Daring Bakers' Challenge: Beautiful Bread

Once I read about this month's baking challenge, I have to admit that I got quite giddy. The photos showing what we'd (in theory) make were gorgeous!!

This month, we were challenged to make filled bread with either a cinnamon sugar filling or a Nutella filling. Not being a Nutella fan (or that much of a hazelnut fan, to be honest) made picking between the two recipes quite simple for me! Not only were we challenged to make filled bread, but pretty filled bread (akin to the gorgeous works by Valentina Zurkan, a VERY talented bread sculptor, for lack of better term).

The recipe was easy to follow and the process wasn't at all difficult. I did forget to pinch the outer corners together, which would have made the bread even prettier. The one thing I wish I'd done differently was stick with my gut on the baking time/temp. In the pit of my core, I knew that the temp/time would be an issue, and it was. The bread was WAY overdone (see photo below). That said, when I peeled off the top layer (then quite glad I'd forgotten to pinch the outer corners together), the bread was very tasty! It was basically a non-rolled cinnamon roll... and who can complain about that??? (This also inspired me to make a batch of Peter Reinhart's Sticky Buns a day or two later.. again, who could complain??)

I'll definitely try this recipe and technique again. Great learning opportunity and I got to experiment with a new bread-making method. :)

Cinnamon Sweet Bread

Ingredients

·         1/4 cup (60 ml) warm water

·         3/4 cup (180 ml) warm milk

·         1 large egg

·         1/4 cup (60 ml) (60 gm) (2 oz) butter, softened

·         1/4 cup (60 ml) (50 gm) (1-3/4 oz) white sugar

·         1/2 teaspoon (3 gm) salt

·         3-1/4 cups (780 ml) (450 gm) (16 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour, approximately

·         2 teaspoons (10 ml) (8 gm) dry yeast

·         1/4 teaspoon (1 gm) cardamom, optional

For topping

·         1/4 cup (60 ml) of milk

·         1 tablespoon (15 gm) (1/2 oz) sugar

Between the layers

·         1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) (1/4 cup) (60 ml) (60 gm) (2 oz) butter

·         4 tablespoons (60 ml) (25 gm) (1 oz) cinnamon

·         1/2 cup (120 ml) (100 gm) (3-1/2 oz) sugar

For drizzling

·         1 can (400 gm) (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

1. In a bowl whisk the egg with milk, water, sugar, butter and yeast. Set aside

2. In another bowl sift the flour with the salt and the optional cardamom.

3. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and knead until you get a smooth dough. 4. Place it in a bowl you have brushed with some oil and cover it with a wet cloth and leave it in a warm place to double .

5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface

6. Divide the dough into 4 parts

7. Roll each part into a circle at least 20 cm (8 inch) in diameter 

8. Brush the first layer with butter then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon

9. Place the second layer on the first layer repeat the brushing and sprinkling and then do the same

with the third layer.

10. Top with the fourth layer, this time only brush it with butter.

11. Using a knife make cuts that divide the dough circles into 8 triangles

12. Make cuts that go 2/3 of the way in the middle of each triangle. The cuts should not reach the base

of the triangle nor the tip as you can see in the picture 

13. Take the tip of each triangle and insert it into the cut you made and pull it from the underside

14. Arrange the triangles on your baking sheet

15. Pinch the two angles at the base of the triangle together 

16. Brush the dough with milk

17. Allow to rest for 15 minutes during which you would heat your oven to very hot

500°F/240°C/gas mark 9 (rack in the middle). (Go for the hottest your oven will do).

18. Bake for 5 minutes on very hot 500°F/240°C/gas mark 9, then lower the temperature to

moderately hot 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6 and bake for 15-20 more minutes (ovens do differ greatly, so

the time may differ; what you want is to bake it until the under side is golden brown). If you have a

broiler (grill) in your oven. Turn on the broiler (grill) for a couple of minutes until the bread is golden

brown on top.

