I have a craving for madeleines, so I’m going to spend this lovely Sunday afternoon baking. I’ve had the madeleine pan for a long time, but I didn’t use it until a few weeks ago. I found a recipe for madeleines with honey and lemon by Marcus Samuelsson. The flavor is very mild, so I was a little disappointed at first, but then I started to like them, and they’re all gone and now I must have more.
I want to make a Portuguese custard tart that was on the Great British Bake Off, so some day when I’m feeling brave I’m going to try that. It involves a rough puff pastry which I’ve never done before (I love the way they say “rough puff” on GBBO). I’m not excited about grating butter, but it might not be as bad as I think.
I’m starting to think about fall flavors–apples, cinnamon, caramel, pumpkin. If anyone’s interested, I’ll share my pumpkin spice bundt cake recipe (it is made with cake mix, but it’s surprisingly good–and so easy). Is anyone else baking?
Those pasteis did look great! I’d love to try it too. I don’t usually make much pastry, since I don’t have a food processor, and that’s often the best way of making the dough.
I’m not baking anything right now, boo, because my oven is kaput. I am quite enjoying the process of replacing it, though!
When I do have an oven, though, I bake about twice a week. I won a bake-off at work with millionaire’s shortbread a few months ago. Who doesn’t love buttery shortbread, gooey caramel, and marbled chocolate? I also bake bread on the regular, and have a few ciabatta stored up in the freezer. Will have to make do with stovetop pitas when they’re all used up!
I wasn’t supposed to be cooking these last few days, after three weeks of near-continuous houseguests. So I made a pot of soup, dried bunch of apple chips, made a pan of apple crisp, grilled sausages, roasted and mashed squash, and baked soft pretzels.
I’m going to try not cooking again. And this time I’ll be well fed.
I wasn’t happy with the soft pretzels. As always happens with me they got stringy and rough when I rolled them out into snakes, and the final product seemed dense. The recipes never seem to say that they need a second rise before you boil them, but don’t they really? And after boiling, shouldn’t they be drained a bit before you put them on the baking sheet? These pretzels didn’t have good yeast-dough flavor, either. Just a disappointment all around.
I bake bread whenever I need it. Ciabatta has been my go-to recently, too. I bake anything else when I’m in the mood for it: Bagels, pies, cakes, eclairs, whatever. In the past few weeks, it’s been apple pie (apple trees are going crazy), plain ol’ Toll House cookies, a batch of coconut biscotti and the aforementioned eclairs for a celebration with friends. I usually have a quick bread or two around (banana, apple, pear or pumpkin) to give to friends who may need a lift.
I enjoy the challenge of baking and learning how to perfect a technique.
I agree, those custard tarts look fun! May give them a go next time I give a dinner party.
I had some leftover sweet potatoes so I just made this sweet potato pound cake. My sweet potatoes are a bit drier than the American ones, so I added a little sour cream to the batter for moisture. I also didn’t have enough white flour, so I used about 1 cup white and 2 cups whole wheat. And I baked it in an angel food cake pan, as my choices were that or a bundt pan, and it seemed like too much batter for the latter.
For the icing, I used Rose’s Lime Juice instead of orange juice to make the drizzle.
It looks and smells amazing. We’ll find out tonight if it tastes good! I’m guessing it will be a little dry because of the wheat flour and type of sweet potatoes, but still very tasty. And as desserts go, fairly nutritious.
I was going to make peanut butter cookies the other day. That never happened. Yesterday I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, that didnt happen either which both ideas were better to be forgotten. I want something with more chocolate, hopefully this too shall pass…:eek::eek:
I have been wanting apple pie. I guess the husband suggested it first. I have the apples now. Now or soon I will have to get the crust made before the apples go bad!:smack:
I love to bake but nothing I do is fancy. I’d rather back than cook
I made a classic pot roast [4 pound slab of chuck about 3 inches thick and well marbled, baby potatoes, boiling onions, baby carrots and rough chopped celery seasoned with a couple bay leaves and a bouquet garni with a hefty slosh of red wine] some pumpkin cookies, some basic Italian bread[James Beard, Beard on Bread version] and portioned it all out into gladware and popped it in the freezer [1 cookie, 1 slice of bread in a zippy bag and 1 gladware per meal]
Next mass cooking project is going to be dirty rice [cheating and using hot italian sausage with about half a stick of braunschweiger mushed in after frying up the sausage and ‘converting’ the rice in the sausage dripping, using a brown rice for the added nutrients] and I have a sourdough starter bubbling away that needs to have some used so I am doing a nice San Francisco style sourdough, and I am thinking of an oatmeal raisin cookie.
And I have this craving for some old school corn fritters the way Mom made them, or maybe what she called Carolina Rice Cakes [a way to use up already cooked rice by turning them into sort of pancakes] and some tempura. No idea what will go on in my kitchen next weekend =)
There was a bag of gingerbread snacks in my last Snack Crate (Poland), which has inspired me to bake up a batch of my acclaimed ginger snaps as soon as I have a free weekend. Which means November.
Too damned hot and humid in NYC for baking. (October, WHERE ARE YOU?). Also, the nest is empty, the Ukulele Lady and I aren’t crazy about sweets, she refuses to eat white flour, and I hate whole wheat.
I just moved into an apartment with a new oven and was getting excited about baking something again. Aaaaaand two days after I moved in, there was a gas leak at the meter and I still don’t have working gas. Sooner or later, though. I live alone so I don’t bake much. In my office, almost all of us are either trying to lose weight or have a regular exercise routine or have a doctor on our backs about sugar. So no making lots of sweets and bringing them to work.
We have a Halloween/fall bake off building wide at the end of the month and I’m looking for a good recipe for salted carmel apple pie bars. And I’m always looking for a good baked oatmeal recipe that is easy on the sugar. We have entered the Sugar Season. I am pretty good most of the year. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. From October through December it seems like everyone’s bringing in sweets and halloween candy and then christmas cookies. Got to come up with some alternatives. Like a good breakfast gingerbread with shredded apples maybe?
I made apple pastries yesterday - kind of like apple turnovers, but instead of using a single square of puff pastry that you fold over the filling, you take a square of pastry, pile the filling in the middle and then put another square over the top, sealing the edges with egg wash. Cut a hole in the top of each for the steam to get out, egg wash the top, pop 'em in the oven, and 25 minutes later you’ve got breakfast for the week.
I love that recipe and have been making it for decades.
The sweet potato cake was divine and not at all dry - it actually had a very nice, just-dense-enough texture. The Rose’s lime juice taste in the icing was a perfect complement.
You don’t need a food processor–you can work the butter into the flour with your fingers. I hope you get your new oven soon! I have been without an oven for a while, and it’s a very strange, unsettling feeling.
**BeeGee, **the caramel apple pie bars sound amazing! If you find a good recipe, will you share it with us?
Everything sounds so good–bread, pie, cookies, pastries, sweet potato pound cake. I need to put some of these on my list of things to bake soon. I will get some puff pastry so I can try some of **romansperson’s **apple pastries. I’ve been wanting to make a breakfast focaccia, but I don’t really need to eat large amounts of focaccia, so I haven’t done that yet.
I just finished watching the latest episode of GBBO, and I think the wrong person went home this week.
Looking forward to holiday baking this year. I really want to make some spritz cookies; it’s been a few years. And I need to make a chocolate macaroon pie for Thanksgiving (my go-to, since I don’t care for pumpkin).
