The Half Cup...

10 Things that Make Me Happy ...

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:18:41 -0600

I got an award! I got an award from a sweetheart of a blogger friend who sent me cards and sweets and good thoughts through rough times ... and now she gives me an award for brightening her day ... Thank you Elle (even if that isn’t her real name.

As the award winner I’m to list ten things that make me happy and then pass the award on to ten who brighten my day.

Ten things that bring me happy ...

While we were in Houston, I really missed sitting in the evening in front of the fire talking over our day or plans and enjoying a glass of wine. Winter evenings in front of a fire, summer evenings on the roof deck with a glass of wine ... that’s happy.

Sweet thoughts and little funnies from friends ... that’s happy.

Sons and daughter-in-laws and a grand son and grand babies on the way ... that’s happy.

The wild chaos of filling a kitchen with family ... that’s happy.

Singing “YMCA” cooking with friends ... that’s happy.

Sunrise over the Atlantic from the deck of a 54 foot sail boat ... that’s happy.

Enjoying a 94 year old father who still bakes pies and breads and jogs ... that’s happy.

Paris ... that’s happy.

Wild cooking challenges ... that’s happy.

Fresh bread from the oven ... that’s happy.

Loving this man ... that’s HAPPY.

The hard part is only naming ten who brighten my day. You’ve brightened my day just by being here! I don’t read blogs that don’t brighten my day.

Elle, (FeedingMyEnthsiasms and BreadBakersDog) with her warm friendship and St Honore stories she always brightens my days.

Ilva, (LucullianDelights) who manages to make photography and food celestial. I guess I also love that she blames me strongly for getting her deeper into bread baking.

Johanna, (GreenGourmetGiraffe) who enjoys her family and foods and shines that light on me.

Karen, (BakeMyDay) who brings out my inner bread geek. Fresh bread from the oven makes me happy and so many of her breads are works of art.

Lynn, (CookieBakerLynn) I could give you hundreds of times she’s brightened my day, you can count on her blog making you smile.

Mary, (TheSourDough) who came to visit us in Houston when she could have played golf and she loves bread as much as I do and she’s long been my bread guru.

Meeta, (WhatsForLunchHoney) who manages to make detail and organization look easy until I try it. She brightens my day knowing somebody can get so close to gorgeous.

Neil, (AtMyTable) who’s friendship and take on the Aussie scene always brightens my day.

Peabody, (CulinaryConcoctionsByPeabody) who else can be so irreverent making you laugh and drool like a fool.

Veron, (KitchenMusings) with her passion and stellar talent always takes me to the high spot even if I can not get myself to try making those macaroons.

... the tenth one who brightens my day ...
That would be YOU. You visit, you lurk or you leave a comment, You brighten my day. I thank you for visiting my kitchen.

Feel no pressure but if you’d like to share ten things that make you happy and pass this award on to ten bloggers who brighten your day, I’d be so happy to get to know those ten things that make you happy!

And please no comments on how I can’t count ... I can count, sometimes I just don’t or won’t ...

Thank you Elle!

Palak Paneer (Creamed Spinach with Fresh Cheese)

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:22:28 -0600

On Monday when I gave you the BBB Naan, I promised to come back with Saag Paneer and this is it ... sort of.

Saag Paneer ... the dish we craved, the dish that took us back to The Bombay Brasserie restaurant in Rice Village for three times (well that and the Papadums) ... but it turns out it really wasn’t Saag Paneer.

When I thought about a menu to go with the BBB Naan bread, of course Saag Paneer was at the very top of my list to make. I checked recipes in all my books and found a number of them all with fair connections but ... Yes, there’s always that but. Where would I have some faith that I would find some authenticity and trusted quality ... Meeta immediately came to mind and I popped her an e-mail while berating myself for waiting till the day I planned to cook the meal. Within hours I had a wonderfully sweet response and a recipe I committed to trying and as fate would have it my cooking plans that afternoon had fallen through :-) due to a lovely walk Gorn invited me on that took us past one of our stand-by Mexican restaurants. So, happily our Naan dinner from India was delayed a day and included Meeta’s dad’s recipe.

The first thing that was fun in her e-mail was that the recipe I sought was not for Saag Paneer, Saag Paneer is made with mustard greens ... hoho who knew, certainly not this silly girl. The recipe I was seeking was for Palak Paneer ... palak being spinach and paneer being the fresh cheese. I loved Meeta’s discussion about her father and especially about how even with a love of Indian spices and spiciness, he aimed to bring out the spinach flavor in this dish. To highlight the spinach in this dish, he used no garlic and minimal spices. I knew the dish we’d all enjoyed (my Dad included here) was one of the milder ones in our dinner. So this recipe sounded about right to me. Here is Meeta’s Dad’s recipe with small tweaks of my own, very small I might add ... except for not putting it in the blender at the last, Meeta probably will consider that major and I think I do to.

Palak Paneer
Creamed Spinach from India
from: Meeta’s father’s recipe

500 grams spinach, fresh
2 onions, finely chopped
14 ounce can roasted tomato
turmeric powder
ginger, microplane grated
salt & pepper
250 grams paneer cheese, fried
clarified butter

My spinach was a mix of heavy curly spinach and baby spinach that comes triple rinsed. I don’t rinse it further, just stuff it into a large bowl, cover it with my plastic microwave vented cover and microwave on high until wilted. I lay it out on “special” (saved for this purpose only) tea towels hot from the microwave to allow it to steam as much moisture away and then I roll the towels up and squeeze out all I can when it’s cooler.

Start by frying the onions in clarified butter until a nice rich brown color. If blending the spinach, hold out a quarter of these for use as “tarka” that Meeta describes below.

Add the tomatoes and simmer until all the juices have incorporated well. Now add the turmeric powder, grated ginger, salt and pepper and continue frying. “In hindi this process is called "bhoon"-ing frying until everything has left it's juices and flavors and combined as one entity.”

Roast the dried spinach in a separate pan in some clarified butter. Once this is done add the tomato mixture to the spinach and simmer for another 5-8 minutes.

Put everything into a blender and blend until smooth. Add back into the pan and add the paneer. I am going to blend it some time but Gorn & I looked at this in the skillet at this point and said “No it’s too pretty to mess with more.”

