My Baking Adventures

I have been fortunate enough to have several comments from a few TWD visitors advising me to bake up the leftover brioche dough from last weeks round of sticky buns. I kept staring at the dough, thinking, today? No. Next day? No.

However, with my Friday night pizza dough rising, I took the opportunity to let them have a chat and rise side by side. I figured they would cheer each other on and maybe have a competition to see who would rise the highest first.

I found my cute little brioche pans that I bought a few years ago and still haven’t used - so this was the perfect opportunity to break them in.

How cute are these? I set them up next to the pizza dough and left them for several hours. Three hours later they still hadn’t risen very much (the pizza dough clearly won the rising challenge!!) but I forged ahead and baked them anyways.

They looked great, but for some reason, they had that funny yeast smell that comes from the dough not rising enough. Now, my sticky buns didn’t have that problem, so I’m not sure where I went wrong. I thought 3 hours would have been enough time, but maybe I should have left them longer.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hot wings have long been a family favorite - but when I order them in a restaurant, I am invariably disappointed. They are either too mushy or too greasy.

So I came up with a method of making hot wings that doesn’t involve a deep fryer and butter. Besides being healthier, they just taste better.

Prep the wings by cutting off the tip, and separate them into wing and drummette. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray liberally with non-stick spray. This is important because if you don’t, the wings will stick and be impossible to remove. Season with pepper and Mrs. Dash extra spicy seasoning.

Cook the wings in the oven at 375 degrees for 1 hour, turning them over halfway through cooking.

Put into a large bowl and coat with Franks Red Hot Sauce.

Serve with the usual accompaniments - celery and blue cheese dressing - because you will need something to cool your mouth down after eating these!!

Oh, this week’s VTV was such a slam dunk for me. Sometimes, I wonder if all the bloggers out here in cyberspace are hard-wired to the same frequency. It seems like everything goes in cycles - the same great ideas for dinner and desserts seem to show up about the same time. Either that, or a secret memo goes out that I’m not aware of.

So when Jen announced this weeks veggie of choice - spinach - I almost fell off my chair. Why, you ask? I had planned to make Ina Garten’s Spinach Pie this week! How nifty is that?

I have made this pie several times and it’s always delicious. But this week, with time running short - end of the school year, both kids birthdays, a cake order to fill - I skipped the puff pastry crust and baked this up in two small corning dishes. It’s a hit every time!

Spinach Pie - adapted from Ina Garten

2 tbs. butter
1 tbs. olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 clove minced garlic
1 10 oz. box frozen chopped spinach - thawed and squeezed dry
¼ cup chopped scallions
¾ cup grated parmesan
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbs. seasoned bread crumbs, plus additional for sprinkling on top
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease small casserole.

Heat butter and oil in medium skillet and cook onion until tender, 5-8 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Pour into a large bowl and add spinach, scallions, cheese, eggs, bread crumbs and season with salt and pepper. Mix well and pour into greased dish. Sprinkle with additional bread crumbs and bake for 20-25 minutes or until top is browned and mixture is hot.

Tara, from Smells Like Home, has started a cool new blogging event. It’s called “Barefoot Bloggers“, and twice a month we will make recipes from Ina Garten’s cookbooks. I told Tara I make so many of her recipes that I feel like a stalker, so this is a perfect group for me. In fact, I even signed up the kids!!

Tara chose the inaugural recipe for Herb Baked Eggs. Yay, something savory, not sweet!! Sabrina and I made our recipes side by side. Actually, she did most of the work while I took the pictures - don’t worry, no child labor laws were broken - contrary to what she might tell you.

The first thing we did was cut the recipe down. Then we put 1 egg each in my little ceramic ramekins. Also, we cut out the garlic and cheese, and subbed milk for the cream. Sabrina forgot that the amount of herb was supposed to be for 6 eggs, and she dumped all of it between the two ramekins. Oops. They took a little longer to cook than the recipe stated, but really, what an easy way to make great eggs. I don’t eat eggs often, so I cannot cook them very well - except hardboiled - so this was a new way for me to practice making them edible.

Well…………………..David loved them so much, he asked for them again 2 days later. If you like eggs, you should try this!!

Now head on over to Cooking With The Kids, and see how theirs turned out!!

