Rustic Caramelized Onion Tarts

Week 22

This week's host was Michelle she choose Rustic Caramelized Onion Tarts. Recipe on page 422-423 of our book.

Looking at this recipe made me kind of nervous. Reading the full name, which is, Rustic Caramelized Onion Tarts with Blue Cheese and Walnuts, it sounded way out there. What I mean is the combination of foods sounded a little odd. I promised to give this baking club my all so I baked the tart this week. 

Reading through the recipe I noticed that there were two different combinations of tarts besides the one named above. The one I choose was called Rustic Caramelized Onion Tarts with potatoes, goat cheese, and rosemary. Yummy, goat cheese and potatoes. We make a potato crust pizza with goat cheese that is delicious. (Recipe on left-hand side of blog.) Plus I had red potatoes on hand.  That was the winner. At this point, I can say, I was looking forward a bit more to baking this week.

Now for the dough. The recipe said we could make their pizza dough (recipe on page 137 of our book) or buy one. Not going to lie, buying one sounded really easy and a guarantee of a good crust. When it came time to baking I couldn't buy a crust to use in my "baking club" so I made the whole wheat version of the pizza crust. Here is a little foreshadowing. . .the crust turned out amazing. I have made this crust a couple times already but this time it turned out extra fluffy, soft, and crusty on the outside. (I think it was my new mixer and new pizza pan or maybe I am improving as a baker.) Both are good.

So the toppings on our tart are: red potatoes, red onions, and fresh rosemary. Yummy!

The recipe was real simple (which I love) and didn't take long to make other then letting the dough rise. We ate it for dinner on Saturday night.

I must say that this recipe gave me the biggest surprise of anything we have baked so far. I really really enjoyed it. It's great to try something out of the ordinary. Sometimes eating the same thing over and over again gets boring. This recipe definitely spiced it up. Unfortunately, I was the only one in my family that like it. So sad. :( Don't know when I will make it again but hope that there is somebody else to make it for sometime. Thanks Michelle for hosting and trying something different.

A Tip & A Question:

1. Baking at 500 degrees is to hot and will burn your food. I baked my tart at 450 for 15 minutes. The recipe wanted us to bake it at 500 for 10 minutes. I guess this would work if you oven elements weren't very good.
2. A pizza dough and a tart dough are the same thing?

Multigrain Bread

Week 21

This week it was MY turn to host. I choose Multigrain Bread. Recipe on page 104-105 of our book.

Picking a recipe, this time around, was rather difficult. There were a number of nights where I sat down to choose one and got up with nothing picked for my week to host. There were two "must haves" for hosting this week: one was nothing sweet and two was I really wanted to use my new standing mixer. I guess you can say that is how I came across the bread. I have never made Multigrain Bread before but love eating it. In fact, bread alone is one of the best things in the world. Reading over this recipe confirmed my desire to bake this. It was simple, a break from sugar, and lots of grains.

So here we go. . .

• Makes one 9-inch loaf

 For an accurate measurement of boiling water, bring a full kettle of water to a boil, then measure out the desired amount. You will need about 1 tablespoon of melted butter to brush over the loaf before baking. If you don't have a standing mixer, see Alternative Mixing Methods for Rolls and Loaves on page 102. (of book)

•  1 cup (5 ounces) seven-grain hot cereal mix (see the box at right)
• 2 cups boiling water (see note above)
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for brushing (see note above)
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 1/2-3 cups (12 1/2 to 15 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (5 1/2 ounces) whole wheat flour
• 1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant or rapid-rise yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup  unsalted pumpkin or sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats or quick-cooking oats

 

 

1.   Stir the cereal mix and boiling water together in a medium bowl and let stand, stirring occasionally, until the mixture resembles a thick porridge and is just warm (about 110 degrees), about 30 minutes. Stir in the melted butter and honey.
 

 

2.   Combine 2 1/2 cups of the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, and salt in a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook. 

 

 

 With the mixer on low speed, add the cereal mixture and mix until the dough comes together, about 2 minutes.

 

 

3.   Increase the mixer speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes, adding the seeds during the final minute of mixing. If after 4 minutes more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/2 cup flour, 2 tablespoons at a time, until the dough clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom (see page 97). (of book)
 

 

4.   Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball. 

 

 

Place the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover with greased plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

 

5.   Grease a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and , following the photos on page 109, gently press it onto a 9-inch square. 

 

 

Roll the dough into a tight cylinder and pinch the seam closed. 

 

 

Place the loaf, seam side down, in the prepared pan.

 

 

Mist the loaf with vegetable oil spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in size and the dough barely springs back with poked with a knuckle, 45 to 75 minutes.
 

 

6.   Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. brush the loaf lightly with melted butter, 

 

 

sprinkle with the oats, then spray lightly with water. Bake until golden and the center of the bread registers 200 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, 40 to 50 minutes, rotating the loaf in the pan for 15 minutes, then flip out onto a wire rack and let cool to room temperature, about 2 hours, before serving. 

 

To Make Ahead

In step 4, do not let the dough rise, but refrigerate it overnight or up to 16 hours; let the dough sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, then continue with step 5.

There is the recipe. I hope you try it and for my fellow baker friends I hope you liked it.

We loved the bread! I haven't made many bread loaves in my life of baking but this one is by far the best. It was healthy, moist, and yummy. The kids and I had it this morning with butter and honey and again for lunch as a ham sandwich. Yeah! 

A Tip & A Question:

1.  Mix the nuts into the dough by hand while you knead it into a ball onto the counter. Picture above shows the result from mixing nuts with standing mixer.
2. Why is the texture of homemade bread always different from store bread?