If the spinach is blended/creamed, pour the reserved onions over the top. This is called "tarka" in hindi and is used in different varieties on several Indian dishes like daals.

Well ... yes, it was perfect even omitting the creaming/blending. This was beautiful. Thank you Meeta. Now, I must try Saag Paneer.

Was this authentic? When you’re dealing with an ethnic cuisine dish like this that has evolved over centuries and been personalized with each generation, does it matter? It seems to me what matters is that the dish evokes the spirit of that history, creates a personal history for you and perhaps ultimately important delights your senses.

BBB Naan

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:26:43 -0600

I know I’m a pack rat and it’s not sparkly babbles, it’s old out of date cook books. One such book in my collection, actually it’s in the Time-Life Books collection, is The Cooking of India.

Why do I say it’s out of date? The writing in this book about culture and cuisine is fascinating sweep you a way to India reading/eating. This book came out in the mid-1970’s not quite a decade after Julia Child told Americans they could actually cook. So the recipes seem more Americanized (show less authenticity) than if the book were written today. Still, it’s an excellent intro to Indian cooking and one of my first a favorite recipes made often and still is Mattar Pannir (homemade cheese with peas).

Talk about an odd intro to this month’s BBB bread ... brought to us by none other than our BBB Kitchen of the Month ... the most gracious ...

CookieBakerLynn
bringing us
Naan/Nan
from India - my new love

I made my first batch of these in my make shift kitchen away from home under what seemed like primitive or at least make do conditions where I used a cheap wine bottle for a rolling pin ... Still I was able to come up with some excellent soft and puffy Naan in-spite of the apartment’s electric stove top - maybe I’m just use to my gas stove at home.

Early on in our time in Houston, we discovered The Bombay Brasserie restaurant in Rice Village. Being the Bread Head that I am, I went crazy over their Naan and the Papadums! Papadum ... oh my heavens! This is food for the Gods in my book. For dinner we had the The Viceroy of India dinner for two - with Tandoori chicken, Lamb Seekh Kabob, Tandoori Prawns, Chicken Tikka, Daal, Naan, Rice, Kachumber and Saag Paneer! Our favorite dish was ... the bite in our mouth ... oh except Gorn thought the Tandoori chicken was even better as left-over the next day. The dish that we had to go back for and order doubles of when my Dad visited ... Saag Paneer!

So back home in Dallas, I determine to do Naan with an Indian dinner. As delightful as a soft puffy Naan with fresh bread taste, aroma and the gorgeous pockets of sweet yellow raisins are they are honestly simple to make. Yes, I added my reliable ground flax seed. It’s the usual suspects: flour, yeast, salt, a little olive oil ... with a small extra touch, curry powder and yellow raisins! What a touch.

Curried Naan Bread
From Paul Hollywood’s 100 Great Breads**
- makes 6 Naan - 8 by my division

500 grams flour total (I divided it 150 grams KA white whole wheat and 350 grams KA bread flour)
1-1/2 tsp salt: a very “Special” sel

1 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra for frying
50 grams mild curry powder
15 gram package compressed fresh yeast*
300 ml water
generous 1/2 cup golden raisins: mine was VERY generous
3 Tbsp mango chutney - oops sorry Lynn, none in house

** There are two editions of this book. Thank you Lien for the metric measurements.

* If you are using instant or dry yeast, reduce the quantities a little

Mise en place

1- Dissolve fresh yeast in some of the water and allow to bloom. Fresh yeast is the only time I proof yeast any more. Put the flour, salt, oil, curry powder, yeast, and water into a bowl and mix together for 2 minutes. Tip out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for 5 minutes, or until the dough is soft and pliable. My dough was very soft, pliable and silky smooth. Lynn had an entirely different experience. Let rise for 30 minutes. Next time I make these I’m going to try putting the dough into the refrigerator over night.

2- Line a baking sheet. Incorporate the golden raisins and chutney into the dough. Divide the dough into six pieces, - I did eight pieces based on my skillet size and the portion size I thought would work for us - put them on the baking sheet, cover and let rest for 1 hour.

I took this wanting to show you how beautiful the rolled out dough was with the light shinning through the yellow raisins but it a little out of focus. It’s really hard to hold a thin circle of dough still with one hand and click the camera with the other. Gorn was up on a ladder, so no help there.

3- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and, using a rolling pin or between your hands, I did it both ways and it worked equally well, flatten each piece into a circle, 25.5 cm / 10 inches in diameter - mine were about 8 inches. Put back on the sheet and let rest for 5 minutes.

Well, what the heck, I wanted to try it. Don’t it loses it’s soft and puffy

This is what you want.
4- Heat a skillet to medium heat and add a splash of olive oil. Shallow-fry each piece dough until browned on both sides, then set aside to cool slightly before serving.

Gorn has the idea that he doesn’t like curry but the curry in the Naan does not overwhelm and with the raisins - which he is always wild about - this becomes lovely background sweetness.

And for my dinner from my new love India we enjoyed:

Spicy Red Lentil Dal with winter vegetables + Chicken
recipe found here

I know the dal looks green but I really did use red lentils. I used a pablano pepper and should have used the serrano chile called for, it needed a touch of the heat.

I used chicken instead of lamb AND while I used the 5 teaspoons Pensey’s garam masala called for on the chicken thighs cut into cubes, I “brilliantly” (and I am really serious here, brilliantly) poured buttermilk over the seasoned chicken and let it marinate in the refrigerator two days. I only intended one day of marinade but dinner plans change or dinner is ready when you suddenly remember ... “Oh, I forgot to cook the chicken.” So we had the vegetarian dal the first night and with the chicken the second! Actually, that was brilliant too! Two different meals for the effort of one. The chicken I sautéed in my grill pan, all of about 6 minutes. This was moist, tender and fabulous flavor!!!

And then there’s that Saag Paneer ... how about I tell you about that in a day or two. But don’t miss it, it really is most excellent!

We’d love to have you bake with us and truly these are a real delight all by themselves, just bake up your Naan, blog or not and send your link or photo to CookieBakerLynn before 25 January and she’ll send you a Bread Baking Buddy badge and include you in the round-up on the 25th.

This goes to Susan at WildYeast for her weekly Yeast Spotting. I’ve come to look at the weekly Yeast Spotting as a delightful trip to a Bakery Wonderland! If you’re not familiar with Susan and Yeast Spotting, it’s explained here.

