Homemade Seed-uction Bread (a title that happens when Sarah forgets to put up a title)

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there! Now, I've seen a lot of people posting on Facebook today about how they have the best mom in the world, but the Baking Sisters know that that's not true, because they're not our siblings and therefore can't possibly have the best mom in the world. This article in today's Times made me think of her, because as we've noted here before, our mom is not the cooking type, but that doesn't make her any less of a mom. We may not have learned our mad baking skillz from her, but we learned pretty much everything else, and she is such an amazing role model in every way. So I'm putting the truth out there: Ruth Jarmul is the best mom in the world. And now it's on the Internet, so it has to be true.

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to bread. What is more comforting and homey and mom-like than a loaf of fresh-baked bread? (See what I did there?)  The roots of this bread was that I wanted to make a loaf for a dinner I was hosting and I had some leftover whole wheat flour I was trying to get rid of, so I looked up a yummy-looking bread recipe on the King Arthur Flour site. As so often happens with these things, I ended up having to buy all of these extra ingredients in the service of getting rid of the whole wheat flour. Whoops.

Mostly, it was because of the Harvest Grains Blend. In typical excellent planning fashion, I decided to make the bread two days before the dinner, and there wasn't enough time to order the HGB from the KAF site, so I found this nice homemade recipe over at the Bread Virgin. So now I have a large tupperware full of leftover wheat flakes, rye flakes, flax, etc. There are worse things to put in a tupperware, especially since I really love seed bread. My favorite bread in America is called Seed-uction bread, and it's from Whole Foods, and every time I ask for it I'm unbelievably embarrassed. My favorite bread in England is called Thousand-Seed Loaf, and it comes from Derek in the market at Cambridge. So I was really excited to find an amazing seed bread that I could make in my very own home! This bread is excellent. It's rather dense and a little nutty, with that wonderful crunch inside and out. Plus, it's just beautiful to look at, and is sure to excite oohs and aahs at your next dinner party before anyone even takes a bite. Like all bread, it takes forever to make, but it's not too difficult, and totally worth it! Make some for your mom today! You can find the recipe here.

Cookie Butter/Biscoff/Speculoos...Whatever You Call It, It is Yum!

Cookie Butter.  Biscoff.  Speculoos. There doesn't seem to be a tremendous amount of agreement about what to call this spread, but whatever you call it, it is delicious.  It is a little spicy, a little sweet, a little cinnamon-y and a lot of yum.  There doesn't actually seem to be a lot of reason to cook with it, when you can just eat it straight from the jar or spread on toast, but I thought I would try something different.  

I always look for excuses to eat cookies for breakfast and scones are just a way of eating a cookie in the morning.  This scone recipe comes from King Arthur Flour.  It has a five star rating and recipes from that site with a high rating have never failed me.  I love the way they explain everything and lay it out step by step.  These scone were tender, with a great crumb and a sweet cinnamon flavor from the cookie butter (which I bought at Trader Joe's, by the way).  In the recipe, there is a glaze but I skipped it and just spread the cookie butter directly on the scones.  A tasty morning or anytime treat (and they freeze really well!).

You can find the recipe here.

The Long-Awaited Brownies

So this is one of those recipes that I make all the time but for some reason never got around to blogging about. I made them last week for Baked Goods Friday, but I forgot to take a picture – the picture is from first semester of my senior year of college. That’s how long I’ve been meaning to blog about these brownies. 

What do I love about these brownies? Um, how about EVERYTHING. First of all, they are made with almost an entire box of butter. You simply can’t go wrong there. Second of all, you get to brown butter. I’ve been able to brown butter successfully for a few years now, but it still feels like a major accomplishment every time. Third of all, there’s the combination of chocolate, caramel-y flavor (the browned butter), and salt, courtesy of the brittle on top. Oh yes, fourth of all, the brittle. It is so good that you may want to make extra to just sit around in your freezer and eat it as a snack. Fifth of all, you can make the brownies in advance and then frost them at your leisure - the perfect way to jazz up an otherwise plain and homely brownie. Sixth of all, if you don’t feel like making brownies (in which case, what is wrong with you, you fool), you can also use the frosting and brittle on a chocolate cake to delightful effect. 

Okay, hopefully that is enough to convince you of the greatness of these brownies. The brownie recipe is here (although feel free to substitute your own favorite brownie recipe); the frosting and brittle recipe is here. 

What's Black and Orange and Sweet All Over?

