Inspired Baking

I know that authors at book signings dread the inevitable question, "Where do you get your ideas from?" The question is dreaded not just because it ends a sentence with a preposition, but because everyone asks it and the answer is always the same - "From all around me."

As a baker I feel the same way (not about the press of fans demanding my signature), that inspiration is all around me. I have endless inspiration in my cookbooks, magazines, and the food blogs I visit. So why is it King Arthur feels they need to send me food porn in the mail? I visit their website, I get their emails, why do I need a catalog? Because the sneaky marketing geniuses know that the catalog will follow me from kitchen to bathroom to bedroom, that I'll mark items and dog ear pages, and I'll end up ordering.

This time around the thing that grabbed my attention was a gorgeous seeded boule. Skimming through the ingredients I saw that I had everything to make it except the harvest grains blend. Well, I didn't want to have to wait for grains to be shipped clear across the country so I went on a grain buying binge at Whole Foods' bulk section. (Take that, sneaky marketing geniuses!)

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Resistance is Futile

Drat those cravings. You know how it is. A thought that niggles at the back of your brain, tickling you at odd hours, nudging you in quiet moments, gently clearing the throat, and, if you don't cave in to the craving, it is eventually shoving you in the chest and slapping you upside the chest. Yes, my cravings are not to be trivialized; they're a force to be reckoned with.

My most recent craving was lemon and poppyseed. I'll blame Whole Foods. They have those adorable mini-scones in lemon and poppyseed. Of course, I'd never pay those prices, but still, the idea of lemon and poppyseeds stayed with me, badgered me, and generally made my subconscious pester me until I screamed, "Uncle, uncle!"

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DIY Dessert

My husband and I rarely go out for dinner. Weird as it may seem, I don't find eating out relaxing. My everyday wear is jeans and Danskos, so to dress up and put on a skirt and heels isn't relaxing. I worry about the hygiene in the kitchen. Did our server look like the kind of person to spit in our food? And I fret about the cost. Why should I pay outrageous prices for something that I can jolly well cook myself for a fraction of the cost? And tip on top of that??

For my husband's sanity and the sake of our marriage, I've reached a compromise. I'll happily go out if I can wear my jeans and comfy shoes, if the caliber of the restaurant suggests cleanliness is not a special order, and if I can order something that's too time-consuming or tricky for me to make at home.

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Overnight Bread

I love making bread, but most of my bread is just sandwich and toast loaves. I get a bit intimidated by fancy loaves or artisan bread, but I am always willing to increase my bread baking repertoire. Recently I checked out from the library Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. His approach to bread is so scientific I felt like I was back in college reading through the cookbook. In fact, I got a little bogged down just reading through the information and almost didn't get around to baking anything from the book before it was due back at the library. I was determined that wasn't going to happen, so I buckled down, and made some bread, the day before I had to turn the book back in.

What bread, you ask? Oh, what bread - wild rice and onion. I love onions. The recipe was really simple. Make the dough the night before. Put it into a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and pop it into the fridge. In the morning I was greeted by an amazing sight - dough eagerly pressing against it's plastic containment field. I halved the dough and shaped one half into a boule and one half into a baguette.

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LPS Tea Cake

Recently I posted Lemon Poppyseed Shortbread and I wrote about my craving for all things Lemon and Poppyseed. Delightful reader Grace of A Southern Grace asked what was next - pudding? That got me started. I made LPS (I'm getting tired of typing that out) pudding. I tried a technique of steeping crushed poppyseeds in the milk to intensify the flavor. It made fabulous tasting pudding, but it was ugly as sin. Since I'm averse to putting ugly things on the blog, you won't be seeing it here.

But what you are seeing is a delicious cake. It's actually a reworking of a favorite lemon cake, adding in poppyseed for a bit of taste and texture. I'm not sure that it won't replace the original as my go-to lemon loaf cake. I made it in a daintier size, perfect for having a slice with tea. But I won't complain if you prefer to have it with coffee.