And it is now my dream to replicate that Papadums ... oh the crisp thinness ...

BBB Viennese Striesel

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:50:49 -0600

I was in the second grade when I learned I would never be able to spell. The spelling list was given out on Monday and on Friday the teacher dictated the list for the test. Every night I would spend forever studying those 20 words: read them, write them, my mother reading them & me writing them. You know the drill. Try as I would, I never did well.

Then the glorious day came when I scored a zero. I know most people dread the big O because it means another decade has passed but for me the big O always takes me back to that day I scored a zero and the teacher required me to walk up and down each isle in the classroom and show everybody I had a big O on my spelling test. Just thinking about it today embarrasses me. I never got another zero but I never got a hundred either.

Without spell check ... I’d never have a chance. Without spell check, I’d have been able to tell you Striesel ... that doesn’t look right but I couldn’t have told you it’s mostly spelled streusel.

In this case it’s spelled Striesel because that’s the way our Kitchen of the Month Katie (ThymeforCooking) says the recipe is written. So take that Miss Smarty Pants Spelling Teacher! Check out Thyme for Cooking for the original recipe as the one below I’ve rewritten and put in just how I did it.

However you spell it, I can tell you this is a simple to mix and take from the oven heavenly smelling bread in just a few hours.

Viennese Striesel

2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup very warm water
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vanilla sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tablespoons melted butter
3 cups flour

1/4 cup seedless raisins
1/4 cup candied cherries, chopped
2 tbs candied orange peel, chopped
1/8 tsp mace

1 egg

Scald milk. Put milk, sugar, shortening, salt in bowl. Cool until just warm.
Mix 2 cups flour with fruit and mace.
Mix 1 cup of flour with the yeast.

Mix yeasted 1 cup flour with liquid ingredients.

Whisk egg and add to dough. Add remaining flour with fruit and knead until smooth and satiny. This tends to be sticky and I believe I added too much flour. Next time I’ll try to add less by dusting only my hands with flour as I knead.

Shape into a ball, place in lightly greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, about 2 1/4 hours.
Punch down. Divide into 9 pieces, shape each into a ball and let rest 5 minutes.

Roll each piece into a rope about 15" long. Lay 4 strands on a lightly greased baking sheet, overlapping at the center. Braid from the center toward each end. With the side of your hand make a trench down the center. Now braid 3 strands, also from the center to each end, and place in the 'trench'. Twist the 2 remaining strands loosely together and place on top, bringing the ends over the end of the loaf and tucking in.
Cover loosely and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. Bake, 350F (175C) for 40 - 45 minutes. Remove and cool on a wire rack.

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tbs milk
almonds or walnuts for sprinkling

Mix milk and sugar. When bread is cool, drizzle frosting over the top. Sprinkle with nuts.

I was thrilled to finally have a reason to open my little jar of mace. Have you ever read up on mace? It’s history and how it grows is really fascinating. Wikiepedia has great info on it here.

We never got to the icing part. It’s great toast and all gone now. Need another for Christmas morning.

If you would like to join us being a Bread Baking Buddy here’s how:

* You have one week from our posting date to bake the bread and post about it on your blog with a link to the Kitchen of the Month’s post about the bread.
* E-mail the Kitchen of the Month with your name and a link to your post OR leave a comment on the Kitchen of the Month’s blog that you have baked the bread and a link back to your post.
* Kitchen of the Month will do a round-up of our Bread Baking Buddies at the end of the week and send you a BBB badge for that month’s bread.
* No blog, No problem - just e-mail the Kitchen of the Month with a photo of the bread you baked and you’ll be included in the round-up.

Remember our Kitchen of the Month is Katie (ThymeforCooking). The Buddy posting date is the 21st December, Monday next. And you can check out the other Babes on my side bar.

This goes to Susan at WildYeast for her weekly Yeast Spotting. I’ve come to look at the weekly Yeast Spotting as a delightful trip to a Bakery Wonderland! If you’re not familiar with Susan and Yeast Spotting, it’s explained here.

Hope your holidays are merry and bright and all your wishes come true.

Merry Christmas to all ...

BBB Brioche Mousseline

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:41:24 -0600

Now this recipe sounded like it would be a bread that would be straight forward ... well except for that first photo Monique ( Kitchen Of the Month )put up, now that did generate some real trash talk, talk that would generate a tremendous amount of internet traffic but ... I’m sure some of the other babes will give you the real scoop. It didn’t call for fancy shaping or really exotic ingredients. Nothing exotic about all purpose flour, yeast, water, eggs, salt and butter. It’s true it calls for a LOT of eggs and butter but eggs and butter are common everyday found in most any of our homes.

And tin cans, you wouldn’t call those exotic would you? I mean even if you don’t stock a ton of food in cans, cans are all over right? And then one of this dirty dozen asked two very simple questions: What’s the white lining in my cans made of? Is it safe to bake in? Ahhhh, actually: NO. That clean white lining is plastic. (to know more read HERE).

Coffee cans used to be the baking pan of choice; remember that brown bread? I loved that as a kid, spread with cream cheese. Coffee rarely comes in a can anymore it seems. So, this group has now gone through a lot, I mean a really LOT of cans looking for those elusive unlined ones ... and mostly the unlined ones have beans in them but then a lot of canned beans have that white lining and it seems there’s no way to identify an unlined can from a lined one until you’ve bought it and opened it. If you’ve found a way, I’d love to know because I know I’ll be baking this bread again and needing more cans.

I went back and read my two postings on Brioche after I baked this one. In my Houston home-away-from-home-kitchen, I’m slightly equipment challenged and it’s always fascinating to me what we can do without - do without but come to appreciate oh so much more as we get by doing without.

I did bring a couple of things from home anticipating some things I felt sure would be missing: two chopping knives, a bread knife, a wood chopping block to save my knives’ edge, several cookbooks, cookie sheet with silpat, microplane grater, shower cap to cover bread rising and a whisk.

What did I miss bringing? My dough rising bucket ... duh, what ever was I thinking. A dough/bench scrapper and my extra scale. Bowls ... now how basic are bowls? There is only one big plastic (uck) bowl here. Obviously this kitchen is not suppose to host a baker.

