TWD: Baking with Julia - Eastern European Rye - Guest Baker

Normally Julie is the one baking every couple of weeks, but she wasn't that excited for making rye bread, and I love rye bread.  I read an article recently that describes all of the additives and such that are put into commercial bread and that has put me onto a big kick of making homemade bread, to the point where I'm making a loaf of half white/wheat for lunches each week.  I actually bought rye flour before we knew this was the recipe because I like rye so much and the flour has the whole grain in it, mmmmm!

The recipe came out of the Baking with Julia cookbook, and Julie cooks with a group called Tuesdays with Dorie.  The link is https://tuesdayswithdorie.wordpress.com if you want to learn more.

I cut the recipe in half since I would be the only one eating the rye, I worried it would go bad.  My Mom then asked for a loaf, so I'll probably be making these again sometime.  I also have a bread machine recipe I am going to try, but this one will be hard to beat.  The crust was out of this world awesome.  Quick note, I used my cell phone camera for all of these pictures, so sorry if the quality is a bit low. 

The starting lineup

The yeast getting nice and creamy

The recipe called for finely ground caraway seeds, but our local mega-mart only had whole ones.  That was fine I thought, since I have a mortar and pestle, this will be fun.  Turns out caraway seeds are really strong and didn't take to grinding that way.  So I gave up and used the coffee/spice grinder, that was much quicker.

This is after 10 minutes of pounding and grinding, notice how whole the seeds are

Take that well-put-together seeds!

After adding the flour mixture into the wet ingredients the dough got really hard to stir.  I used the bowl with a handle (great idea) and a wooden spoon (another great idea), and I had to get the shoulders and back moving to get it combined.  But it came together nicely and went well in our largest bowl, well greased of course.  

Mmmmm, dough

Going in for the first rise

Covered with a festive towel...

It got huge!!  

Sometimes I just feel so deflated, you know? 

Rolled into the square for shaping.  

The instructions said to roll into a rectangle, roll it up, then put it on its side and push your fingers in while pushing dough in, then pull it apart and repeat until you get hospital corners or something.  I tried this and I could not get it to push in correctly, pulling it apart either ripped it or it just came apart at the seams.  I decided that kneading it a few times while shaping it into a loaf would work just as well, and it seemed to come out with the right texture and shape, so that's nice.

I didn't really understand why the bread should go into a sling for 30 minutes, but it was kind of fun, so I did it anyway!  I figured it might be to rise evenly without pressing against the counter or bowl, but it didn't seem to make much difference in the shape that I could tell.

Going into the sling

This was actually safer than it looks

Once out of the sling you cut into it, add the toppings, and bake.  I did half salt and half caraway seeds on top of the egg wash.  I liked the taste of  the salt side better, but I loved the look of the caraway seeds, so I will probably do both next time and see what that gives me.

Half salt and half caraway seeds

Crunchy, crispy, warm, smelled great

Because I started this way too late in the day, the bread didn't come out of the oven until 11-ish at night, so I let it cool a bit and then put into a cake holder so it wouldn't dry out.  The crust got a bit soggy unfortunately, but was otherwise unharmed by this.  I had my first slice the next morning with breakfast, and it was magnificent.  The flavor was great, it toasted well, and just wow.

My phone's best attempt at capturing the grain of the bread

The first meal with the bread: Runny eggs and rye

Toasted pastrami on rye

I will almost certainly be making these again.  I will compare it other recipes since this one took a lot of time, but the flavor and crust will be hard to beat with this one.  

TWD: Baking with Julia - Inside-Out, Upside-down Tirami Su

I love tiramisu, I think my affection for it came when I was a waitress at an Italian restaurant during college.  I am pretty sure it was the first place I ever tried it.  So, when this week's recipe was tiramisu, I was totally in for trying it.  It turned out to be something that completely changed the traditional tiramisu.  It tastes kind of like tiramisu, but did not look like it or have the right creamy texture that normally go with tiramisu.

It started out with a making frozen coffee granita, which was super simple to make, just espresso, milk and simple syrup, and stuck in the freezer.  After that was made I moved on to make the sabayon, which seems like a fancy word for custard.  It was egg yolks, sugar, milk and cinnamon, and it smelled delicious.  The recipe said that after cooking it for a few minutes to put it in a bowl of ice... I just stepped outside and let mine cool in a pile of snow that we had gotten over the weekend.  (Side note, our mailbox is being replaced after someone slid into it).  After it was cooled, I added whipping cream and mascarpone cheese.  Yay, mascarpone cheese, the essential ingredient in tiramisu!

Granita, I am going to have a lot left

Uncooked sabayon

the finished sabayon

After that was all ready, I baked some phyllo dough.  It said to cook a half slice in a four inch baking dish, and seeing how I need to make eight pieces and had one four inch dish, I just made little pillows and put them on a cookie sheet.

Finished phyllo pillows

After they were cooled, it was time for assembly.  My granita started to melt as soon as I scooped it out of the container.  Then I added heaping spoonful of the sabayon and topped that with another phyllo pillow.  Then more sabayon on top with some chocolate shavings and powdered sugar.  It completely started to melt before I could get a picture of it, it kind of turned into a soupy mess on me.  I probably needed to refrigerate the sabayon longer!

So, my opinion, I will probably never made this again, I ate it in about four minutes, but it is super rich, it is CRUNCH.Y., and I think I missed the rum, HA!   I would really like to try to make the traditional recipe someday, but after having this and all the sweet snacks over Christmas, I am going to have to think about doing that in about eight months!  It was fun to try!

