Wishing you happy days and smooth sailing

 

Never been one to reflect and look back, too busy looking forward and planning ahead, making my lists.

This year feels different. These tiny crybabies are 15 going on 20 (at least that’s what they think) .. and the one on the right is 18 and going to spill coffee grounds in his own room-away-from-home next year.

Ch Ch Ch Changes…

 

 

 

 

 

 

We all wish you a very Merry Christmas, Happy days and smooth sailing in 2012

 

Karen

Bread Baking Babes Stollen (part two)

The final breads.. what comes to mind immediately is the phrase: Function before Form… I am not too happy with the shape I got. Serves me right for shaping hastily, before dashing off (ha! Dashing…) for an unexpected errant, coming back to a fully risen tableau of three loaves that amiably pushed against each other.

Although… I am quite smitten with this littly beauty up here! This one I shaped into an oval to distinguish it from his two brothers because it’s got almond paste inside where the other two are filled with little marzipan balls.
Also this is the only one that got a coat of home made clementine-ginger jelly and the festive bigarreaux (in other words hideous coloured cherries shouting Christmas to me). Love it!

Two of the loaves are resting in the freezer now, the sugar dusted one is cut and eaten as we speak. It’s good! Could use some more filling I guess but I had to fiddle with it because my stash was diminished by me previous Baking Babes try. These have currants, raisins, cranberries, abricots and candied ginger inside. No nuts. Just Glory.

Bread Baking Babes: Stollen for Christmas

   For the last time this year we managed to get around the table with Susan steering us towards a true Christmas Stollen! A stollen with a twist, because this one is made with an overnight preferment and loads of butter.

Of course there should be butter in your stollen but this one called quite some and then some more!

The dried fruit got it’s overnight soak in a little rum, smelling lovely in the morning. (I’m allowed to sniff a whiff although it’s early morning right?). Then my predicament began… the dough with all the spices smelled so good, the preferment was incorporated well and nice, the dough spinning it’s circles in the mixer, getting stronger and pliable at the same time. So far so good.
Our Susan is an excellent recipe writer, taking you by the hand and leading the way, she specifically mentioned that this dough needs a long time to knead (around 20 minutes depending on your mixer)  but I overlooked the fact that it doesn’t rise much in it’s first stage. I was waiting and waiting, willed it to show some progress. Worried I put it in the steamer oven on the rise setting, get it to move! By the time it did, it was late at night. Too late to bake. I felt horrible but deflated it (poor thing, did all it could only to get deflated!) and put it in the fridge. The next morning I had a pathetic cookie like dough. Waited a couple of hours but decided this wasn’t going to work. All my fault! Today I baked stollen. Not Susan’s but my own recipe because I wanted to show and tell and had no time to set the preferment yesterday. Please head to Susan’s for her recipe, do as she tells you to do and I am sure you’ll have a wonderful Stollen with extra depth from the preferment and the spices! Go on and make your family some great Stollen and become our Bread Baking Buddy!

Above is mine… those marbles you see peeking out? They are marzipan balls coated in cocao. Left over from our Sinterklaas celebration and although Susan didn’t call for any almond paste/marzipan in her recipe I know I’m in trouble with my family when there’s no “pot o’ gold” inside. I made three Stollen, one with traditional almond paste and two with the marzipan balls inside.

They’re all baked and sitting out on the counter all nice and golden but this is no time to make pictures. Will post tomorrow with final pics and the recipe.

Oh and please? Do make your own candied citrus peel…. it is so darn good!!

Thanks Susan for having us, especially today, hope you had a great day!

Whole wheat honey buns – steamer oven muffin tin

I guess I still know how to bake bread? Suddenly the boys remembered their Mom used to bake bread regularly.. They smelled them, found them, ate them and asked for more. As if a memory of how bread can taste/smell came to the surface all at once.

I really try to use my combi-steamer more, or rather incorporate the use in everyday cooking. Or, in this case baking. This is a rather simple bread dough in itself but using a muffin tin and the steam setting on my oven produced a wonderful result.
The crust was deliciously crisp and the interior still moist with that nutty whole wheat flavour and a tiny hint of sweet by using a little honey.

For the dough:

300 gr. whole wheat
200 gr. bread flour
1.1/2 tsp instant yeast
1.1/4 tsp regular table salt
1 heaped Tbs honey
325 gr milk
3 Tbs oil/butter

Bread maker: Combine all ingredients in a bread maker and choose the dough setting.

Stand mixer: Combine both flours, yeast, salt, oil and stir with a spoon, start the mixer on medium speed using the dough hook and add the milk, pouring slowly. Knead in slow to medium speed until the dough is coming together and clears the bowl.