I’d never mixed my dough making a well in the middle of the flour. Now I have. You can mix and knead dough without a bowl. And you can hand mix and knead a really “buttery liquid” dough - no fancy stand mixer.

Brioche Mousseline

This is a spectacular and delicious loaf having its roots in France, Normandy and Honnefleur. The recipe from prize winning Baker Andre David, comes from the Breads of Fance by Bernard Clayton Jr. (a book long on my lust list)

The dough is allowed to rise in a cylindrical container(a soup or coffee can most likely, 1 pound cans).
(my changes)

Ingredients: For 2 tall loaves - (I made 4 loaves)

Starter
1 package (1 tablespoon) of dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup all-purpose flour

Dough
4 cups all purpose flour
6 eggs at room temperature
4 tablespoons warm water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
12 ounces unsalted butter @ room temperature

Dress the cans by encircling the cans with paper (buttered if needed) as a collar.
Butter the inside the can or better line in with paper. (I sprayed the bottom of the cans with Pam & lined the inside.)

Starter (takes 10 minutes and 2 hours)
Dissolve yeast in water and set aside for a few minutes until creamy. (I mixed yeast with four and then added the water.) Stir in flour and knead for about 3 minutes until shaggy loaf of dough. Cover with plastic and let rest for 2 hours.

Prepare the dough to mix together with the starter at the end of the two hours.
Start with 2 cups flour, 4 eggs, one at a time, 2 tablespoons water, the sugar and salt, blend well. Knead butter (on wax paper) soft and pliable with a dough scraper or spatula. Blend into batter. Then add remaining 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of water. Stir in rest of flour, 1/2 cup at the time until the dough is a soft ball. Press into an oval on your flouered work surface, place starter in the center and fold over the edges and knead to incorporate with the starter dough with the yellow egg and butter dough. Knead for about 8 minutes. The dough stays a little sticky but will become firm after cooling in the fridge if that will help you kneading.
(With my limited resources - 2 salad bowls and 2 pans - I mixed 6 eggs and 3 tablespoons water and 12 ounces - a guess without a scale - very very soft butter - Houston was 82°. I poured 4 cups AP flour, 3 tablespoons sugar and 1.5 teaspoons salt into a pot and whisked it to mix. I poured this onto the counter and made a well in the center and poured a quarter of the liquids into the well. Mixed the remaining liquids in and mixed well with my hand. I then poured the Starter on top and attempted to fold/mix a very runny dough. I scrapped the counter with my fingers and added in another 1/3 cup flour as I tried to fold/knead the stuff. Sort of said the heck with it and covered it. Let it sit for an hour.)

First rise: 3 hours
Allow to rise at room temperature covered until doubled in size. It becomes light and puffy.

Refrigeration 2 hours or overnight
For at least 2 hours in the fridge. Overnight is also possible but it will need a longer rise in the mold later on. (Put it in the refrigerator. Two mornings later I allowed it to sit out on the counter 4 hours.)

Shaping
Fill the coffee can 2/3 full and allow to rise.
(There was really no shaping this for me. I divided the dough into four pieces and sort of rolled each piece into a cylindrical log and then let them slip into the parchment lined cans. The dough reached the top of my 14.5 ounce cans but the parchment doubled the height of the can so the result was the cans were about half full.)

Rising 1 -2 hours varies
At room temperature. If it’s been in the fridge overnight, at least 2 hours.

Baking 375°F for 1 hour
Pre-heat the oven 20 minutes before baking. How high the bread rises will depend on the strength of flour that’s been used. The Brioche is done when the crust is deep brown.

(Since I had 4 smaller loaves than the recipe’s 2, I reduced the temperature to 370° and baked the loaves for 50 minutes. Normally I would have used a thermometer to test for doneness; in this case I went on color alone.)

Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before removing from the mold. Twist gently to remove being aware the loaves are still very hot and allow to cool on a rack.

(Not having any of my cooling racks, I used the bottom rack of the oven over the sink.)

It freezes well for 6 weeks.

If you would like to join us being a Bread Baking Buddy here’s how:

* You have one week from our posting date to bake the bread and post about it on your blog with a link to the Kitchen of the Month’s post about the bread.
* E-mail the Kitchen of the Month with your name and a link to your post OR leave a comment on the Kitchen of the Month’s blog that you have baked the bread and a link back to your post.
* Kitchen of the Month will do a round-up of our Bread Baking Buddies at the end of the week and send you a BBB badge for that month’s bread.
* No blog, No problem - just e-mail the Kitchen of the Month with a photo of the bread you baked and you’ll be included in the round-up.

Kitchen of the Month is
*** Living on Bread and Water (Monique)
Buddy Posting Date is Monday 23 November

This goes to Susan at WildYeast for her weekly Yeast Spotting. I’ve come to look at the weekly Yeast Spotting as a delightful trip to a Bakery Wonderland! If you’re not familiar with Susan and Yeast Spotting, it’s explained here.

You love the smell of fresh bread baking right? Wouldn’t it be grand if you could get that fresh buttery yeasty smell at the drop of a hat? Bake this bread and for as long as you can keep slicing into this loaf, drop a slice into the toaster, you can have that same wonderful buttery yeasty aroma - the problem is can you make it last???

I gave two loaves away, one is in the freezer and one is in our tummies. Bake this, toast it and tell me how long you can keep it. I’m going to try to leave that one loaf in the freezer for Thanksgiving breakfast.

BBB: Tanta Wawa or Peruvian Bread Babies or Fancy Pants or Making Babies with Lynn

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:58:17 -0500

The minute I saw it, I knew I just had to be a copy cat! So, even though Gretchen is our Kitchen of the Month for this October and I know I should really rave on and on about what a really wacky group this is and how you (or at least I can’t) simply never can anticipate what bread is coming out of the oven and how we’ve traveled to Peru this month, you really have to go check out Monique’s baby in diapers.

Now, you understand Fancy Pants! I’ll call this the tuxedo of diapers since that is a napkin my Dad brought back for my Mom from Madera.

A little over two weeks ago while we were in Seattle Cookie Baker Lynn and I got to gather and made babies too.

We had more than just a few laughs with answering her husbands question of “What are you baking now?” with “We’re making Babies”!!

And boy did we make babies! Can you tell it’s a camel? Well, Gorn and our son could. Gorn & I thought this guy a little dry but

Son & Wife enjoyed it starting with the head.

