holiday blur

every holiday season it is the same; hurried, frantic and a total blur. we gather the gang and drive to kentucky to spend it with the cousins (they come here for thanksgiving, you may have seen the trash can turkey posts on my other blog). after weeks of preparations it seems that we finally get to enjoy the day and relax but it is now the morning of the 26th...at this point i usually promise myself to get started earlier so i can enjoy the season. this year, i almost did it. most of my shopping was done before thanksgiving because i had started doing things in september-honestly. then i caught a horrible cold and there went the head start. i was sick for more than a week and i recovered just enough to get the trash can festivities underway. once again, i was in panic mode in december...

one of the highlights of the month, the opportunity to bake gingerbread cookies and assemble a house for the daring bakers december challenge. The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

my husband the practical joker and more proof that i cannot take him shopping with me. he rearranged the manger in macy's...lauren the snowgirl is now being showered with gifts from the three wise men while mary and joseph look on.

back to the daring bakers. when i saw that we would be doing a gingerbread house, i didn't know what to say. i love to build the houses, i've done it a few times for competitions and even come home with a blue ribbon but i also knew i wouldn't have the time or the energy. when i had my bakery, i stumbled upon a great set of cutters that when used would make a lovely tree that could be decorated. we sold hundreds of them! every year, i make at least a couple of them to take to kentucky. knowing my limitations and the requirements of the challenge, i decided to just make the trees. the challenge allowed for us to use gingerbread dough made from scratch, i used my own recipe which i will not post here because it is part of a book i am working on, and any template as long as we included it. my trees do not have a template since you just use the cutters.

this is the set of cutters, there are 5 stars in graduated sizes. my set came from the boston mountain copper company in arkansas about 9 years ago but apparently wilton now makes a similar item. several years ago, i contacted boston mountain and asked them if they still made the cutters and they did but that was probably 3 years ago and i do not know if they still make them since i couldn't find the set on their website. they may so if you are interested, contact them. the cutters are very well made and definitely worth the money.

you simply cut out 5 of each size and then stack them up to make a tree. here are the stars for two different trees.

using royal icing, pipe an outline on each star and stack them so that they are staggered and not lined up -this gives you the tree shape. start with the largest star and work your way up to the smallest. if you like, you can sprinkle colored sugar, non pariels or other decorettes as you go.

this one is for our neighbors, i sprinkled crystal sugar and snowflakes on it as i went, that didn't show up in the photo very well though.

for ours, i went back over every point and put a drift of snow-i am making this for kids after all.

the finished tree. it is important to use a level surface and a steady hand with the icing or you may end up with trees that look like staggering drunks-rather like mine...

the two trees side by side before they were wrapped up in a cello bag with ribbons.

here's hoping that you all had a merry holiday! happy new year to all.

all mixed up

another bread baking day is upon us, #24 in fact. this month's challenge was to bake a mixed bread; in other words, use more than one type of flour to make the bread. not a difficult thing to do, every market has a few different flours to choose from. the difficulty comes in which flours to choose-oh the endless possibilities...what's a baker to do? earlier this summer, i made a grape starter for bread and i have been using it on a regular basis and that is where i decided to start. next it was the flour choice and to do this, i went to the fridge. it seems that i have been collecting flours of all kinds and i had plenty to work with!

the first loaf was a combination of bread flour and semolina flour. it made a nice loaf with a slight yellow hue. it was delicious with salads and hummus.

in my flour collection, have a nice variety of corn meal/flour. organic blue corn meal, corn meal masa for tortillas and a roasted yellow cornmeal are just some of them. blue corn meal is one of my favorite things to bake with and i have used it in things ranging from biscotti to corn bread to a spiced caked so bread seemed like a natural choice. however, i decided to take it one step farther by combining the three together in the loaf of bread.

once again, i used my trusty grape starter and the result was a lovely loaf with a slight crunch and a slight red/purple hue.

generally, i do not post recipes on my blog. as a cookbook author, i know all about the consequences of people giving away your recipes and the lack of royalties. most importantly, i know that many people do not give proper credit when posting recipes. i have seen my name mispelled and my co-authors name omitted completely. since i have had such success with this recipe, i will post it and hope that others will enjoy it as i have.