Herb Baked Eggs

1/4 teaspoon minced fresh garlic (we omitted this) 1/4 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan (we omitted this too)
6 extra-large eggs
2 tablespoons heavy cream (substituted milk)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Toasted French bread or brioche, for serving

Preheat the broiler for 5 minutes and place the oven rack 6 inches below the heat.Combine the garlic, thyme, rosemary, parsley, and Parmesan and set aside. Carefully crack 3 eggs into each of 2 small bowls or teacups (you won’t be baking them in these) without breaking the yolks. (It’s very important to have all the eggs ready to go before you start cooking.)

Place 2 individual gratin dishes on a baking sheet. Place 1 tablespoon of cream and 1/2 tablespoon of butter in each dish and place under the broiler for about 3 minutes, until hot and bubbly. Quickly, but carefully, pour 3 eggs into each gratin dish and sprinkle evenly with the herb mixture, then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Place back under the broiler for 5 to 6 minutes, until the whites of the eggs are almost cooked. (Rotate the baking sheet once if they aren’t cooking evenly.) The eggs will continue to cook after you take them out of the oven. Allow to set for 60 seconds and serve hot with toasted bread.

Last month I had the good fortune to join the Daring Bakers. Now, most of you are familiar with this select group - if not, head on over to their page and read the history of how this group got its start. It’s really a great story about how two friends started a challenge between themselves and found another 650+ bloggers to join them.

However, this months entry should be classified under the “what have I gotten myself into” category. The wonderful ladies at Daring Bakers chose Opera Cake for the May Challenge. Whoa. Stop right there. I’ve never been to an opera much less eaten a cake named Opera.

What’s a girl to do? This was my first project with the Daring Bakers and I really wanted to make a good impression. I mean, there are 9 pages of instructions! Since running away screaming wouldn’t solve anything (and most likely scare the kids), I sat down and wept. No seriously, I think I read the instructions 5 times before it all started to gel. My brain, I mean.

An Opera cake is composed of 5 separate elements: Joconde (sponge cake), flavoring syrup, buttercream, mousse and glaze. Broken down, each element is simple enough as it is. But if you have to make all of them on the same day? Ha! Not in this house. Fortunately, each element can be prepared ahead of time and assembly will be a piece of cake. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Part of our instructions were to keep all of the components “light” in color. No chocolate, coffee, etc. Easy enough. My first step was to see about a substitute for the almond meal in the cake. I figured that a cake of this magnitude needs to be shared with everyone, including Sabrina. So Natalie came to my rescue. She suggested several different types of flours to sub out for the nuts, and ultimately I decided to go with the rice flour. The cake was easy enough to make, except that my beautiful 7 Qt. Cuisinart Mixer decided to go out of alignment that day and wouldn’t close properly. Ok, that’s a crisis in itself except I couldn’t do anything about it but hope for the best. Well, the mixer gods were smiling on me that day so I was able to finish the cake and make the buttercream.

Wow, the buttercream was unbelievable. I’ve never had it quite like that, since the last time I made it (not from the same recipe) all you could taste was butter. This recipe is a keeper. And to top it off, there was some confusion over the precise measurements to insure consistent results - all that being said though, it came out perfectly.

The next day, assembly began. I chose a lemoncello syrup, lemon mousse and a lemoncello glaze. I cut the cake into 3 inch squares, moistened them with the syrup and layered them with the buttercream. I chilled them, and then carefully spread the lemon mousse on the top layer of cake. So far, everything was going really well.

And then disaster struck.

I don’t like white chocolate at all, so I whipped up a lemoncello glaze to top the mousse. As I began pouring it over the mousse, it started to slide off the cake and pull the mousse with it. As I stood watching, helpless, I realized there was nothing I could do. And to add insult to injury, I had prepared this for Mother’s Day dessert. My mother was due for dinner in 2 hours and I had a mess on my hands. I glazed two of the cakes and left the others with just the mousse. After dinner was finished, I brought out the cakes with jittery nerves. Now, of course that day it was 92 degrees, so you can imagine what happened while the cake was outside for 5 minutes waiting to be served. Yep, the mousse started to melt. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my mom took a bite and said, “This really isn’t very good.” Sigh. I cut my losses and threw the cake out. It was very hard to do that, seeing all my hard work dumped into the trash.