By morning there was only the small front leg left ...

We made a fish which I tried to color coordinate. Which the boys in our Portland son’s house enjoyed ...

Along with the gun toting Bandolina Baby.

This is Lynn’s photo of the above two, much better than mine ... she’s had lessons from a real photographer!

But a diaper ... now how much more baby can you get. To do this guy I used a large cast aluminum ginger bread mold - lots of us thought the flavor of this was reminiscent of ginger bread though it has no ginger in it. The flavor is good, like the holidays.

This was really an adventurous bread baking making babies Gretchen, thank you!

Want to be a buddy for this month, check out Gretchen’s site for how and the date. We’d love to have you join in with us.

Last month Karen was Kitchen of the Month and I was really disappointed not to make the Steamed rolls with everybody. Well, I did them last night and I really will be excited to try them again.

I’m all ready now with my fancy bamboo steamer - somethings in life are not expensive.

I wasn’t overly taken with my filling this time but I can see the promise.

Thank you Karen.

Many times we refer to life as a journey. Life takes us on surprising twists and turns. Some turns are lovely to make ... for instance when there are two more grand babies on the way! Other turns are more difficult to make ... now is a difficult turn although not without some beautiful moments of discovery. Today Gorn and I are traveling to Houston’s MD Anderson to begin another turn in our journey together ... I hope you’ll forgive my quiet. We’ll basically be living in Houston until sometime in January.
If I have a goal here, it’s to keep up with the Bread Baking Babe’s monthly bread baking and we’ll see what else can be managed. Thank you all for your kind thoughts and letters. Know that you are missed.

BBB - Black Russian Rye

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:11:17 -0500

Talk about unique dough texture ... Talk about funky ingredients ... Talk about “unofficial” names like “Dump Bread” ... this bread is filled with weird wildness and overwhelming success with gorgeous deep rye flavors that get better and better with each passing day.

The texture of this dough is like none other. It is the most un-dough like I’ve ever kneaded. If you mix this one, I really encourage you to, you will doubt this could ever turn into a loaf of bread but I assure you it will. Great thanks to Görel our kitchen of the month for this excellent and unique bread.

Black Russian Bread
Courtesy Kitchen of the Month
***Grain Doe (Görel)
SOURDOUGH***

Dark rye flour 300 g (10,6 oz)
Water 350 ml (1,5 cup)
Active sourdough culture 2 Tbsp

SOAKER***

Old bread**, toasted 100 g/3,5 oz
Coffee, fresh ground 15 g/0,5 oz
Vegetable, neutral oil 25 g/0,9 oz
Molasses 60 ml/1/4 cup
Caraway seeds 2 tsp heaping
Fennel seeds 1 tsp
Minced shallots 2 Tbsp
Water, hot 400 ml/1 2/3 cup

FINAL DOUGH

Dark rye flour 300 g/10,6 oz
High gluten bread flour 400 g/14,1 oz
Salt 20 g/0,7 oz (approx. 1,25 Tbsp)
Instant dry Yeast: 1,5 tsp (0,17 oz)
Soaker All of the above
Sourdough All of the above

** I used half English Muffins and half ‘unknown’ bread slices from the freezer for the first bake. The second bake, I used bread from the first bake.

*** Be advised these are mixed separately but 12 to 14 hours before mixing the final dough.

Sourdough
Mix the ingredients to the sourdough, cover the container with plastic and leave for 12–14 hours at room temperature.
Soaker
Toast the old bread in a toaster or in the oven. The bread should be browned, but absolutely not blackened. Dice the bread or just tear it in pieces and put it in a bowl. Add the rest of the soaker ingredients except the water. Heat the water to near boiling and pour over the soaker ingredients. Cover and leave for the same duration as the sourdough.

Final dough
Mix the two flours in a separate bowl.
If using fresh yeast: Take a small amount of the soaker liquid and dissolve the yeast in it. Add the yeast mixture OR the instant dry yeast, soaker, sourdough and salt to a mixing bowl.
Add half of the flour mixture and work the dough by hand or in machine. Continue to add about 100 ml or ½ cup of the flour mixture at a time and work until the flour is completely absorbed before you add the next round. The dough shall be firm but still quite sticky. You might not use all the flour, or you might need to add more flour, all depending on the flour used.

Place the dough in an oiled container, cover with plastic and leave for 2–3 hours or until doubled in size.

Shaping and proofing
Drizzle some rye flour on the table top and place the dough on top. If the dough is very sticky, pour just enough rye flour on top of it to make it possible to handle.
Divide the dough in two and shape the parts into oblong loaves. (I placed them on parchment paper to make it possible to just slide the loaves into the oven.) Stretch the surface using both hands to get a tight loaf. Use more rye if the dough is too sticky to handle.
Cover with a tea towel and leave for 60 minutes. Don’t over-proof! (Fire up the oven after 30 minutes to have it ready.)
Baking
Pre-heat the oven with baking stone to 225 °C/435 °F.
Water mist oven.

Slash loaves - mostly I did this the second baking because I thought it was in the directions and it wasn’t.
Move the loaves to the hot stone or sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.
Open the oven door to vent out some moist. At the same time, lower the temp. to 200 °C/400 °F. Bake another 30-40 minutes or until they sound hollow when tapped underneath, or when the inner temperature has reached approx. 97 °C/207 °F.

Both my bakings took another 10 minutes to reach the 207°F.

Let the loaves cool down before you slice them. I allowed overnight cool down. Eat with butter and maybe some sharp cheese and salmon and mustard and ... !

If you would like to join us being a Bread Baking Buddy here’s how:

* You have one week from our posting date to bake the bread and post about it on your blog with a link to the Kitchen of the Month’s post about the bread.
* E-mail the Kitchen of the Month with your name and a link to your post OR leave a comment on the Kitchen of the Month’s blog that you have baked the bread and a link back to your post.
* Kitchen of the Month will do a round-up of our Bread Baking Buddies at the end of the week and send you a BBB badge for that month’s bread.
* No blog, No problem - just e-mail the Kitchen of the Month with a photo of the bread you baked and you’ll be included in the round-up.

Kitchen of the Month is
***Grain Doe (Görel)

Buddy Posting Date is Monday 7 September 2009.