French Macaroon Sandwich Cookies

Week 20

This week's host was Betsy she choose French Macaroon Sandwich Cookies. Recipe on page 192-193 of our book. She also choose Butter Cream Frosting. Recipe on page 510 of our book.

I have never had a Macaroon before, let alone a French Macaroon sandwich. In this case there were no expectations. The recipe called for almond flour which really intrigued me. The flour is almonds grounded up. It's expensive! Speaking of expensive. . . 

I started the baking and mixed the almond flour and sugar together, then started to beat the egg mixture. When reviewing the recipe I noticed the sugar I had mixed with the flour was granulated sugar. It is supposed to be confectioner's sugar.  Err!!! Back to the store to by a 16 oz bag of almond flour for about $12.00. This is turning out to be a really pricey cookie.

Not a professional at using a pastry bag as you can see. It was a big mess!

This Pampered Chef tool worked better, was less messy, and easier to use. Why do professionals try to make things more difficult then they have to be?

Seeing that this tool did a better job then the pastry bag, I scraped the dough off and started over. Now I am crossing my fingers that all this "dough handling" won't reunion the cookies.

 

They look like I used the pastry bag, right?

I really like the tip in the book that explained about using your finger dipped in cold water and then rubbing it around the cookie to prevent cracking when backed. It worked!

See, no CRACKING.

Here is the finished product! Took me a good part of the day from start to finish. . . so I was really excited to taste them.

The Butter Cream filling had different flavors to choose from. I choose the chocolate version, of course. It was pretty simple to make, just follow the recipe, which I did, and there were no hiccups. Straight forward.

The French Macaroon was not a very impressive cookie according to the husbands' and my taste. The cookie was a bit to hard. That could of been from all my mistakes while I was baking or maybe I over baked them. I imagine a Macaroon to be light a fluffy with a little crunch. So who knows. I might never know because this recipe is not going in the "make again" pile. The butter cream tasted exactly like the name. Glad to say I was brave enough to try the unknown but sad it wasn't a hit.

A Tip & A Question:

1. Remembering tips in each recipe might be helpful in your basic baking.
2. What is a French Macaroon supposed to tasted like?

New York-Style Crumb Cake

Week 19

This week's host was Jenn she choose New York-Style Crumb Cake. Recipe on page 230-231 of our book. I apologize for the late post this week. I baked the cake on Saturday but we went out of town and didn't get back until late last night. It's now first thing Thursday morning and I am sitting in bed trying to get the post done. I also didn't take a lot of pictures for this recipe, don't know why. Maybe it had to do with the crazy morning. At least I got a picture of it while it was being eaten.

This cake turned out perfect! It was easy to bake and didn't take the whole day which is my kind of baking. The cake had great cinnamon flavor, was light, fluffy, and the topping texture was a perfect contrast to the cake. My husband thought it was a little dry but that is expected of him. He thinks most baking is dry no matter what. It almost reminded me of German baking which I love.

Like I mentioned above it was a simple cake to make. The dough mixture that was on top took a while to crumble. You can see in the bowl I had bigger crumbs then the pan. The book indicated that they should be the size of a pea but I got lazy. Then realized it didn't look to appetizing so I crumbed it more. It would of been easier to take the dough piece by piece and crumble it into a new bowl or on top of the batter instead of the same bowl. Crumbling in the same bowl made it difficult because the dough mixture would stick back together if you picked it back up. Hope that made sense.

It was really yummy with milk, of course! I will make this again for sure. My kids loved it! It was gone in a day.

A Tip & A Question:

1. Make sure you take the time to crumble the topping really small. This will give you a tastier crumb texture on the finished product.
2. Could you add more buttermilk to the recipe to make it more moist? (For my hubby's sake)

Classic Pancakes with choice of Maple Syrup

Week 18

This week's host was Jesse she choose Classic Pancakes. Recipe on page 63 of our book. She also added a choice of your own Maple Syrup. Recipe on page 64 of our book.

 I was really excited for this week's recipe. Two reasons: first is my family and I were really sweated out, second is I have never made pancakes that were good enough to make again in our house. This week was a nice break from sweets and gave me something to make for dinner along with a new pancake recipe that me and the kids loved! With that said you can see how nice, fluffy, and golden brown that stack is above.

There was a number of pancake versions for this recipe. I choose the whole wheat version with blueberry maple syrup.

As you can see my batter is very thick. This made me nervous because in the past my batter has been this thick also and the pancakes turned out to dense and dry. So with that thought in mind I was really tempted to add some milk or water to smooth it out, but the recipe was very clear on not over mixing the batter at all. In fact your only supposed to mix the recipe until barely combined. A few flour streaks is recommended. With this said I left the batter the way it was.

The problem with thick batter is it doesn't naturally spread into a nice circle. I used my spatula and got pretty close. 

Yes, I know my skillet is really small but my bigger one barely fits two pancakes and I didn't want them running together. I really should invest in a bigger one eh.

"This is the best food." Says Cosette

Well as you can see they turned out great! Fluffy yummy pancakes. I had to have strawberries and whip cream on some as well. The blueberry syrup was good but it tasted more like maple syrup then blueberry syrup. Maybe next time I need more blueberries. Oh well, I love maple syrup to so it's not a loss other then I need to figure out how to enhanced the berry flavor. Thanks for the yummy dinner Jesse.

A Tip & A Question:

1. The temperate of your skillet is so important. Make sure it's just below medium heat to create a slow cooking golden brown pancake.
2. Any suggestions on how to smooth out the batter a little without wrecking the pancake. I would like the to try and thinner batter.