19. Take it out of the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rick and drizzle with

sweetened condensed milk while it is still warm.

Beauty surrounded the Daring Bakers this month as our host, Sawsan, of chef in disguise, challenged us to make beautiful, filled 
breads. Who knew breads could look as great as they taste?

A Weekend of Homemade

Looking back on this past weekend, I'm pretty impressed with how much "homemade" we achieved.

First, I finished Annika's new nightgown. When I began the project early last week, I figured it would be a snap to whip up... and it should have been, but I couldn't get my serger to work properly. No matter how I changed the tension dials, the only tension that changed was my own. I had to walk away on a few occasions because my fun project wasn't feeling very fun. Finally, I went to the store that sold it to me and asked for help. A marvelous woman took a look at my machine, pointed out a few things that needed to be corrected and then played with the tension dials. Within a few minutes, she tamed my serger and it was creating gorgeous stitches. She also pointed out that the settings she landed on are pretty wonky, which means my serger is due for some maintenance. This week, it'll go in for some TLC.

Annika modeling her new nightgown

While finishing Annika's nightgown was a huge accomplishment (which also resulted in us being able to use our kitchen table again), it wasn't the only completed project of the weekend. Eric and I swapped out the worn out faucet in our downstairs bathroom. (Sorry, no pictures are available.) The hot water handle had a bit of an issue in that if we turned it off too far, the water would turn back on. It's been like this for quite some time and I decide it was time for a change. After a lot of elbow grease, a few scraped knuckles, a bit of head scratching, lots of tools, and some plumbers dope (yes, I do know what that is now!), we pulled out the old hardware and replaced it with the new. So thrilled with the final results!!

On Saturday, I was struck with the idea that Annika and I should try making homemade butter. I'd picked up a quart of whipping cream so I could make frosting for a cake, but knew there would be plenty left for other purposes (Oh yeah, there's another project .. I made a chocolate cake with chocolate and peanut butter ganache topping for my co-workers' birthdays). Thanks to a quick Internet search, I found that a blog that said we only needed was some whipping cream and a jar that had a good seal. Done and done! Unfortunately, I was much more psyched about the project than Annika was, so after about 5-6 shakes, she was ready to work on solving her mazes and I was left getting a great upper body workout. But, after a lot of shaking, we went from having whipping cream to whipped cream, to a lump of stuff, to butter and buttermilk. Little did I realize when we started that we'd have two final products: homemade butter and homemade buttermilk (which I used to make pancakes for the kids Sunday morning)!

Butter!

Buttermilk

Thanks to my cousin (Tonya) introducing me to the wondrous world of online craft classes, I enrolled in a free "perfect pizza" class led by the amazing Peter Reinhart... a well-known bread maker. So, I decided to make homemade pizza for dinner ... which, of course, required homemade pizza dough. One of Peter's tips was to make the dough a day or two before you need it, so the glutens have time to develop. We'll make pizza for dinner tonight ... stay tuned for a review of the final results. 

To quote Homer Simpson: "DOUGH!"

Last, and certainly not least, I got it in my head that the kids needed crowns that would last more than 5 minutes. Typically when they want to play dress up, I'd make them paper crowns. Paper being paper and the kids being kids resulted in ripped crowns and frowny kids. Enough was enough ... our kids deserve the best, right? My mission was to sew them some fabric crowns that had a chance of living past the afternoon. 

Once again, I did a quick Internet search, found a great blog that included instructions and a template, and I went to work. I learned quite a bit about the process making Annika's crown and applied a few tweaks when constructing Conor's crown. The biggest tip I figured out was to cut the interfacing slightly smaller than the fabric so it doesn't make the inside fabric quite so tight. Plus, my serger proved to be the perfect tool for finishing the bottom edges of the crowns - once again, thank you to the marvelous woman at the sewing store! I was incredibly pleased with the final results and the kids love them. Win - win!

Our prince and princess

Ta-da!
You can't really tell in this photo, but each crown has two fabrics:
one on the inside and one on the outside