I feel very confident that if you enjoy dark rye, you will love this one. An extra benefit is that not only does it keep well, it travels very well.

BBA - Catch up

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:20:28 -0500

Behind ... oh yes, I’m behind, so far behind. I’m going to play some catch-up with you today so don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

Corn Bread
When I’m looking for the WOW corn bread of the century to impress and/or just bring celebration to the table, this is my go to recipe. I’ve made it repeatedly since I first blogged about it here.

This is really a rich (depending on if you use the full measure of the bacon, butter and sugar, even cutting them in half produces fabulous corn bread) and luxurious corn bread.

Since I’ve baked it so many times, blogged it already and it’s really a winter special with stews, soups and

Vegetarian Cassoulet, I almost passed it up ...

but I did it anyway! it’s just that good. Toasted it’s breakfast in a slice.

Cranberry-Walnut Celebration Bread

Where in you discover just how distracted I’ve been.

It seems I took any number of photos of the dough and totally forgot the crumb. You’ll just have to trust me that is was gloriously grand crumb and walnuts & cranberries is a match made in heaven.

English Muffins

There seemed to be a general agreement that these English Muffins were excellent and so I was really looking forward to them.

They are easy to mix.

A little happy rising.

Easy stove top cook/baking ...

resulting in sweet little English Muffins.

Excellent eating.

I just missed the perfect open crumb in both the loaf

... and the muffins I did.

I am traveling again and internet access is a 40 mile trip. Since we’re on a beach, I try to make very many trips. Please excuse me for just a bit.

Next up will be the BBB of the month with Görel from Grain Doe as the Kitchen of the Month.

Gorditas

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:37:41 -0500

There are words that are just fun from the git-go: superkalafragalisticexpealedous ... snickerdoodles ... bib-itty-bob-itty-bo .... those kinds of words. Then there are words that you’ve heard, experienced and thought you knew. Words like Gorditas. If you are a Taco Bell person, no doubt you know their Gorditas. I thought I knew Gorditas ... ha! After reading Wikipedia, I realize Gorditas is really a rich word and I must see if Rick Bayless doesn’t have a recipe for Gorditas made with masa de harina. Until then, I’m super happy with these King Arthur Gorditas without the drive-through.

Strange how when I saw these gorditas on the King Arthur Bakers’ Banter site I nearly tripped over myself trying to enlist some BBB’s to bake them with me ... Bake I/we did.

Natashya has been bugging me ever since to blog about them and I just haven’t had the time. (That’s my story on the BBA breads that I’ve baked and haven’t put up yet either. Look out for a multi-bread post on them soon.) Even now Natashya has had her post up two days.

This is not difficult in the least. Even so you may find it employs a totally new technique. Part of the dough is slightly pre-cooked with boiling water. It makes for something feeling a little like play dough.

These are made with yeast but only a little so don’t look for a huge rise. Still you’ll see the effects so they do have a crumb. So easy, they “bake” on the stove top!

For my filling I grilled: onions, several different peppers, zucchini, and chicken. I used the Caesar Dressing on the King Arthur site as well (obviously this is not attempting to be authentic Mexican but it’s immaterial because it’s great to eat). Try the dressing, it’s excellent and use the anchovies. I don’t like anchovies but I loved this dressing.

A Grand Gorditas!

Thank you Elizabeth: the recipe the way we’re used to finding it can be found HERE. I had referred you earlier in the post to their blog where they use lots of photos here.

This goes to Susan at WildYeast for her weekly Yeast Spotting. I’ve come to look at the weekly Yeast Spotting as a delightful trip to a Bakery Wonderland! If you’re not familiar with Susan and Yeast Spotting, it’s explained here.

Florentine Pecorino Romano and Rosemary Bread

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 07:13:05 -0500

Thank you all for checking in on me these last two weeks. It may have seemed like I was missing in action here on this little blog but rest assured there has been plenty of action on my part ... precious little in the kitchen ... except I did bake the tahini swirls again while in Portland and an

Octopus Bundt Cake while in Seattle.

My first morning back in the kitchen this morning, what do you imagine was the very first thing I made, even before coffee? ... You know me so well. I mixed bread, of course, I mean there wasn’t any in the house. Then I went to the store for milk for my coffee.

The day before we left, I got on Amazon and ordered four new bread/baking books ... please I know I’m really ashamed ... but not enough to not order them and enjoy. So, this morning I picked up the smallest of the books and mixed the first simple straight dough I found.

Florentine Pecorino Romano & Rosemary Bread
Inspired by a recipe in
World Breads
Paul Gayler

100 g white whole wheat flour
380 g unbleached bread flour (strong)
120 g fresh grated Pecorino Romano
3 tablespoons flax meal
1 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 cup egg beaters (or one large egg)
45 ml olive oil
220 ml water
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary chopped fine

With flours, cheese, yeast, flax, and salt: lightly fluff together in a bowl.
Mix egg, oil and water together.
Pour liquids into dry ingredients and bring together.
Knead (perhaps 5 to 10 minutes) to form an elastic and pliable dough ball. With all the cheese (even with fine microplane) and the flax meal, I would not describe this as a smooth dough.
Form into a ball, place in lightly oiled container, cover and allow to rise until doubled. Mine took about an hour and 20 minutes.

Lightly degas the dough and divide in half when it has doubled in volume. Shape - I shaped mine into two oval bannetons.

Preheat oven to 375°.
Loaves should about double in volume again before being placed on preheated baking stone.
Spray loaves with water and slash before baking.
Bake 10 minutes at 375° and turn oven down to 355° for remaining 25 minutes. Mine measured 207° at the end of that time. This is a moist bread - all that cheese - filled with the lovely aromas of rosemary and the Pecorino Romano!

Heavenly bread ...

Tight crumb.

A sixteen month old keeps a body - actually all bodies - busy.

Making a balcony safe for a sixteen month old makes it somewhat easier to let him explore.

What started out to be an hour for coffee with Lynn (CookieBakerLynn) and Pat (FeedingMyEnthusiasms) turned into a chat with coffee, lunch and a walking visit to two chocolate shops ... well over three hours of delightful and thoughtful conversation with what seemed like old friends!

Toast and coffee this morning made editing the photos of our visit a joy.

And I refreshed my starter ... it smelled like apple cider, hope it’s still going to be good for rising some breads soon.