For you non foodies, we really will write some other blogs about our adventures soon!

TWD: Baking With Julia - Chocolate-Mint Nightcaps

These cookies sounded wonderful and not too hard to make, so I gave them a try.  Anything that has lots of chocolate isn't hard to talk me into baking!  I think they turned out decently, but not favorite by any means.  The cookie probably could have cooked for a little bit longer, they were really soft.  Mikey said I could blame the altitude for that, so I will and I think the cookies may harden a little after a day or so!  Also, I thought that by cooking the mint into the cream that they would be mintier than they were, but it is a good amount of mint.  All in all I might try them again someday and play with the recipe a little bit...  it's not like we are not going to eat all of them!

First I made the ganache....  I boiled the heavy cream with chopped up mint and then whisked it into the chocolate!

Then it was on to the cookies, they were really simple to whip up.  I do think my eggs were a bit too cold when I added them, so my butter got a little chunky.  I added the flour mixture anyways and it turned into a creamy chocolate dough, or maybe batter is a better term.

Piped a little ganache in the middle and gave it a shot as to what I thought a nightcap should look like!  Then I ate it in about three bites!  Don't pay any attention to how uneven my cookies turned out, I didn't measure out perfect scoops.

Smaller might have been better because these are chocolaty!  Also I think more mint would be nice, but all in all it was a nice and different recipe to try.

When did it become October???

Man, September really got away from us and now it's already past the middle of October.   We had few excuses as to why we went MIA, but hopefully now we are back for frequent updates! So, here is a kind of long update.  We started off  September with a trip to see the hot air balloons during Labor Day weekend.  This is something both Mikey and I did when we were kids, and this was the last year the city is going to host the balloons, so I made Mikey get up early and take me and Noah downtown.  We also decided to take a hike to Raspberry Mountain that day.  We were a bit skeptical how well Noah was going to hold up, he got a little fussy towards mile three, but had some snacks and fell asleep.  He woke up at the top, probably wondering why his ride stopped, and then did great all the way back to the car.

Mikey and Noah in front of the elephant balloon

The view from the top!

Mikey's step brother, Zak and his now wife Erin, got married in the beginning of the month.  They had a beautiful ceremony at the Shove Chapel downtown.  They also asked Noah to be the ring bearer!  He was very cute.  He didn't make it all the way down the aisle, but he started to go.  After the ceremony we went to a very fun reception where Noah wandered all over the hotel!

The ring bearer and flower girls

One flower girl was trying to help him going down the aisle

Mr. and Mrs. Klecker!

Noah the ring bearer

The handsomest men in my life!

We also had a lovely visit with Aunt Jacquie and Noah even got to spend a whole day with her and Nana!  Mikey, I, and Grandpa didn't have too much trouble leaving them to play, because we made our way to Breckenridge for the day to have some fun at Oktoberfest!  We drank delicious beer, ate brats, kielbasa, and pretzels, and we each had our own delicious apple strudel!

Mikey and David at Oktoberfest

Apple Strudel and Beer!

We had no problem finishing our own apple strudels!

TWD: Baking with Julia - Oven-Roasted Plum Cakes

I am a day late on posting this blog, but that was because I was also a day late on baking... whoops, time just seems to really get away from me these days.  It is a great thing to be busy spending time with family and enjoying the great outdoors, but I really wanted to join in on this recipe.  So, I did, just later than I planned.

The recipe this week was Plum cakes!  I watched the video with Julia cooking them last week and they looked wonderful.  I am not the biggest plum fan, so I just thought I would try a few different fruits instead.  I went with an apple and a nectarine.  The nectarine definitely won!  The cake mix was super simple and with just two tablespoons of batter and a half of a nectarine it was quick to put together.  I think the key to the batter was whipping the butter and sugar on high for over three minutes and then whipping in the eggs at a high speed as well.

They turned out great and I am glad I baked the recipe this week.  If you want to check out the other variations head over to the blogroll at Tuesday with Dorie.

Here are few pictures I snapped along they way!

Batter getting fluffy

Just a little batter was needed

Top with an apple and a nectarine

Of course top the fruit with brown sugar

Finished nectarine cake, pretty still in the ramekin

Finished apple cake, the brown sugar melted into the bottom

It fell apart a little, but served with ice cream no one minded!

TWD: Baking With Julia - Baking Powder Biscuits

I have been missing baking along the last four months...  I can't believe I didn't bake a single thing with everyone for that long, how embarrassing.  Ok, well I am back and ready to bake some more.  The recipe for today, Baking Powder Biscuits, was quick and easy and they turned out great.  I probably could have cut the recipe in half, because biscuits two days later are never quite as good as when they are fresh out of the oven.  If you want some other variations check out the blog role at Tuesdays With Dorie.

It is a pretty simple combination of flour, baking powder and salt.  Added some milk and shortening and was pretty much ready to roll them out.  They were light and fluffy on the inside with a nice crunch on the outside.  They recommended to add a little butter on top before cooking them and I meant to, but completely forgot until they had already cooked for about five minutes.  Oh well, guess that means we just had to add more butter on the inside!  They turned out great and if we ever want some more biscuits I am glad this recipe will be in reach.

Crumbly mix

Ready to roll

Hot out of the oven

Mmmmm butter

Jellies at the ready