Greetings! After a very lengthy period of, well, nothing, I've decided to come back to this blog with a new approach. Food and travel are two of the things I enjoy most in life, and I want to write about them in greater detail here. I've reposted a detailed entry of our trip to Paris last September, in all its gastronomic glory, as a slightly easy way of getting back into this. Links will be added and I will probably continue to tinker with the appearance and format over the coming weeks.
I want to bake more regularly this year, and will try to record what I make, when I make it, and how successfully it turned out.
Last week I made James Beard's Homestyle Bread, a basic white loaf which is made a bit more special by the addition of milk and sugar. It was very tasty and had a dense crumb. It was probably denser than it should have been, which is I think the case with most of the breads I do at home where hand-kneading is a necessity. My technique is well out of practice and I found my hands aching at times during the 10-15 minutes I spent on this loaf. The yeast could be another culprit, it didn't ferment as much in the proving stage as it maybe could have. But still, we both enjoyed it for sandwiches and snacks, and that's the most important part.
Last night I made Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip cookies, my second most-frequent childhood recipe after the classic Toll House Chocolate Chip cookie. These turned out very strangely; I'm seriously wondering if I forgot the baking soda (bicarb to UK readers). They hardly rose at all, and I had them in the oven twice as long as the recipe called for. I do find that when using butter in certain cookie recipes that they're always flatter than when I use vegetable shortening, and I think this may be one of those recipes. The Toll House cookies certainly are. Ah for a cheap source of Crisco in this country, but oh well.
Someday I think I would like to open a bakery. There, I've said it. If I do make that a reality, I will do my best to chart that journey here as well.
About Me
- Rachel
- Blogger, baker, museum-goer and art lover. Not from around here. Likes: photography, single malt whisky and good writing. Dislikes: apostrophe abuse, blue cheese, and people who litter.
2 comments:
yay! open a bakery!
will you share your choco-pb cookie recipe?
xo
If I open a bakery, you realize this means no babies for a very long time... ;^)
The Choco-PB cookie recipe is actually the one on the back of the Hershey's/Reese's Peanut Butter Chips bag. I'll post the link the the Hershey's recipe site in the original entry.
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