This goes to Susan at WildYeast for her weekly Yeast Spotting. I’ve come to look at the weekly Yeast Spotting as a delightful trip to a Bakery Wonderland! If you’re not familiar with Susan and Yeast Spotting, it’s explained here.

BBB Beirut Tahini Swirls

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:32:00 -0500

The kid in the candy store ... that’s me swirling in a cook book wonderland or is it a bakery ... I know it’s not a candy store.

I have so many things to tell you and no place to start. There is no beginning. There is no end. ... Don’t get distracted by that goodreads logo over there in the side bar. I’m going to tell you all about it at the end but you’ll want several of these swirls to get you through all the books that are coming.

Official stuff:
Kitchen Of the Month (where you’ll find the recipe):
Natashya ‘s
Living In The Kitchen With Puppies
The recipe comes from the wonderful
Home Baking:
the artful mix of flour and tradition around the world

The bread, ah well now it’s great tasting, great fun and incredible opportunity. As many times as I baked this - I really lost count - for whatever reason I don’t have an excess of photos to show for it.

We almost all (maybe it was all) liked this thin. So feel free to roll our your rolling pins and ROLL with this one. Yes, I added ground flax seed to my dough.

This is an easy dough to deal with in time and touch. The dough rises only once but it’s a long rise - mine took two hours.

I always like a long rise because it usually means I can run an errand or go to the gym or do a yoga class or page through a cookbook.

The shape is just fun. I mean don’t you think it’s fun to swirl, I do. You like to twirl and swirl don’t you? After this one I started using sparkling sugar on the tops.

The filling is where creativity and opportunity take flight ...

The ‘real’ filling for these is tahini and sugar and that is excellent. This is what is known as street food made for a quick bite. I made mine with brown sugar and tahini and we ate two each of this the first night.

Remember that DB Bakewell Tart with the almond Frangipane topping ... the only problem with it was I only had enough to make one.

Our absolute favorite of all the fillings? (And yes we did enjoy the peanut butter with brown sugar.)

Hands down winner was the Pesto I made with several kinds of basil from the garden. The recipe called for making the dough into six swirls but it’s trickier dividing dough into thirds than it is dividing a dough into half and half again to get four of these.

I found it was very easy to make four with four different fillings. **** I never baked more than half the dough a night. I mixed the dough, immediately divided it. Half was retarded in the refrigerator and the other half left to rise for the two hours.

I had planned to try making these smaller but instead used a pizza cutter to divide several into smaller pie shaped pieces as an appetizer before dinner.

After you’ve made at least one or two of these with sugar and tahini, I trust your imagination will run as wild as mine did and you’ll join us being a Bread Baking Buddy before August first.

About that GoodReads at the top of the right side bar: that is proving to be very bad news ... for my wallet and my book shelves with no more room. Yes, the BBB have formed a little group on GoodReads. We’re called the
Bread Baking Babes Bookies
and we’d love to have you join us. You’ll need to join GoodReads and then request an invite to join us. Hope to see you there.

This goes to Susan at WildYeast for her weekly Yeast Spotting. I’ve come to look at the weekly Yeast Spotting as a delightful trip to a Bakery Wonderland! If you’re not familiar with Susan and Yeast Spotting, it’s explained here. This week guest-hosted by ImAFoodBlog.

BBA Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 08:58:55 -0500

Blame ... should we really ‘place balme’ or should we just gloss over who’s to blame and take responsibility.

If you’re really paying attention you’ll have noted that while I’ve baked Challah, I haven’t posted a BBA Challah. While I’ve made Cinnamon Buns and Sticky Buns, I haven’t posted a BBA Cinnamon Bun or Sticky Bun. They just can not be baked in my oven in Dallas Texas in the ‘proper’ order.

I have however baked the BBA Cinnamon Raisin Bread.

And it is glorious. Everytime I bake out of this book, I’m thinking “This is just the very best bread.” I know that can’t seem real to you or maybe it can if you’re really a nut for bread like I am.

My husband loves cinnamon raisin bread but this changed even his mind. The stuff in the plastic bags has now been found to be ... plastic.

The neighbor called 20 minutes after I delivered a loaf to him and even though his mouth seemed to be full at the time I believe what he said was “This is the best cinnamon raisin bread I’ve ever had in my entire life. My loaf is half gone. Do you have another for me.”

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is the brain child of Nicole at Pinch My Salt. You can see what we’re baking this week at our Flickr group, on Twitter (#BBA), or check out the challenge page.

Oggi
Mags
Sally
Angela
TheMissingPiece
RoundTheTable
WayMoreHomeMade

And moving right along you’ll find the Babes have been a bake’n too ...

BBA Ciabatta

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 15:21:31 -0500

Years ago when I pulled my first loaf of Ciabatta out of my oven and inhaled that fresh baked Ciabatta aroma - oh there really is a very distinctive Ciabatta aroma different from other fresh bread - I was nearly knocked off my feet. On my way to a yoga class, I popped a still warm loaf into a paper bag and gave it to my teacher. Talk about knock you off your feet and swell with pride: Oh, what kind of bread? ... Smells like Ciabatta. I thought I’d made the big time if I could bake Ciabatta and somebody could recognize it by the smell.

I get the Ciabatta aroma every time I bake this bread ... what I don’t always get are the HOLES. Right. The aroma is characteristic and holes are suppose to be characteristic too. I’ve gotten the holes but I have not reached Ciabatta nirvana with any consistency.

Characteristic aroma and taste are coming from the time spent developing flavors in either a Pollish or a biga, I’ve done it both ways. I did it with a Pollish this time.

I use a square clear plastic rising box for this bread because of the folding technique. I flour the bottom of the box well.

The fold is called a “letter fold” because the dough is stretched out into a rectangle shape and then folded into thirds like you would fold a letter for an envelop.

It’s folded three times and allowed to rise. Gets pretty puffy.

I divided the dough into three loaves. The dough is again stretched and folded in thirds.

Gentle handling of the dough is always in order. Normally I might heat both ovens and do two loaves on my stone and one in the lower oven on clay tiles BUT it’s HOT here - I thought I could trick myself and set thermometers on C° but I discovered 38°C is just as HOT as 101°F. SOOOO, I determined to try and get all three loaves into one oven. I’ve always thought this was asking to much of my dexterity. What I tried and found worked very well was putting each stretched loaf onto it’s own separate piece of parchment and then sliding each one separately onto the stone. The parchment allowed for slight repositioning without deflating the dough!

