be mixed and rise in the bread maker, but one still has to take it out to shape it.  That's when I decided, I am giving up my bread machine.  It takes up way too much precious space and if all it does is mix, I prefer my kitchen aid.

The directions for the bread said to dissolve the yeast in warm water.  I was a little nervous and really prefer proofing the yeast so I know it's working, so I added half of the sugar the recipe required to the water as well.  It seemed to have worked though after 4 hours of proofing (the recipe recommended 3 hours) it still hadn't risen as much as I had hoped.  I didn't want to throw it out and start over at that point, so I just went ahead and baked it.... and look!

Not bad, huh?  Still a little on the short side...

We were nervous to cut into it but it looked better than the cement bread I made a few months ago.  After my husband and I each tried it, we decided while it was not sandwich bread, it was rather yummy.  It has more of a biscuit-y texture and we were both craving stew after our taste test.  It can't be all bad as one day later, less than half the loaf is left!  Maybe I should just follow the directions next time and see if it is more like sandwich bread.

Since I was on a roll, and I felt like treating the family, AND the local farmer's market had bathtub peaches...I also decided to make peach cobbler!

I've decided Peach Cobbler is basically made for people like me.  You get all the joy of a peach pie, without it having to look super fancy.  I was so excited, I actually took it out too early!

I thought it looked done....but when we went to serve it, it was not...back into the oven!

Much better! Luckily, this recipe was forgiving and I was able to fix my under-cooked mistake!

As I feel better and better about making breads... I'm thinking it might be time to start decorating... this is where the big failure is.  Luckily there are three birthdays in my husband's family coming up. If I can talk my mother-in-law to letting me make the cakes I'll have plenty to practice on.  Unfortunately, she loves Pinterest and is always looking at desserts so we'll see!

X-rated breakfast food

Last week my youngest sister started a job that had her being at work by 4am.  THAT is dedication.  Now both my sisters love their jobs, so the early mornings don't seem to bother them.  That being said she mentioned that she was struggling to find the time to make muffins for herself for breakfast.  So I thought, it can't be that hard...

I set out to make  her favorites; Almond Chia muffins and Chocolate Chip muffins.  My husband felt a little left out so I also made him Banana Oatmeal Raisin muffins to take on his Boys Only Golf Outing.

Chef Sister told me I should read a recipe at least 2 times through before starting it. Good Thing too!  One recipe called for 3/4 cup of almond extract.  We quickly found out that was a typo. Whew.

I'm actually pretty proud of how things turned out!

Chocolate Chip

Almond Chia

Banana Oatmeal Raisin

The Oatmeal Raisin look a little burnt but it's because there is this sugar strudel-type topping on them that browns a bit.  Supposedly that is a baking trick, to brown the top of muffins use a bit of sugar on top!

I tried the Chocolate Chip (my two year old was excited to have 'cake' for breakfast) and I felt they might be a bit dry, but nothing a glass of milk didn't help.  Maybe next time I'll try the sugar topping so I'm not overcooking them waiting for them to brown on top.

The Banana Oatmeal Raisin went off on the golf outing.  I asked my husband what he thought and he said they were really good; chewy and rubbery.  Now.... I don't know about you, but those aren't usually adjectives that I think of when I think of a good muffin, but he seemed to really like them.

So maybe it isn't baking I'm bad at, but decorating....all a muffin is, is a naked cupcake, right?

My in-laws were in town this weekend and my husband had smoked prime rib.  We thought that would make perfect dinner sandwiches.  He asked if I could try making hoagie rolls from scratch.  I figured if they turned out awful, the grocery store wasn't too far.

So I set about finding a recipe, put the yeast into proof (I am working with fast acting yeast after the last bread fiasco).  If you don't know what proofing yeast is, it's basically putting it in warm water or milk (not too warm bc it'll die) and adding sugar (it's food).  This should cause the yeast to 'grow' and become spongy.  The fear of killing the yeast causes some anxiety, but I figured at least I would know in 5 minutes if it was working, rather than 3 hours later when my bread looks and tastes like concrete.

So, yeast was proofing, next step.... 8 CUPS of flour. No problem, who doesn't have gallons of flour in their house?

PROBLEM!

I had one and a half cups with no 'extra' bag in the house!  I couldn't just run to the store because my two year old son was asleep and no one else was home...  Try again later, I guess.

A few days later, I had gone to the store - I got two bags of flour and sugar; I wasn't running out!  Then started the recipe again.  Good thing too, as the second time I read it, I realized I needed two packets of yeast not one!  (disaster averted)

I had asked Chef Sister if it was ok just to use my kitchen aid to knead the dough, as the recipe called for hang kneading, and let's be honest, that's not happening from me.  It was approved for Chef Sister, though she said the second kneading, after letting it raise, should be done by hand but that's not as strenuous as putting it together.

Kitchen Aid out, yeast proofing, plenty of flour and I had all afternoon because the boys were out doing something, the two year old was asleep (again) and his grandmother was in the house so I could even run to the store if I needed to.

Everything looked good going in.  I even got them shaped into hoagie sized rolls!  This was another anxiety filled moment, because I'm a lazy baker and shaping things makes me feel like I'm just going to have dough all over the place, like in my hair and on my clothes and the walls of the kitchen.  But mostly, it was fine.  I dropped some dough on the floor but other than that, nothing was stuck anywhere else.  There was flour EVERYWHERE, though!  After shaping, I even used kitchen scissors to 'cut' three slashes in each roll.

