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.