smells like scones

I love it when I bake something, leave the house, and then come back and it still smells like freshly baked scones. Yummy!

German Chocolate Cake

Last night was my dad's chinese birthday. I say "chinese" because he goes by the chinese calendar, which always confuses me and is never the same date every year. I guess I can just reference a chinese calendar every year, but sometimes he will also celebrate his american birthday. So I never really know when to expect a birthday celebration until the day before, when he declares it's going to be his birthday the next day.

This year I decided to bake him his favorite cake. German Chocolate. My dad is definitely the kind of person who likes to stick to the same things, so it wasn't a surprise when he said he wanted to get a German Chocolate cake.

This was my first double layered cake that I've ever made. It was pretty easy, but it definitely doesn't have that pretty cake look to it. However, it sure was tasty!

Breaking up some chocolate



Making the topping





German Chocolate Cake!

focaccia

Last night my friend Kenny and I made two different loaves of focaccia from two different recipe books. The first recipe was from Alice Waters' cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, and the second recipe was from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. We also tried to make focaccia from The Silver Spoon, but we accidentally put twice as much yeast than we should have. Apparently dry and fresh yeast require different portions and that wasn't mentioned in the actual recipe, it was mentioned in the description which was confusing. So the dough smelled really yeasty, and didn't rise at all. We threw that batch away (I know, I hate wasting things), and baked the other two loaves in the oven.

Focaccia is just pizza dough, but instead of rolling it out in a circle, you spread it out in a rectangle pan, let it sit for 30 minutes so it can rise, and then form dimples in the dough with your fingers. However, there are a lot of different variations of pizza dough, so we tried two to start.

Making foccacia was an incredibly time-consuming project. The majority of time was spent waiting for the dough to rise on different occasions. First you would make the dough with yeast, let it sit for 2 hours, or until it doubled in size, then knead the dough, then let it sit for 30 minutes, then spread the dough out on the pan, then let it sit for 20 minutes, then bake it. We decided to top half of our focaccia with thin slices of tomato, parmesan cheese and rosemary. The other half was just cheese and rosemary.

The results were interesting. Mark Bittman's recipe came out more pizza looking, tasted more airy and salty than Waters' recipe. Waters' focaccia came out a lot more dense, I thought the flavor was more complex because rye flour was added to the recipe. Both turned out well, it's just a matter of preference as to what kind of bread you like.

Raw Ingredients



Spreading the dough out



Toppings



Before going in the oven



Bittman's focaccia



Waters' focaccia



MMMMMMMMMMM

Madison Market

Last night I went to Madison Market to pick up some rye flour. When I was there, my mind totally exploded from all the bulk selection they had. My friends introduced me to the market some time ago, but I never really made it out there to go grocery shopping. I feel like I didn't really appreciate their selection until I realized how difficult it is to get organic rye flour, or organic cake flour. (which they sell as organic pastry flour where you add 2 tsp cornstarch to make cake flour *so awesome!*)

The best part was that I was able to buy 3 servings worth of rye flour for the focaccia recipe for $0.45 (!!!)

I am going to buy pastry flour to make pound cake. It's gonna taste waaaaaay better than baking from a box of gross pilsbury cake flour and probably cost almost the same!

I love bulk! I love Madison Market!

Cornbread

I think everyone can agree that cornbread is one of those sweet/savory treats that is just great on its own or with a meal. It makes any meal more festive as a side!

Even kids love it!



With honey



Fresh out of the oven



My camera died, so I used my friend Aviva's iphone to document this yummyness. Thank goodness for technology these days! Thanks Aviva!

Just keep baking

After reading Julie and Julia, I fantasized about performing a project like that on my own.

{Julie is a girl who decides to cook every recipe in Julia Child's Cookbook in a year}

I never did, because of a list of things, like time, money, and thinking it would make me fat...but those are all just silly excuses. Soooooo, I decided to take on a project kind of like Julie and Julia, only I will be baking delicious treats every night insead of cooking meals. I've found it much more economical since I use a lot of the same basic ingredients, and then I can freeze the leftovers or give it easily to friends. I've already accomplished three nights in a row!

As much as I love cooking, I feel like anyone can do it. The secret is salt, cream, garlic, and onion and *poof* you have a mouthwatering meal. But I feel like baking is different. It's a science, it's specific, it's challenging, it's creative, and you really see your results. I feel like I enter a world of concentration, manual labor, and instant gratification once I am able to see my beautiful craftsmanship at the end of the day. It makes me giddy when I peek into the oven and see shapes form, browning on the top of the dough, and then to also be able to taste everything right out of the oven is just a dream come true!

On Monday I decided to make soft pretzels. They turned out so cute! Here are some pics of the process:

Making the dough



Poaching the dough



In the oven



Before going in the oven



Whooo Soft Preztels!






Tuesday I made beer battered cheese bread. My loaf of bread broke apart when I tried to get it out of the pan. I was sad, but then I ate it and didn't feel sad anymore. It was SOOOOO good. I am also going to make cheesy rolls instead of a loaf the next time I make it. I really enjoy the buttery crust, and I think that if I can cover more surface area with the butter crust the world might be a better place.

Since this didn't come out as well as I would have liked, there aren't very many pictures.

Beer-battered cheese bread



and today I made blueberry scones:

Placing blueberries on the dough









Blueberry scones!





I've been really happy with the treats I've made so far. I will update as I go along on my new adventures exploring the wonderful world of baking. Happy eating!