Mmm...Doughnuts...

For you Simpsons fans...
Bart: [after they watch a foreign film] I was so bored I cut the pony tail off the guy in front of us. 
[holds pony tail to his head] 
Bart: Look at me, I'm a grad student. I'm 30 years old and I made $600 last year. 
Marge: Bart, don't make fun of grad students. They've just made a terrible life choice. 


Ok...so I don't believe that (I wish I was in grad school)...but that $600 per year sounds pretty familiar.


Anyway, Doughnuts!


I'm having trouble uploading pictures right now so I will (hopefully) post the pics of the doughnuts tomorrow.


I had a small issue of the dough not rising properly, probably to do with that oh-so-vague 1 packet of yeast instruction.


They were ok tasting...I won't eat them again for a couple of reasons.  #1 being that I'm not supposed to eat fried food.


Unfortunately, that's all for tonight folks.  See ya round, like a doughnut!

Good King Whole-wheat Scones looked out...

On the feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.

Another favorite Christmas carol...Good King Wenceslas.



Today's bread is #19 and it is Whole-wheat Scones!

So delicious!  Baked perfection.  Here they are.

This is the full number I made.  The recipe says it makes 15-18 but this is all I got.  Henceforth, I will refer to 11 baked goods as a Kristen's Dozen.  Also the raisins were optional (you can only see them in the front 3 scones), but since I failed at raisins in the regular scones I thought I'd try again.  These turned out perfectly.

At the end of this video Hugh Grant is singing Good King Wenceslas.



All the best to you!

Christmas in Killarney: An Irish Christmas

#18  Irish Soda Bread

Ok it's not actually a Christmas item, but it's only 10 days away and "Christmas in Killarney" was one of my favorite Christmas songs when I was younger.  I'd listen to a Bing Crosby Christmas record (yes, record) that my grandmother had on repeat.  This is the album.

Isn't he adorable?

Here is a version by the Irish Rovers...I liked it because it sounds really Irish.




Now, back to the bread.

Super-easy, quick to make bread.  Pretty darn tasty, too!  It didn't look like the picture of the other soda bread in the book, but I can probably fix that when I make the next one.

Here's the final product.

Since my "mentor" stated in my dear, dear cookbook that this bread was "gorgeous served fresh from the oven with lots of butter" I tasted it with some faux butter and it was lovely.

“May those who love us, love us; and those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping.” - Irish Blessing

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!