I was not optimistic....

But they turned out great!

As you can see, I don't have pictures....  they are literally stuck in my camera. So you'll have to take my word on this.

They were pretty perfect hoagie rolls, though they dried out pretty quickly (within two days of being in the fridge).  This recipe also made 18!  So we will probably never run out of bread.  If I do get a chance to make them again, I'll cut the recipe in half and try to have them eaten all on the day they were made.  I also wonder about using this recipe and putting it in a bread pan to make a loaf.  We love grilled cheese sandwiches so having homemade bread for those would make them extra special!

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was my husband's birthday.  Every year I beg him to let me buy a DQ ice cream cake for the event, but it's his birthday so he usually requests I make something (he hasn't learned yet).  This year he got it in his head that he wanted a Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake.  In the middle of July, he wants a winter holiday dessert.  But who am I to tell him no?

So I went about finding a recipe.  I thought I had found a great one - it even is supposedly the original! - then as I start to make it, my husband asks for Gordon Ramsay's recipe...minor set-back. The recipe doesn't look that different, so I figure "why not?".  Gordon's has cocoa in it, less dates and uses a bundt pan - no big deal.  (Today I did more research and found a video of Gordon making his cake - it was quite a bit different than the recipe I had located, including being STEAMED instead of BAKED)

We were going out to dinner and I wanted to serve the pudding hot so I figured I'd whip up the recipe and put it in the oven when we got home. Seemed like a good idea.  Everything went to plan, cake out of the oven (smelled and looked yummy!) and I had started the toffee sauce that you drizzle on top while the cake cooled.

Time came for the cake to come out of the pan.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

That is the top half of my cake, still in the pan.  Luckily everyone was in another room so I figured I could work some presentation magic.

That's right, I plated and served each piece individually, with homemade Bourbon Ice Cream and homemade Whipped Cream on top.  My husband was thrilled and although a bit drier than I would have wanted, it still tasted great!

I also frantically texted my sister.  Her guess on my downfall; letting the batter sit in the greased pan, most likely allowing it to absorb the grease. Also bundt pans suck.

#cakegoals

This week my sister was in town so that her and my mom could make a four tiered wedding cake for a family friend.  Let that sink in.  Four layers. Two flavors. The middle of each layer was layered with a fruit filling or ganache (this is basically a fudgy filling for those other non-bakers).  And then of course it was to be decorated.

I was lucky enough that my oven is bigger than my mom's so she had to make the bottom layer at our house.  Why does this make me lucky?  Because she left us a tiny little cake which was perfect for my family of three to enjoy.  I thought the hard part was complete and enthusiastically took to making icing for the cake and decorating it.  This is what happened....

What do you think? Beautiful, right?

The only positive I can take out of this is that the cake was delicious!  But alas, it wasn't made by me so I can't count it as a victory.

Here is a picture of the cake my mom and sister made:

A way with yeast

"Your brother has a way with yeast."  Thanks, mom. The reminder that even my brother is a better baker than me wasn't lost.  She didn't say it to shame me. She was telling us how they made homemade pretzels when they visited him.  Her helpful hint from the story was "Just add more water if it doesn't look right". But I peeked at my sister, the professional baker, and she had a horrified look on her face and was vehemently shaking her head.

I also tried to make homemade bread, I figured I was on a roll.  I have a bread machine and have been successful in making a loaf in the past. It's basically dump all the ingredients in, press start - wait 3 hours - presto! Fresh, Hot, Homemade bread.  It didn't quite happen that way. Something went wrong, and I ended up with a loaf about an inch high, with the inside tasting and looking like wet cement.  Needless to say, bread machines are not foolproof.

Sometimes ... I bake

I come from a family of bakers.  Homemade cookies, cakes, pastries, candy, chocolates.; anything one with a sweet tooth would want. But I was born without a sweet tooth.  I was also born unable to bake. I am sure I have the ability to, if I practice, but the gift of baking that runs in my family, was not passed on to me.

In my family, it is sacrilegious to use a boxed cake or *gasp* refrigerated cookie dough.  I didn't even know such things existed until college.  All you needed if you wanted a sweet treat was flour, sugar, eggs and poof....cake.  

My mother has a box full of flour covered handwritten recipes passed won through generations.  She has gotten with the times and typed them all up so that they are easy to search, but the box still sits on the counter at home.  My sister is a baker/pastry chef by trade.  She's made birthday and wedding cakes professionally, like people PAY her for her goodies.  My grandmother, mom, aunts, cousins, both of my sisters, they all have this gift.  They can whip up a cake and frosting (homemade of course) and decorate brilliantly all in less than a few hours.  Both of my sisters could make icing roses before they reached puberty.  I always figured I "could" have but I wasn't interested, decades later, I realize this is not the case.

I am not completely inept in the kitchen.  I can cook, in fact I enjoy cooking. Especially a big family meal with multiple sides of yummy veggies and starches and a hunk of meat. But baking eludes me. Homemade candies, cakes and cookies don't grace our door; my poor husband often says he picked the wrong sister (lovingly of course).

Being ungifted has not stopped me from occasionally trying, and that is what this blog is for, to show the world (or a small contingent of followers) that failure is an option and sometimes it tastes yummy.