May 2016 Daring Bakers' Challenge: Twist Bread

This month, we Daring Bakers were challenged by Tandy ( of Lavender and Lime) to make twist bread. Oh darn! That sounds horrible ... NOT!!!

Tandy gave us the freedom to select the filling, so I went with a riff on cinnamon bread because I'm lazy and I had the ingredients on hand. (Let's be honest, eh?) I would really like to try this again with a savory filling (maybe sundried tomatoes, mozarella, and basil??) but didn't get around to that in time for posting here today. If you're so inclined, here is the link to Tandy's challenge recipe.

I found this recipe quite easy to follow (woo hoo!). The only struggle I had was after I sliced the loaf down the middle and then had to twist it. The outer layers sort of peeled away from me as I attempted to twist the loaf. Once I managed to get a "that's good enough" twist (an extra set of hand would have definitely helped ease the process!), I shaped the loaf into a ring (re-twisted a bit along the way), brushed it with an egg wash, and popped it into the oven. About 15-20 minutes into the baking process, the house started to smell amazing! You really can't beat the cozy smell of cinnamon wafting from a hot oven.

The final verdict? Eric thought it was ok but not spectacular. The kids loved it; Annika gladly put on her newly self-appointed food critic hat to let me know it was "flavorful and had good texture." I thought it was good, but could have used more of the cinnamon sugar filling. My co-workers (who got the remainder of the loaf the next day) inhaled it. So, there you are!

Thanks, Tandy, for this fun and yummy challenge. Can't wait to try it again!!

April 2015 Daring Bakers' Challenge: Focaccia

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge was right up my alley: BREAD!! More specifically, we were challenged to make focaccia from scratch.

The timing for this challenge couldn't have been more perfect, considering my new addition to the book "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast", which is ALL about bread making. Every recipe provided in this book yields two loaves of bread, and many recipes are adaptable, meaning you don't have to make the same kind of final product with both halves of the bread. So, I made bread by following the "Overnight White Bread" recipe, and made half of dough into a lovely artisan loaf and the other half into focaccia.

Conor helped me make the focaccia's dimples, and he was in charge of brushing the olive oil on the top of the bread... hence, we had uneven dimples and areas of oil slick on the bread, but it all worked out!

I topped the focaccia with parmesan cheese and salt... all four of us gave the bread our thumbs up. Definitely going to make it again!

For the month of April Rachael of pizzarossa and Sawsan of Chef in Disguise took us on a trip to Italy. They challenged us to try our hands at making focaccia from scratch

May Daring Bakers Challenge: One challah good challenge!

As those who are close to me (or are just within earshot while I'm gabbing about my baking) know, I've been on a serious challah kick over the past couple of months. When I saw that the May Daring Bakers challenge was to make challah, I giggled with glee and did a rather elaborate happy dance.

The initial  reason behind my challah journey was simple: challah makes great French toast (how multi-cultural, huh?). I looked on the Internet and through my cookbooks for a good recipe, but wasn't sure which would fit the bill. So, I did what any person in my situation would do, I called my honorary auntie who is Jewish! Mrs. Simon isn't a baker herself, but offered to look through her recipes to find a good recipe for me and wound up emailing two from her synagogue's cookbook. She also regaled me with humorous stories of her husband--a wonderful, wonderful man, but also not a baker--when he attempted to make challah. (I can listen to her tell stories all day long ... the laughter is wonderful for the soul!)

I whipped up the recipe from Mrs. Simon and was very happy, but still tried a few others that I found online. Eventually, I started to mix this recipe with that recipe and throw in a few of my own ideas. Eric and I realized we like the sweeter challah recipes (more often used for holidays) and I kept that in mind as I worked on my own recipe. I also liked how some of the recipes called for the addition of honey, which added a wonderful depth of flavor that I fell in love with. After many, many, many, many loaves of challah, we officially have a winner, which I have dubbed Catholic Girl Challah.

Not only do I enjoy baking and eating challah (really, who wouldn't?), but I also find myself drawn to the braiding side of challah. I prefer the 6-strand braid (definitely not easy to get the hang of, but so pretty) and I like braiding the 4-strand round loaves. Pretty and yummy .... win, win!

Voila!

6-strand Catholic Girl Challah

Up close and personal

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

March Daring Bakers Challenge

This month, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Dutch Crunch Bread. I had absolutely no clue what this was, so it was an added bonus to learn about a new source of carbs, which we all can agree is a really good thing! Dutch Crunch bread is (apparently) quite the commodity in San Francisco and often is one of the first bread to sell out during the lunch rush.

Not only were we challenged to make this beautiful bread, but we also had to make a sandwich out of it. The bread's crunch topping called for rice flour, which isn't one of the staples in my pantry; fortunately, it wasn't tricky to find at our local grocery store. The basic idea is to make the bread dough, make the crunch topping, smother the bread dough in the crunch topping batter, and then bake. Not only was it a tasty experiment, it was also quite easy... bonus!

Here's the bread dough after it rose and was ready to be shaped.

This is the "crunch" batter all whipped up and ready to go.

My dough shaped into rolls (I figured that would be a fun presentation, instead of sliced bread loaves)

My gooped up rolls. The recipe instructed us to not go skimpy; skimpy = not decent cracks in the topping. I think I took that a bit too literally; the topping was oozing down onto the baking sheet by the time I was done applying it. I wound up having to scrape a bit of it off, but I'm glad I did.

Ta da!! Don't they look pretty??

I made a quick veggie sandwich, just to make sure I got the required sandwich picture,
but then deconstructed it and just ate the salad. :D

I was inspired (the next day) to make a grilled cheese sandwich (using 3 kinds of cheese and the Dutch Crunch bread).  MY OH MY, was it ever good! I dipped the sandwich in the tomato soup and tasted a little bit of Heaven with each bite. So good!

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!