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Clean Up Time

I love order, it just doesn't happen in my house. I really try. I organize my pantry, grouping all the canned tomato products together, the canned beans together, and the canned fruits together. Then I go to the grocery store and my unloading helpers put things on the shelves wherever they fit. I appreciate their help, but this totally destroys my organization.

Then the next time I need a particular canned good, I have to hunt through the entire pantry to find that one item that I know, I KNOW, I have because I bought it last week.

But the upside to that is that in the searching and hunting, I often unearth things I'd forgotten were on the shelves. Like a can of cherry pie filling. I don't normally use cherry pie filling from a can, but I had just run across a recipe in a cookbook that calls for just that. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to clear the shelf and give my husband something to take in to a work meeting.

The result? An easy recipe and a pan that came back 100% clean. So, think about it, do you have a can of cherry pie filling lurking in your pantry? Here's your chance to use it up without having to make a pie crust!

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Gluten Free Glory

One of my favorite people to feed, my chiropractor, recently was put on a gluten-free diet by his doctor. He enjoyed how he felt, but he missed the baked goods. And because I missed how happy he got when I brought him treats, I began dabbling in gluten-free baking.

One of the premier gluten-free bakeries in the country, The Flying Apron, happens to be in my neck of the woods and they also happen to have just released a cookbook. Of course, when I saw it at Costco I snagged a copy. It features a cornucopia of beautiful baked goods, all of them vegan as well as gluten-free.

My first trial bake from the book hit a home run. The Pumpkin Glory Loaf is a cross between a sweet quick bread and a cake. Dense, moist, very crumbly, and utterly delicious. The grateful recipient of this loaf bit into it and moaned. Ah, sweet success!

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Fun With Yogurt

I've been playing with yogurt a lot lately. You can bip over to Simple Bites to check out my article on how to make yogurt. I'll wait here for you.

Back already? I hope you enjoyed that. Now that you know how to make yogurt, here's how to make yogurt cheese. It's beyond simple. All you do is drain the yogurt. Really, that's it.

I put an unbleached coffee filter in a canning jar funnel. Mine has a removable mesh insert that keeps the filter from falling through, but even without that, I don't think the filter would fall through. If you don't have a funnel, you can use a strainer or whatever you have in your kitchen that will allow it to drain, while supporting the sides.

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Cute As A Cherry

Cherries are the hands-down winners in the cutest fruit contest. Strawberries are nice, kiwis have a special appeal, and oranges are colorful, but I'm drawn like a magnet to anything with cherries printed on it. Aprons, kitchen towels, dresses, handbags - anything with cherries on it is just about irresistible. Something about the bright red color, the cheerful off-round shape, and the jaunty stem just makes them darling.

Another cute thing that's hard to resist is tiny food. Petit fours, itty bitty cookies, tiny tarts, brownie bites, and miniature cupcakes.

Now if you combine cherries with mini cupcakes what do you get? Serious cuteness. And deliciousness. When I saw this recipe in Martha Stewart's Cupcake cookbook, I had to make them for the cuteness factor alone. Bonus that they are moist, almondy, and have the surprise of a whole cherry in the middle.

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No Korni Jokes

The Bread Baking Babes are back and this month I've really let them down. Our bread for the month was a Korni loaf and I'm sure big things were expected from me in the way of Korni jokes, but I just couldn't get there. I was too busy making a simple loaf waaaaay harder than it needed to be.

When Lien, our host kitchen of the month, announced her choice was the Korni bread from The Village Baker, I promptly got the book from the library. I could have just printed out the recipe, but I wanted the book in case there was extra information I needed. Mistake. I was unaware that there are THREE Korni bread recipes in the book.

I opened the book to the (I thought) correct recipe and groaned. A starter. Pooh. That has to percolate for days. Double Pooh. Oh well, better to get started, so I mixed whole wheat flour, a bit of milk, some cumin, and some water to make a firm dough and let it sit in a bowl, covered, for 2 days. I fed it some more flour and water, covered it up and let it sit again. It wasn't until the third day that it dawned on me (yes, I really am that slow), that I was making a sourdough starter for the sourdough version of the Korni. Arggghhhh!

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