Foiled by the Hole Eating Monster ...

Holes or no holes, this is really excellent bread.

My favorite way to enjoy a loaf of Ciabatta ... share it with my husband for our favorite sandwich.

The recipe can be found on Google Books but buy the book, if you enjoy breads and baking breads, it’s one of the most recommended and one I’ve turned to many times long before the BBA Challenge.

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is the brain child of Nicole at Pinch My Salt. You can see what we’re baking this week at our Flickr group, on Twitter (#BBA), or check out the challenge page.

A sampling of other BBA posts on Ciabatta:
Appoggiatura
Big Black Dog

I think I’m about to misbehave. Yes, I’m begging off the Challah Bread. Banish me to the garage like the puppy dog. It’s just that I’ve done Challah fairly recently with the Babes and I’ve even done this BBA recipe but haven’t blogged it. I just need to keep moving and the Ciabatta was calling my name so much louder than the Challah.

Have a Happy Fourth of July and everyday.

This goes to Susan at WildYeast for her weekly Yeast Spotting. I’ve come to look at the weekly Yeast Spotting as a delightful trip to a Bakery Wonderland! If you’re not familiar with Susan and Yeast Spotting, it’s explained here.

Financiers

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:23:11 -0500

Gold nuggets ... no I have no words of financial wisdom, Financiers here are little sweet bites of goodness. As with so many of these pastry things, these come to us from ... France ... when can I return? I’ve never had a Financier in all my times in France. I’ve seen them in many French bakery windows.

When Pat (FeedingMyEnthusiasms) ask us to bake something for Peabody’s birthday from off her blog, these are what rose off the back of my brain as something I’ve always wanted to try. I also know that there are three bloggers - Peabody, Tartelette and Lynn - who really brought these all together for me.

I still remember walking into Lynn’s (CookieBakerLynn) kitchen and she practically popped with excitement waving a spoon aimed for my mouth and proclaiming “You’ve got to taste this.” Browned Butter. You think you know the taste of butter, fancy European butters and what not, trust me you don’t know butter until you’ve tasted browned butter.

Nothing to it. Just melt it on the stove and then let it brown. What browns are all the solid milk fats. Watch it like a hawk so that you don’t burn it the first few times. After I’d done it a few times, I stopped watching until it would announce it’s self as starting to really work - it really starts to sizzle and pop on the lowest flame you can get - that’s when you’d best not get distracted. Burnt butter ain’t no good. Brown Butter is divine.

These Financiers are from Gale Gand’s Just a Bite book and they really bring out the brown butter WOW taste, a perfect show case.

I pretty much followed the recipe from the book - pretty much Peabody’s Financiers here - except I cut the recipe in half and measured cups into metric, so that’s what I’m going to give you here. You won’t believe how easy and gloriously browned butter little cakes can be until you’ve tried some of these.

BlackBerry Brown-Butter Financiers
Gale Gand’s just a bite

64 g butter - browned as above
26 g ground almond meal
55 g confectioner’s sugar
45 g all-purpose flour
65 g egg whites (from two eggs)
1/2 teaspoon applesauce

Strain the solid brown bits out of the browned butter (cheese cloth lining a strainer).
Whisk together the dry ingredients - there is no salt in this recipe. Add the strained and cooled brown butter, egg whites and that small 1/2 teaspoon applesauce. Half the recipe is a fairly small amount and I found it very easy to whisk this altogether by hand with a whisk.

Now here’s something that I always LOVE to find in a recipe:
At this point you can refrigerate the recipe for up to 3 days!!! You know what that means: I should have made the whole recipe and baked six to ten for the next three nights - what a silly girl I am sometimes.

Spoon the batter into the pan/molds - filling about 3/4 full. I followed directions and cut the blackberry in half and placed half on top of each filled mold - next time I’ll use the whole berry.

Bake at 375° for 14 minutes - 14 minutes is longer than given in the recipe but I think the size of my mold was slightly larger than Gale or Peabody used.

I’m telling you these are beyond “I’m only going to have one ... oops ... two ...” Ahem, well maybe it’s better I only made half the recipe.

A very happy 37 years to Pea.

Coming along soon some BBA maybe by Friday, who knows maybe we’ll have more company and it’ll be longer.

DB Bakewell Tart

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:28:26 -0500

Just call me Ms Procrastination White Rabbit but I’m not late YET.

This just out of the oven but with company coming for dinner hardly time for a write up.

With our lovely hostesses Anna Marie Ambrosia and Nectar and Jasmine Confessions of a Cardamom Addict not one but both with blogs I read all the time I couldn’t not bake the challenge this month. Besides after seeing Bakewell Tarts around over the years, I’ve always wanted to try one.

Two pieces of kitchen gadgets made this a much simpler challenge than it might have been.

The first was these “silly” - well I always thought they were until I tried them - rings for my rolling pin.

I used them to roll out the Sweet Short-crust for the Pastry in the tart.

The second “gadget”, I’ve come to appreciate as an essential, I’ve written about already here but I think it deserves another call to your attention. This particular recipe called for repeated “stop the mixer and scrape down the sides”. I didn’t stop my mixer once while creaming the sugar and butter or adding the eggs or ground hazelnuts (right, I didn’t have the almond meal) and flour while mixing the Frangipane.

If you don’t have a beater with wings, you want them. It works.

I seriously appreciate the Douglas Adams words of warning: “Don’t panic” inserted into the recipe by Annemarie &/or Jasmine. It certainly looked like I should panic but I followed your words of wisdom and solider on.

Given my procrastination and time line today, I opt not to make my own jam for filling.

I used this combo.

The redder is the Adriatic Fig Spread (the sweetest of the two), the darker is the Confit of Figs and Balsamic Vinegar (just a hint of the vinegar).

Since I can’t very well cut into it before dinner, the taste report will have to wait for an update. I think with a touch of whip cream it’s a safe bet we’re going to enjoy this.

Update

I understand I put my jam on to thick now. It was good and now ‘tis all gone.

Many thanks Annemarie and Jasmine AND always Lis and Ivonne.