Yes, I have plenty of pictures that look worse than this but utter and complete embarrassment is preventing me from showing them to the public.

Ok, I have officially flunked my first round with the Daring Bakers. I hope they don’t throw me out for failure. I tried so hard! I can honestly say I would probably not make this again, but it sure was a great challenge and I learned some new tips, techniques and…………………. how not to make an Opera Cake!!

I’ll hang my head in shame and go visit the other members to see how great theirs came out. I am not posting my recipe since it was so mangled that NO ONE would want to make it. So if you would like the original recipe, (all 9 pages of it!!) email me and I’ll send it to you!!

Welcome back for another tasty round from the TWD gang. This weeks selection was Pecan Honey Sticky Buns from Madam Chow’s Kitchen. What a great recipe! What a lot of work!

Now, after reading the directions just for the brioche dough, I know why anyone that didn’t have a stand mixer was excused from this project. I was a bit concerned for my own mixer after I could smell the heat from the motor. Of course, that would have meant another trip to Sur La Table to exchange another mixer. However, it all came together (in a manner of speaking) and onward I went in my journey to honey-bun-land.

I decided to ditch the pecans (for Sabrina’s sake) and make “mini-stickies”. They were TASTY! The brioche dough by itself was delicious, but add in the syrup and the filling and I’m surprised we didn’t combust from the sugar rush! Holy moly!

Sabrina and I ate them right out of the oven, between mouthfuls of “ohmygoshthisissohot” to “oh my gosh these are so good!” The boys didn’t try them, so I quickly wrapped up what was left to keep us from demolishing the rest of them. I cut the remaining dough into manageable chunks and froze it, and I’m looking forward to baking up that dough as a loaf of bread.

Umm-umm good! I can’t say I would make the buns again, but the brioche dough definitely was worth the effort. For the recipe, please click here.

Coming up next week - French Chocolate Brownies!

Yesterday was just such a blah day - the weather was rainy, cold and everyone was feeling so out of it. I wasn’t inspired to make anything other than the VTV carrots.

Today, however, the sun is shining (somewhat), and we are all a little more with it. David and Sabrina are working on their meatballs which I’ll post later. I made cheese filled crumb muffins and they came out perfect. I know what you’re thinking - crumb muffins again? But Alexander polished off the last of them, and it has been about a month since we had any. And besides, these rival any Entemann’s cheese danish (which I NEVER buy!). These are alot smaller, since the last time I made them they were way too big.

The original muffin recipe comes from Gourmet Magazine - they are quick and simple to get into the oven, and they lend themselves to many variations. I made espresso chip to take to Sabrina’s teacher one morning for a meeting and they were outstanding. Only problem, her teacher doesn’t like coffee. Oops.

Mix-In Muffins - Gourmet Magazine

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup butter
1 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, melt butter. Add the sour cream, egg and vanilla and blend thoroughly. Stir the butter mixture into the flour mixture just until combined. The batter will be very thick.

Divide the batter among the prepared cups - then place a tablespoon of the filling into the center of each muffin. Bake for 10 minutes, then sprinkle the crumb topping over each muffin, then continue baking for another 10 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

Cheese Filling

8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth, then blend in egg and vanilla.

Crumb Topping:

½ cup butter, melted
1 cup flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon

Stir together dry ingredients, then toss with melted butter until large crumbs form.

This weeks veggie of choice was Bugs Bunny’s personal favorite, the carrot. Now in our house, we usually enjoy carrots raw, with Marie’s Ranch dressing or Sabrina’s favorite, Catalina dressing. However, in our attempt to expand our horizons (that’s the point of this, right?) I WAS going to make a carrot casserole recipe that I swiped off of AllRecipes. But alas, that didn’t happen. I got behind with a whole litany of excuses that are not important enough to repeat, and really, do you care? So I remembered a recipe for Honey Glazed Carrots that sounded really good. But I had forgotten to write it down, so I just went off memory.

Well, they turned out fantastic. I never would have tried this if it wasn’t for VTV!! David and Sabrina loved them, and Alexander did try them but he only likes carrots in his grandmothers chicken soup. Hmmmpph. His loss.

Tonight, as an added bonus, you get two recipes - the first is the Honey Glazed Carrots, and the other is the Cafeteria Carrot Souffle. I’ve actually made this souffle before, so this recipe is my modified version - I cut the sugar and butter way down - and it’s really delicious. I highly recommend it.

