Got Milk (loaf)?

#17 Milk Loaf

So I tried to make this bread earlier this week and got distracted and burnt the 2 loaves to a beautiful black color.

Today, I tried again.  And again...not so great.

It looked great when it came out of the oven and the first slice looked and tasted wonderful...the second slice revealed that the entire inside was goo.  Yeah,  goo.  Gross and inedible.  See the recipe called for making 2 loaves and since I only have one loaf pan and last time the one loaf I put in the pan didn't even fill up the pan halfway I thought I could just put all of the dough in one pan.  I did not consider that it would be too dense for the recommended cooking time to be effective.  Yeah, I'm a little slow today.  I have no pictures because I mutilated the bread to re-bake it before I remembered that I needed to take them.  I have sliced the bread in half horizontally and am now baking it at 300° to hopefully salvage this bread and enjoy the tastiness once again.

I probably won't make this bread again for myself.  Mostly because it is made with milk and butter and sugar, and even though I don't have any issues with sugar I'm trying not to eat so much of it.

Have a great weekend!

Basil and Olive the other reindeer...

A little holiday cheer with your bread?  Sure!

So, this bread doesn't have anything to do with Christmas or anything, except that I listened to a couple of Christmas songs while working on it.

#16 Basil and Olive Focaccia

2nd Italian bread tonight!

I hadn't baked anything since last weekend, so I decided to do something that I had all the ingredients for already.  The recipe actually called for pitted whole olives, but I had sliced olives so I used what I had.  I did have some difficulty with mixing olives and basil into bread dough, but everything turned out pretty well.  Bonus:  this recipe is dairy-free!

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer...you get it, right?  Do you recall this one?

One weird thing happened, though.  The olives and basil worked their way from the inside of the dough to the outside during the rising process.  Not sure how to fix that, but I'll look in to it.  This bread is delicious and I'm probably going to be making it again.

Maybe I could have this bread with a side of reindeer.


Ok, really, I just tried to find a video of Rudolph and I stumbled upon this video.

Well, Gotta fly!

The Apple (and Pear) Pie Gang

So the Braided White Bread from Thanksgiving was a big hit and after a busy busy day of selling books yesterday, I am rested enough to bake again.

Today, I made my first pie.

and my second...

Apple and Pear Pie.  It should have been Apple and Pear Pie with Fruit Sauce but the fruit sauce was made with raspberries and I cannot stand raspberries or raspberry flavor at all.  Plus, it's not raspberry season.

This was probably my most frustrating day of baking since I started this experiment.  The recipe called for a 12 inch pie plate and all I had was three 9 inch plates.  I considered just making one pie and just lessening the amount of apples and pears and if I had excess just making a little tart or something, but against my better judgement I tried to make two 9 inch pies.  The result?  One pie with no top.

A quote from the movie that inspired this post title:
Amos Tucker: How much money do you figure that dude's got in front of him? 
Theodore Ogelvie: About five hundred. 
Amos Tucker: Five hundred? Wow! You know, that'll be, uh, that's two hundred apiece! 

How appropriate...They turned out better than I thought they would when I was putting them in the oven.  And they taste divine.

I do not enjoy rolling out dough at all.  That's just a fact I thought I'd share.

By the way, today's mentioned movie was The Apple Dumpling Gang starring Tim Conway and the late, great Don Knotts.  I used to watch this a lot as a kid.

Happy Trails, readers!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

It's an extra bread day!

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday...Thanksgiving!!!

For Thanksgiving Day I've made Pumpkin Spice Muffins and a braided white bread!

Pumpkin Spice Muffin recipe found here.

The only change I made was adding a little more pumpkin because what the recipe called for was about 3/4 of a can and one of the reviews said it didn't have a strong pumpkin taste.

Mmm...Thanksgiving Day breakfast.

Also I made a braided white bread for Thanksgiving lunch with my extended family.

Here's my recipe.

Braided White Bread

scant 4 cups white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 cup dry active yeast (activated with 1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 cup warm water)
3/4 water

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, taking care not to put the yeast on top of the salt.  Knead well for 5 minutes, then let rise covered for 1 hour.

Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured counter.  Divide into 3 pieces.  Roll each piece into a 12 inch snake.  Braid these 3 together, rolling ends under.  Let rise for 1 hour.

Braided & uncooked.




Preheat oven to 400°F.  Bake with a pan of hot water for 25 minutes.

Take out of the oven and transfer onto a wire rack to cool.

Finished product.

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Help me, Alec Guinness! You're my only hope!

Today's bread has Guinness in it and since Star Wars is the only thing I've seen that has Sir Alec Guinness in it, today's post is Star Wars themed.

#14 Guinness and Molasses Bread

So today I tasted my first Guinness...it was ok.

I had to do some internet searching to complete this recipe.  The instruction "tip the dough out onto your floured counter an shape into a ball, then flatten and roll up" had me a little confused since this was the first time I had encountered rolling a dough up.  This site was very helpful:  http://www.recipetips.com/

This is the bread you're looking for.

The bread tasted nice.  Just the smallest hint of both the Guinness and the molasses.  Tasted very nice with a little bit of buttery spread on it.  I am going to be making this bread again since there is a recipe in my book that calls for this one.

Something sweet for you...


May the force be with you.

The Whole (wheat) Nine Yards

"I'm telling you this like a friend because if you screw this up - I would hate to... I would really hate to have to kill you. I would hate it more than mayonnaise. You know how much I hate mayonnaise."


Gotta love a movie with Matthew Perry and Amanda Peet.  Ok, well I love it.  Oh, and the quote above is Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski as played by Bruce Willis.

I'm hoping to be productive with the bread making this weekend since I may be working more until after Christmas.

Bread #13 is Basic Whole-wheat Bread

This one was a new thing for me since it was made with white bread flour and whole wheat flour.  My mentor (Paul Hollywood-though he doesn't know it) made a note that the whole wheat flour may need extra water, so I was being hyper-vigilant while mixing.  I actually thought that I might have added too much water when I lifted the "dough" (I put that in quotes because it was pretty batter-like) onto my pan to knead it.  But everything turned out just fine.

It is delicious!  Especially with some European-style strawberry jam.  Loving it!
This may be my favorite bread so far.  Not too stressful to make and a great finished product.

Like I said earlier, I'm hoping to make more bread this weekend so...
Come and visit again.

"Oh, and don't forget the corpses."

Who move my cheese (scone)?

A lactose-intolerant nightmare, a taste bud dream.
This recipe had butter, milk and cheese.  I didn't use soy milk this time, but both the milk and cheese were reduced-fat.

So...

My second try at scones was a success!

Even the raw dough looked kind of yummy...

Flecks of cheese!

Here are some of the finished scones (or biscuits if you're my dad).

My only lament is that there was not quite enough cheese.  Next time I will definitely add more.

With No Particularly Clever Way To End This...