Hi all! I'm happy to report for all those concerned (none of you) that Rachel and I are safe and sound. Those of us on the Upper West Side were fortunate not to suffer any damage from the hurricane, and now we're doing our best to help those who did. If you feel so moved, please donate to the Red Cross before reading today's post.

There were many sad things about the hurricane, one of which was that it coincided with Halloween. Luckily, Chris Christie is on it; he has, by executive order, officially proclaimed Halloween in New Jersey to be next Monday, the 5th. Here in New York, however, it was still on October 31st, which meant the slutty pumpkins were out in full force, the kids were trick-or-treating at stores along Amsterdam Avenue, and some doodoohead in our apartment building stole the entire bowl of candy we left out when none of us were home. It also meant it was time for a special Halloween edition of Baked Goods Friday at the Oxford University Press office! After many successful years of Halloween cupcakes, brownies, and Oreo cheesecakes, I knew that I needed something thematic. I had been wanting to try my hand at black-and-white cookies anyway, so I thought, AHA! What if I adapted them to make them...black and ORANGE cookies? For black and orange are the traditional Halloween colors.

So I made a batch of the black and white cookies from Baked Explorations, but those are best not discussed (let's just say that I ran out of flour and had to substitute 1 cup of semolina for a cup of all-purpose. And that was one of the less unfortunate things I had to do. I never even bothered frosting them, though they tasted rather good, kind of like cornbread. Who knew.) Then I turned to good ole King Arthur Flour, mostly because I had all the ingredients onhand that I needed for their icing. Very scientific. Apparently black and white cookies are sometimes called half-moon cookies, which for some reason seems unbelievably goyische. Anyway, it was pretty straightforward. The cookies came out nice and cakey, which as everyone knows is the main criteria by which a good black and white cookie must be judged. The frosting never really hardened; I don't know that it was supposed to but that's really one of my favorite parts of your typical New York deli black-and-white. Also, the white (I mean orange) frosting didn't taste that good. Maybe it was the dyes from the frosting - Wilton burgundy mixed with Wilton yellow - but it had a bit of chemical aftertaste. Oh well, I guess that's what you get when you choose a frosting based on the ingredients that are already in your cabinet. The chocolate, however, was delicious, and they were both very easy to spread. Of course they came apart in between Amsterdam Avenue and the office, as cookies tend to do, but they were still a big hit at the office. You can find the recipe here.

P.S. If you were looking for an answer to the riddle in the title of this post, it was Halloween. Yes. Halloween. AahOOOOOOOH! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC44rTFo4Zk 

Mini Chocolate = Yummy Chocolate

Happy New Year!  I hope 2011 is off to a great start for all of you.  What better way to start the new year than with chocolate?  Truth is, I made these a long time ago and am just now digging them out of the archives, but they are a great treat.  They are even good for new year's resolutions!  They are so tiny and fairly rich, so you feel satisfied after eating just one.

It is a little hard to see in these pictures, but these are mini molten lava cakes.  They achieve that effect from putting a couple pieces of chocolate into the center of the cakes and then baking them.  The chocolate melts and the outside is the perfect consistency.  When you break into them, chocolate oozes out, just like a lava cake.

What makes them better than lava cakes is that you can freeze them!  With lava cakes, if you were to freeze them after baking, they would likely loose their molten centers upon reheating.  Since the molten part of these cakes comes from chocolate, they can be frozen and reheated and the chocolate just melts again.  Yummy!

These were very easy to make.  The only trouble I had was that some of them stuck to the pan.  I would recommend greasing your mini muffin tins really, really well.

You can find the recipe here, from the great King Arthur Flour.  If you want step by step instructions, those can be found here.

Ethnic Flavor: It's A Menorah! It's A Chanukiah! It's...Cupcakes!

Time for a nerdy true confession: I've been dying to make this cupcake menorah ever since I saw it last December on the King Arthur Flour blog. Christmas has so many treats - peppermint bark, gingerbread men, nasty-ass fruitcakes - so why couldn't we have one too? This was the perfect solution: religiously relevant AND tasty, which is more than you can say for the Christmas food! Anyway, I prepared assiduously, buying special blue and white cupcake wrappers at Zabar's and exorbitantly expensive blue sugar at East Side Marketplace.

