Nothing beats the smell of freshly baked bread

My favorite thing about baking bread is not only the smell of the bread baking, but the smell that lingers, so that when you come home from work the next day, your home still smells like a bakery. Fortunately for me, I have entered my 2 most recent dwellings through the kitchen, where the smell is the strongest.

I don't bake bread often. I really love doing it, but because it takes so long (even if all the time is just spent waiting), I can never seem to fit bread into my schedule. So this weekend, when my husband and I decided to be an old, boring married couple and do nothing, I decided I'd jump on this and bake some bread.

Originally, I'd planned to make Smitten Kitchen's recent Rye Bread blog post (because really, rye toast with berry jelly is one of my favorite breakfasts), but I didn't have any rye flour. So I went on King Arthur Flour and browsed until I came up with cinnamon raisin oatmeal bread.

I made myself some coffee and got started.

I combined 1/2 stick of butter with 1.5 cups of milk in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat and melted, while I made myself breakfast. Once it just barely started to bubble, I added about 1.25cups raisins, 1cup oatmeal, and 1/2cup brown sugar and stirred to combine.

I also combined 1T yeast, 1T brown sugar and 1/2cup warm water in a bowl and let it go. They both waited for me while I had breakfast (about 20 min).

The yeast maybe didn't need to be left alone so long, but that's ok.I added the yeast to the raisin/milk/etc mixture, stirred to combine. Then I added a cup of flour at a time, and mixed well. I ended up using 3cups of all-purpose flour, and 2 cups of whole wheat flour. The last cup of flour had 2t each salt and cinnamon mixed in. I kneaded by mixing with the dough hook in my kitchenaid for about 7 minutes (why yes, I am lazy). One drawback of using the mixer: the raisins essentially get minced doing it this way. I'm glad I used the cheap sunmaid raisins and not my nice organic flame raisins for this.

I let the dough rise for 4 hours on the radiator (recipe said 1.5-2hrs, but our errands took longer than we thought). Then I punched the dough down, kneaded it briefly, and shaped into two loaves. I placed each loaf into a greased loaf pan, and let rise another 2 hrs (despite the recipe suggesting 45-60min), again on the radiator.

I'm kind of excited by my radiator-rising idea. I've had problems letting bread rise on the top of the stove before- burned dough, melted bowls, etc. No matter how low I set the oven, it's still too hot, and our kitchen is definitely the coldest room of the house (Clint thinks one of the walls isnt' insulated, and based on things in the dishwasher or cabinets, I'm inclined to agree). But we have these awesome radiator covers, and the radiators actually get warm, so I just set it there. I worked beautifully, and the cat didn't noticed the dough at all (which was kept covered, but still).
After all the rising and shaping and 2nd rising, I baked the loaves at 375oF for 45 min (recipe says 30-35). When they were done, I brushed the tops with melted salted butter, waited an appropriate amount of time, cut, and devoured.

And then toasted for breakfast the next morning. Success!


In crafting news, I finished my glitter ball garland. :-D It's the glitter balls I mentioned before (water-down glue painted over styrofoam balls, and glitter sprinkled over them) strung on a strand of funfur and some fun glittery plastic hearts on the ends. It's totally me, and Clint tolerates it. (if you decide to make one, you might want to spread some newspaper all over the floor and work on that, because I now have glitter all over my house... and my cat.)

And I've completed sock #1 of my Monkeys, I can't wait to finish sock #2 and wear them :)

Smell-good Sundays

I've accidentally started a little tradition/trend for our little household- I do something in the kitchen first thing on Sunday "morning" (because we lately we're sleeping in on Sundays, so this is more like, noon-ish) so make the kitchen smell ridiculously good.

Last week it was whole wheat pancakes, this week I decided to try my hand at waffles.

I've traditionally had a hard time with breakfast foods, with the exception of french toast, which my husband doesn't really like (it's my favorite, so I've gotten good at it- especially at making french toast for one). I burn pancakes, and my waffles stick to the iron and fall apart.

Example.

This was a batch of waffles I made with some fresh blueberries and strawberries this summer. I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed the iron before each ladleful of batter went on, yet they still stuck. My waffles almost always looked like this. We think the problem may have been that the batter was too runny.