Honey Glazed Carrots

4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
2 tbs. butter
Salt and pepper
1 tbs. honey

In a large saute pan, melt butter. Add carrots and cook until carrots are tender but still crisp - about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add honey and stir until honey melts and coats carrots. Remove from heat and enjoy!

Cafeteria Carrot Souffle

2 pounds carrots, chopped
¼ cup melted butter
¼ cup white sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Steam carrots until tender, about 15 minutes, then mash. To the carrots add melted butter, white sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla extract and eggs. Mix well and transfer to a greased 2 quart casserole dish.

Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes.

This really isn’t relevant to anything, just some mindless rambling -

It’s 6:30 a.m., and totally quiet right now. The kids are still sleeping, and I have one member of my puppy posse with me. I’m enjoying what will probably be my last cup of hot coffee for a while. The high temp today will be 68 degrees. In May. In Las Vegas.

By Monday, the temps will be back to normal (translation: HOT), the kids will be climbing the walls, and any semblance of order will have left the building. So I’m just going to sit back, sip my Dunkin Donuts coffee, and enjoy this while it lasts.

Ok, party’s over - I hear footsteps……………….

Well, this definitely was not a regular Friday pizza and movie night.

First of all, the kids wanted to watch the new National Treasure 2 movie, which we actually watched on Tuesday (!), right when the movie was released. They hadn’t seen it in the theater, because Sabrina has issues with movie theaters - she doesn’t like the dark and the loudness of the surround sound. Bummer for me, because at home there are too many distractions - i.e. the dogs, phones, and Alexander talking.

Second, in our quest for the most perfect pizza, we determined that our pizza oven just wasn’t cooking the crust the way we like it. And in all the research we have done, the only way to achieve that crispy crust is with an oven temp of 650 degrees and above. Well, we don’t own an oven that goes that high - are there any out there that do?

Enter the barbecue. Last time we checked, that baby goes up to 750 degrees. Woohoo!! I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say thanks to amazon.com, we bought a Villaware barbecue pizza stone for $63.00, with super saver shipping. The regular price for the stone is, wait for it……..$100.00 from Williams Sonoma. Bonus!!

So tonight, we put the stone on the cue, fired it up and made our pizzas. Here’s the first picture of the stone on the grill. Now remember, this is after we’ve used it….that’s why it looks all splotchy….

This next picture is to show you how nice the stone looks on the grill. This is David’s domain. No one is allowed to touch it. He loves his barbecue! It’s okay, because I don’t let him touch my Cuisinart Mixer. My dad gave him this barbecue on the condition that David cook a steak for him (my dad) at least once a month. David upped the deal and told my dad that he would cook anything, anytime my dad wanted. Sausages, chicken, steak, shrimp, vegetables - you name it, it’s been cooked out here. Now we can add pizza to the ever expanding list.

So the finale to the pizza story here here is that the pizzas were soooo good, and soooo crispy, they never made it to the dinner table. We ate them, running back and forth to the grill as we cooked the rest of them. The last time I had pizza this good was in a restaurant. Actually, I take that back. This was better. And here is the last pizza we made, the only one left (I made four!).

So how did I top off this amazing dinner? Glad you asked. Because I went on a biscotti baking blitz today. The weather has been so strange. On Monday, the temperature was 106. Today, rainy and 57. Oookkkaaayyyy. So it was perfect weather to bake biscotti. I had a Lemon Semolina Cookie recipe from Gina DePalma (the Babbo pastry chef) that I wanted to try, plus I made Orange Biscotti and Chocolate Espresso Bean Biscotti from Dorie Greenspans book. Yes, I know, I feel like I’m cheating on the group but there was a shortage of biscotti around here so it was necessary to replenish the supplies in order to avoid a mutiny.

The Lemon Semolina tasted just like a soft biscotti. The lemon flavor didn’t stand out enough so I think next time I’ll use more lemon zest, and double the amount of limoncello. The orange biscotti were really good. They had a good, strong orange flavor. And for the chocolate biscotti, I used chocolate-covered espresso beans instead of plain chocolate chips.

So as you can tell, I had a really successful day. Tomorrow, the kids are cooking, so I may not be as productive. But I’ll let you know so you can check out what they’ve done!!