Continue mixing in medium speed until the gluten is well developed. Window paning will not work as well with this whole wheat dough as it will with all white flour.  The dough will curl around the hook and does not stick to the sides of the bowl. (Some will still pool on the bottom of the bowl.)

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover and leave to ferment for about 45-60 minutes. I’d like to pull the dough up and over itself halfway, just to give it a little more oomph.

Shape: Tip dough out of the bowl onto your lightly oiled work surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll into a ball using a cupped hand and exerting a little pressure on your dough ball –pushing it against the work surface- while making circular motions. Doing this will create tension and leave you with a nice tight surface –and a little belly button showing on the underside of your roll- :-D

When you are going to use a muffin tin to bake in, grease it well! Make sure you also grease the circumference on the top. These are going to grow and puff and you will want them to slide out, not hack them out! They will hold up equally well if you’re baking them stand alone btw.
Place your balls of dough in the muffin tin, cover and leave to rise 45 minutes.

I used the rise setting on my steamer oven and didn’t need to cover because of the steam. Do you think they are ready to bake?

Bake in preheated oven (200C) for 15-20-25 minutes. Yes I know, strange times but it all depends on how large your muffin tin is and how hot your oven runs. Just keep an eye on them and look for a really nice honey golden color.
For me it was easy, my oven has a “bake buns program”  which uses steam and fan in the first 10 minutes and then adjusts the heat to bake the buns off. Really scary to leave it all to the machine and at the same time strangely relaxing to just push a button and walk away. I have to admit that I stayed and watched the first time I used that setting, didn’t trust it for one bit. It does feel a bit like cheating actually.

When baked leave them to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes, maybe a tad longer. They will work up some sweat (haha no, but they will steam up a little and make release a bit easier on you). Don’t keep them too long in the tins though!
Pry them out and leave to cool on a rack. Mine was in use so I put them on a wooden board on their sides. They look like giant toadstools no?

Steam the easy way: Put an old shallow tin on the lowest rack in your oven as it heats up and at the same time you slide your bread in toss a handfull of ice cubes in the tin.Or, but please be careful!  Same tin, preheated together with the oven, but in this case pour about 1 cup of hot water in the tin. Close the door, let bake and after 10 minutes into baking time, open the oven door hereby venting the steam and remove the steam pan. Let the buns bake according to the directions.

Fellow Babe Wild Yeast Susan did research on how to and why to steam, you can read all about it here.

In the meantime she patchworked some…

Hmm, that sounds very much like I am actually working. Nice. Patch Work. Anyway, some time ago an idea started to take shape in my head and I took off on this supersecret project which I can’t discuss here because the person receiving this might be reading along and the proceedings weren’t much to my liking.
What I really thought was something along the lines of: well how hard can it be? You cut some squares from different fabrics and then you’ll sew them all together again in a different order. Pah. I can do that. First started out with my fabric scissors.. hmm.. can’t this go quicker and more precise? So I asked and got myself a self healing mat (I like that word) and a rotary cutter for my birthday. Nice!  But it needs some getting used to. No really. And there are tricks. And rules.
Turns out there are all kinds of tricks and rules. Because when you’re done rotary cutting (straight lines girls, and straight lines are hard!)  then you find out that that old fabric that you had is not the best for a beginner. Stretchy denim anyone? Not good. Upholstery quality fabric? Not good. Well I suppose it can be done and I did it but easy and beginner worthy it is not. Then with that experience under my belt I started on the secret project. Using all cotton this time. But all cotton is not equal I found. Some cotton is a looser weave. And it will warp while sewed.
I huffed and puffed and read loads of stuff online, how to’s, tutorials, went to the library, you name it I read it. (Well, a lot anyway). Then I debated for a little while and finally allowed myself a quilting class. So that is what you see here. This is going to be a sampler quilt, learning different techniques along the way.



Choosing fabric or rather colors is a whole new subject on itself. Boy that is HARD!
I wanted this to be something I would really use and see. So I thought I’d use purple and green because our livingroom is all shades of grey and I am currently in love with bright green and purple accents. Think grape hyacinth purple and green. Something like this.
I don’t think I got what I had in mind. I was a bit intimidated by the choice of fabrics in the quilt store and the teacher helped me get fabrics together. When she showed me her pick I thought okay, let’s do that, but I am not so sure about the result. I think a beginner is allowed her first quilt to be not so great but that is something that I have some trouble with. I need everything to be right from the start. Yeah, I like being hard on myself. (those pesky points need to line up exactly… aargh!! I am so impatient, I want to see results! Can’t use that here.. Teacher said that it is about the journey as well, not about being there. I think I need that as my mantra.
I found I like patchworking. I love it. Especially since we did two blocks of paper piecing! Love it!
I thought I’d let you know. There are some more blocks ready but not photographed yet. Will keep you informed. About the journey. Not the result. :-D