I used the recommended recipe, a KAF guarantee (although being a poor college student who had just shelled out five dollars for blue sugar, I was not using KA Flour). I'm not wild about their method, which involves beating butter into the dry ingredients instead of the usual butter-sugar-eggs-dry ingredients steps. That's not maligning the finished product, though; my complaint is more that flour gets everywhere when you're working with a hand mixer. But the finished cake was delightful, dense and moist. Also, I have to put in a plug for these cupcake wrappers. They're the kind where you don't even need a cupcake tin, you just stick 'em on a cookie sheet and bam, you're done. I was skeptical that something so magical could exist but let me tell you, these were the most evenly baked cupcakes I've ever made. The wrappers are as sturdy as they are pretty. They really get the job done!

But enough plugging. I made a simple buttercream - two sticks of butter, a bunch of confectioner's sugar, a dash of vanilla - and piped it on. With the blue sugar sprinkled on top, it ended up being almost overpoweringly sweet, so I was glad that the cupcakes themselves were more delicately flavored. All in all it was really adorable and fun and I think it will make a great holiday tradition!


Here is the link to the original KAF post about the cupcake menorah, and here's the recipe. I halved it and it was perfect for eight regular-sized and one jumbo cupcake. Have a great last night of Hanukkah!

Golden Vanilla Cake from the King Arthur Flour Blog

• 2 cups sugar
• 3 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, soft
• 1 1/4 cups milk, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs

• 14 ounces sugar
• 13 3/4 ounces King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 ounces unsalted butter, soft
• 10 ounces milk, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease and flour your choice of pan(s): one 9" x 13" pan, two 9" round cake pans, three 8" round pans, or the wells of two muffin tins (24 muffin cups). You can also line the muffin tins with papers, and spray the insides of the papers.

1) In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.

2) Add the butter and beat with an electric mixer at low speed, until the mixture looks sandy.

3) Combine the milk and vanilla and add, all at once. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds, then increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds.

4) Scrape the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl.

5) With the mixer running at low speed, add 1 egg. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds.

6) Repeat this procedure with the second egg. Continue adding the eggs, scraping after each addition, until all 4 are added.

7) After the last egg is added, scrape the bowl once more, then beat at medium-high speed for 30 more seconds.

8) Transfer the batter to the pans of your choice. For layers, divide the batter among the pans. Smooth out the tops with an offset spatula or the back of a tablespoon. For cupcakes, scoop by heaping 1/4-cupfuls into the prepared muffin tins.

9) Bake for 40 minutes for a 9" x 13" pan; 27 minutes for 9" layers; 24 minutes for 8" layers, or 23 to 25 minutes for cupcakes.

10. The cake is done when it's golden brown around the edges and just beginning to pull away from the edge of the pan. A toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.

11) Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a rack to cool before removing it from the pan.

I Cook Like Betty Crocker and I Look Like Donna Reed

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Shabbos Kallah programming to bring you this breaking update: it's Halloween! Kids dress like monsters, girls dress like sluts and we all get diabetes. Huzzah!

Since I am in college, the party's pretty much been going on all weekend. Last night I dressed up as Donna Reed, the quintessential 1950s housewife (as any Gilmore Girls fan knows), which meant that I wore a poofy-skirted dress, an apron, heels, and a slightly manic look. And of course I had to have baked goods, because surely Donna would never go to a party without them!

And since it was Halloween they had to be thematic. Inspired by the King Arthur Flour blog, I tried to make my brownies look like a spiderweb but they ended up looking more like a pretty floral design. I had a lot of trouble piping the cream cheese mixture; I guess I got overconfident about my piping skills after my last two highly successful endeavors. As my roommate Abi pointed out, it's okay - sometimes, scientists give spiders crystal meth in order to show kids the effect of drugs on brain and behavior, and their webs come out looking a bit wonky too. I think I just didn't make the spokes sufficiently even but it was hard to drag the knife through the viscous brownie batter. Oh well, it still tasted deliciously fudgy, as this recipe always does! (I didn't put in the optional mint extract so the cream cheese didn't really change the taste or texture at all.) Also, I left out the chocolate chips, which I think was a wise move, since they just would have gotten in the way of the knife. Also also, if unlike me you can find black licorice within five miles of your home, I would definitely recommend making the little cookie spider they have on the Web site to go along with the brownies so that if yours also doesn't turn out looking very weblike, people will have a hint. Even if I'll never truly be a perfect housewife, the brownies were better than that horrid-looking Jell-O concoction Rory made for Dean on their Donna Reed night. So there.

You can find the recipe here. Happy Halloween!

Bagels 3: I Think We've Got It!