Sourdough Bread

adapted from How to Bake by Nick Malgieri

sponge

1 cup water

1 cup starter-any kind

2 cups bread flour-can substitute as much as 1 cup of another flour

combine in a bowl and cover it. allow it to sit and ferment for at least 8 hours and as long as 36 hours at room temperature.

dough

to the sponge, add:

2 teaspoons salt

1-1/2 cups to 1-3/4 cups bread flour

mix together and turn out onto a floured surface. knead the dough by hand adding flour as needed for at least 5 minutes and up to 10 minutes. place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it and allow it to rise until doubled, at least one hour.

preheat the oven and baking stone if you have one to 500 F. at this time, place a baking pan in the bottom oven if you want to have steam during the baking process. turn the dough out of the bowl and shape it into a tight ball. place the dough, seam side up, in a floured basket or a cloth lined bowl that is also floured and allow it to rise until doubled-about an hour. turn the loaf onto a pan or a bread peel that is sprinkled with cornmeal. place the bread in the oven, toss some ice cubes on to the pan, reduce the heat to 450F and bake for 20 minutes. reduce the heat again to 350F and bake until a thermometer reads about 210F, this could take 20 minutes and as long as 35 minutes. the bread will be nicely colored. cool completely on a rack before slicing.

good luck and have fun! thanks to idania for a tasty challenge! be sure to check back here for the round up

wrong, just wrong...

somethings should just be left alone. not all of the ideas we have are meant to be realized, some should be laughed at and others immediately forgotten. take that photo for example. honestly, what were they thinking??? as if fruitcakes don't have it hard enough, now they've been twinkified. real fruitcakes all over are crying out for help, "somebody save us, please stop them. haven't we suffered enough?" help us stop the madness, bake a real fruitcake today!

for your entertainment

it's been a hectic couple of weeks. we had one home sick with mono of all things. work has been busy-it's that time of year again and my assistant quit too. darry has be completely stressed with his job-the evil forces are at it again and then there is the lousy weather that just makes things dreary. i managed to miss a pie challenge because i simply forgot what day it was but considering the cholesterol angle, maybe that is not so bad for me right now. there hasn't been enough laughter in the house, well there was that one day when the cat got her head caught in an empty tissue box. darry put some catnip in the box to see what she would do and she stuck her head in it and then proceeded to run, bumpercar style, all over the hallway in reverse no less. what a sight it was, big black cat with a pink tissue box stuck on her head backing up into walls and what not and careening off of them. poor kitty...we laughed so hard i think i did pee on myself.

honest, we only did that one time. she wasn't dumb enough to fall for it a second time. anyway, when i walked into the living room last night, the light was hitting the chair at the right angle and i saw an interesting pattern in the ultrasuede. look at it and see if you can identify it-it made me giggle.

yep, you guessed it-a big butt!!! not mine, darry's and the amount of detail was amazing. right down to the stitching on the pockets of his levi's. unfortunately, that didn't come out in the photo.

devon's response-man, dad has a big butt! the detail is hilarious. you can see the belt loops, seams, stitching on the pockets and the outline of the leather tag on the back that lists the size.

it's the little things that make life amusing.

my cholesterol free life...

honest, i've been trying real hard to get this new diet under control. actually, it has been easier than i thought-once i've read the cholesterol content of most things, i am afraid to eat them! i have drastically reduced my intake of things like butter, cheese, milk and meat, let's not forget egg yolks. i have even begun to measure out servings especially in the morning when i drink coffee. as much as i hate to say it, i am a true coffee junkie and i just cannot give up the half and half either. so now when i pour my one cup, i measure the half and half before i add it. the worst part for me so far, sweets. i miss having some sort of sweet treat after a meal. my first thought was how will i participate in all of the baking challenges? bread baking has been easy so far; for world bread day, i made a loaf of sourdough bread-no fat in there! then i saw the challenge for the daring bakers and i was sad, how could i participate and not eat any of the results? unless...

the 2009 october daring bakers' challenge was brought to us by ami s. she chose macarons from claudia fleming's the last course: the desserts of gramercy tavern as the challenge recipe.

so there i was grinding my hazelnuts and contemplating a filling when it hit me, if i leave out the filling i can actually eat them!!! sorry folks but the dietary necessity of my life won over the challenge and i did not make the mandatory filling.

my cookies weren't perfect little mounds like the almond flour macarons but i will attribute that to the dull blade in my robot coupe. the cookies were sweet and light but a poor choice for a rainy day which is all we seem to have here anymore! i would definitely try this again but with something different like toasted coconut or cocoa powder.

my apologies to our hostess, ami for not filling them but i had a legitimate reason and i can at least eat them now!