But, since I'm always up for attempting to learn from and correct my mistakes, I tried again on Sunday. I used:

- a brand-new waffle iron (bridal shower gift)

- a brand-new waffle recipe

- lots of non-stick spray

And the result:

crisp, fluffy waffles that tasted and smelled delicious. And maple syrup really brought out the cardamom in the waffles (very unexpected).

The recipe came from a French breakfast cookbook I bought at La Madeleine a few years ago. It uses browned butter, which adds so much to the flavor of anything it's in. I also added cardamom. This process was by no means quick, and I wouldn't recommend this if you have a household of hungry people, but for us (me with a full pot of coffee, and Clint, who'd decided to tackle cleaning out and rearranging our spice drawer), it was great.

Melt 12T (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Co

ok til it bubbles, and then watch it carefully as it browns- you want a caramel-color and for it to smell nutty. I usually take it off the burner when it's a light caramel, because it'll cook a bit more by itself, and you don't want to burn it.

Combine 2.25 cups flour, 2T sugar, 1t baking soda, 2t baking powder, and 1/2t salt in a bowl (I also added about 1-1.5t cardamom, and I was going to add orange zest, but forgot to). Whisk in 1.5cups milk and 1t vanilla. Beat in 3 eggs, one at a time. Add browned butter, and beat til just combined. (Edit: Before I said 2T baking powder, I meant 2t)

The batter was thicker than previous waffle recipes I've used (which, ok, is only the Bisquick box recipe, but in my defense, my mother will only use bisquick for pancakes, waffles, biscuits and muffins, and I only ever make waffles at her house (except once I made some yogurt waffles for myself- they were only ok)), which boded well.

Drop 1/2-3/4cup batter on waffle iron, and cook according to your iron's instructions. We got 7 waffles out of this batch, and because each took about 5min to cook, I placed all the waffles in a 200oF oven to keep warm and crisp.

The waffles tasted good- a little nutty from the brown butter, and just a little sweet, good for pouring maple syrup over. The kitchen smelled delicious. We munched on the first waffle, just plain, while we waited, and it was great. When we added the maple syrup, however, the cardamom flavor really popped.

So that was tasty.

In crafting news, Girl Friday is nearing completion, but she needs some serious blocking- horizontal ribbing always needs some coaxing. I had some fun with glitter last night, though.

I decided that Valentine's Day is a crafter's last hurrah- you get all crazy with Christmas crafting, it's suddenly over, but Valentine's Day is like a chance to do all the crafting you didn't get to do before- and if it's red, it works (well, unless it's red reindeer or something).

I saw this craft on the Martha Stewart show, and really wanted to make one, but I never had time.

(photo and directions at Martha Stewart)

So as I ran some errands yesterday, I stopped at Michael's to add to my glitter supply. I had red and silver and white (and green and some Halloween colors) at home, so I just bought pink tinsel glitter (and brownstone tinsel glitter that was on clearance) and some more glitter glue.

I cut corners a bit on this garland- I simply coated styrofoam balls (in 3 sizes) in watered-down glitter glue and coated in glitter- either tourmaline or garnet tinsel glitter, silver regular glitter, or a mix. at first I stuck toothpicks in them to be able to hold them, but then I switched to bamboo skewers, so that I could also stand them up as they dried. Tonight I'll string them on a length of red funfur (cheaper than Martha's tinsel idea, and now all my stupid funfur finally has some use!)

I also made candied grapefruit and orange peel last night. They still need to be sugared, and then I'll tell you about them, as well as another fun way to use your leftover citrus rinds.

The Plague

I have the plague. It's a cold, really (I hope- I hope it's not swine flu, but I don't have a fever), but I'm still stuck at home. When I'm sick, I usually get huge crafting/baking urges, which is awful because 1. I can't share any baked goods, and 2. I can't get out to acquire all the necessary crafting supplies.

Luckily, I had red yarn. So I got started on Christmas gifts for everyone.They still need white beards and white hat pompoms, and faces, but so far I've made 6 of these little guys. Now I have... oh, probably 20 to go.

And some recipes: These are all ones I've seen in the past week, and look forward to making, but haven't actually tried yet.
Cranberry ribbon cake
Gallina de madre
Honey brown butter sauce for manchego cheese (you can be sure this'll appear at my next cocktail party)
Beef in salt crust

Craft project ideas:
Glitter painting (wedding photos, perhaps?)
Glittered snowflake candle holders (based on this Halloween project)
Glittered birds (idea suggested by Bird)