This is our 100th post!  When Sarah and I started this blog, I don't know if either of us thought it would get this far.  I think it was something we were trying to do because we were in denial about how far apart we were going to be from one another.  Well, a little over a year later, another sister added and some guest blogging from our dad, we still have a blog.  Thanks so much to all our readers and commenters.  We would not have as much fun with this without you!

And now, for the 100th post -- Bagels!  This seems like an appropriate 100th post.  We are all Jewish New Yorkers, which basically means bagels are in our blood and they are a baked good that all of us like, no modifications necessary.  So, yay for bagels.

You may remember that I have posted about my quest for making the perfect bagel twice before.  Neither recipe was a total success -- one didn't taste enough like bagels and one took way too long to make.  However, I was not to be deterred, so I turned to the wonderful King Arthur Flour for their bagel recipe and this was the best one yet.  It doesn't take too long, but they taste like delicious bagels.  And best of all, unlike my other tries at bagels, these didn't turn out flat!  I have made this recipe 4 times now and they get better each time.  Recently I invested in a dough rising bucket and it has really helped my bread baking.  It is VERY dry here in west Texas, and the bucket helps it not dry out.

If you want to make bagels yourself, I highly recommend this recipe.  You can find it here.

I Love Muffins: Blueberry

I have been trying to find a muffin worth eating here in Texas.  Many of them are way, way to sweet, or they are too dry or they just don't taste good.  I have decided that the only solution is to make my own.  Sometimes you just want a really good muffin.

I have made this a bunch of times.  They are from one of my favorites -- King Arthur Flour -- and they are delicious.  I would make a couple of adjustments to the recipe.  I think that you could reduce the sugar somewhat.  They are not overly sweet, but they could be less sweet, especially if you want them as a breakfast treat, so I might go down to a little more than half a cup of sugar.  Also, you could substitute some of the white flour with whole wheat flour (or white whole wheat flour) if you want them to be a bit healthier.  Finally, I thought that 1.5 cups of blueberries was way to many for the amount of batter.  I would reduce to one cup and you would have plenty.

I didn't have any sparkling sugar, so they looked good, but they didn't have that sugary crunch.  You can find the recipe here.

Enjoy!

Fresh Baked Bread is Mmmm, mmmm, good

I have said before how much I love the King Arthur Flour Blog, and I really, really do.  The recipe for crusty white bread came along at exactly the right moment.  A couple of weeks ago we had soup in our house, we bought a loaf of what we thought was crusty bread.  Turned out, it was not at all crusty and not even that tasty, despite outward appearances.  The next time we had soup, we tried again.  The bread was somewhat more crusty, but the crust kind of flaked off, so you lost that good crunch.  So, we came to the conclusion that there was no crusty bread here, as far as we could tell.

Then, I saw a blog post on King Arthur Flour for easy, crusty bread and I knew I had to try it.  So, it was super easy -- you just mix flour, yeast, water and salt together, leave it to rise on the counter for two hours and then for up to a week in the fridge.  The longer you leave it in the fridge, the more the tang develops.  I hear that, in a week, it will taste like sourdough.  You have to plan ahead -- you can't mix and eat on the same day, but with a little planning you can have delicious, crusty bread.

You can find the recipe here.  I have read on various blogs that this is very similar to the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day recipe.  Whatever recipe you use, I urge you to try this bread.  I don't think it is possible to screw this up.

Easy Yummy Chocolate Cookies

One of my favorite blogs is the King Arthur Flour Blog. They make lots of things that sound really good and they have amazing step by step pictures of all their recipes, so you know if you are doing something wrong. They also often highlight new products, many of which I want, but haven't yet given in to buying.

When I saw these cookies on the blog, I knew I had to make them immediately. They looked sooo good. However, since my husband doesn't like chocolate, I needed an excuse. My community is donating baked goods to families of hospice patients and I am sure that they will love these cookies.

The dough of these cookies was really stiff and they didn't spread very much in the oven. When I opened the oven after 10 minutes, I was sure the cookies weren't done, but I took them out anyway, and they actually were. They are really soft when they come out, and they get firmer as they cool. They were really good, although I think I should have used fewer chocolate chips -- it seemed like there were too many for the dough. When I make them again, I will use 3/4 of a cup of each kind of chip. I also want to try these with white chocolate chips, but I didn't have any. I also didn't have espresso powder, so I used instant coffee and it came out well. It really boosted the flavor, and it did not taste like coffee at all.

You can find this delicious recipe here and don't forget to check out the blog post about the cookies (where you can find the amazing pictures).