Adventures in Bread - Part 2

 

From the time I got up today I was looking forward to fresh from the oven bread. So I was excited when it was time to get back to the dough.

 

 

 

After sitting for 18 hours the dough had risen significantly and had the bubbles the recipe told me to expect.

 

 

 

Then working on a floured surface, the dough is folded twice and covered for 15 min.

 

 

The next step was to form the dough into a ball and place it on a cornmeal dusted towel to rise for 2 hours.

 

 

1 1/2 hours into this rising time the oven and cast iron dutch oven get preheated to 500 degrees.

The dough has roughly doubled in size during this 2 hour rise time.

 

 

And into the preheated pot it goes!

 

 

Now for the wait for it to bake...

 

 

The recipe called for baking it for 30 min then removing the lid and baking an additional 15-30 minto brown the crust, but when I took off the lid the crust looked perfect and I really felt if it was in any longer it would have been over done.

 

 

The crust is perfect and crisp and the inside is moist and chewy. :)

 

 

Yum!!!

 

 

Overall this bread turned out great, the only disadvantage to it was all the waiting time. I am hoping to try the other recipe this week to see how they compare.  Maybe tomorrow :)

Adventures In Bread - Part 1

When I went to the library this week a book caught my eye and inspired me to try making some homemade, from scratch bread. The book I picked up is Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by J. Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. After going through the book I got online and started doing more research and found another recipe, No-Knead Bread from Jim Lahey,  that is similar but does have some differences. After reading the reviews of both and since the ingredients are the same I decided to try both and decide which we prefer.

The ingredients for both recipes consist of unbleached all-purpose flour, salt, yeast and water, the Artisan Bread recipe makes a large batch of dough that is meant to be stored in the fridge and baked off over a span of days where as Mr. Lehey's recipe is for 1 loaf and does need a longer rising time. I decided to start with Mr.Lehey's recipe tonight and plan to have it with dinner tomorrow.

Starting the dough was very simple, first the dry ingredients are combined:

 

 

3 cups of flour

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp instant yeast

 

 

Then the water is added and things get sticky!

 

1 1/2 cups water

 

 

And the dough goes into an oiled bowl.
 

 

 

 

Then it gets covered in plastic wrap and left to rise at room temperature for 12-18 hours.

 

 

Tomorrow it will go into my cast iron dutch oven and get baked, looking forward to trying it!

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Cake!!!

A few weeks ago a good friend asked me if I would make her a cake for her 30th birthday and told me that the theme if the party was going to be a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. She gave me a couple ideas that she had and I did some sketches and yesterday I got to work.....

The cake itself was alternating layers of chocolate fudge and almond cake with buttercream frosting. The original plan was 4 layers but when I stacked the cake 4 wasn't tall enough so 6 it was!

 

 

   Then after chilling and a bit of sculpting the cake went into the fridge while I made some of the decorative elements.

 

 

After good coating of buttercream it was time for the fondant....

 

 

 

Then some embossing, petal dust and things are starting to come together!

                                            

    The hat band and patch went on next...

  

 And for the final touch some roses that were painted red!

Taking the cake to the party was a bit nerve wracking, luckily it was a short drive with a great driver. :)

And the cake looked great when it got there and the birthday girl was very happy!

 

 

Books...

Well, so far I have not been as productive as I had hoped this week. But laundry is pretty much caught up and put away in the newly organized closet and I have watched hockey every day this week. :)

On the reading front, I am hoping to get Beautiful Creatures on my Kindle this week and have just started, the actually real book,  Her Fearful Symmetry. I love my Kindle but there is just something different and special about holding real book. I was reading quite a bit for a while but have not been recently, need to start again...goal for the next week 30 min a day.

Sunday - Weekend and the week ahead

Started out with a great productive morning today, made a great sausage/potato/egg scramble for breakfast today then used the leftovers to fill crescents and made some baked Scotch eggs that basically have breakfasts covered for the week. Started a pot of soup for this week and got some cleaning and organizing done then somehow after 2, I don't know where the day went. Always more to do then there is time to do it...
 Going to be busy with the house and baking over the next couple weeks, have 2 birthdays at work that will be getting cupcakes and a friend's 30th birthday that I have been asked to make a cake for (which I am looking forward to :) ) and I have also had 2 other people ask me about cupcakes in the next couple weeks.
On the to do list for this week is to work more on getting kitchen put together and playing with my new airbrush, getting some organization going in the bedroom with the new closet organization system we got in this weekend and working on the living room and my office/craft room. Company next weekend so I have to stay motivated this week!!!

Plan for the week-
Monday - laundry/bedroom (and watching hockey)
Tuesday- extra bedroom and office
Wednesday - living room and maybe some baking :)
Thursday- clean for the weekend
Friday- relax!

2013

Really seriously going to try to get back to this and stick with it! The plan is to have a different theme for each day of the week and to use this as a journal for myself and to share with anyone interested.

Ideas for my themes:
Sunday - ponderings
Monday - photo of the week
Tuesday - what I'm reading and want to read
Wednedsay - recipe of the week
Thursday - current art and craft projects
Friday -
Saturday -

Still have a couple days without themes and some days may move around but this is my general plan.

Garden 1 Week (well, almost...)

I won't be around to post this weekend but wanted to post a garden update before leaving tomorrow...It is amazing what can happen in 6 days!!!

 At first glance, the plants all look healthy and a bit bigger...

and then when you look closer....

 there are itty-bitty baby tomatoes !

 And the green beans are starting to poke up...

 along with their trellis-mates the sugar peas.

 Even the spinach is poking up to say hi!

The little blue gnome and the garden fairies are doing great so far! I think I'm going to enjoy this little garden.