Whole Wheat Bread

Out of the oven just minutes ago. I sliced the end off for sampling as soon as it was cool enough to handle. So, so good. I only made one loaf but I have a feeling I’ll be making another batch next week. 

Michele of Veggie Num Nums and Teresa of The Family That Bakes Together have the recipe posted. If you love fresh bread, make this. If you don’t love fresh bread, then I’m pretty sure you’re lying. 

xx

Spike

PS- anyone else get big air bubbles like mine? See the lumps at the top of the bread in the photo. Good things looks aren’t everything. 

Nectarine Chiffon Upside Down Cake

Well, after an 18 mile run yesterday I decided to take on a mini version of this recipe. I also decided to do this in the evening, after half a cocktail. As you might imagine, my ability to improv a recipe under these conditions yield less than perfect results. The nectarine layer was good. The cake was very eggy tasting. Both Ed and I agreed that it was too ugly to photograph. I ate chocolate chip cookies instead.

I believe others, who wisely followed the recipe, had better results.  Marlise and Susan have the original recipe posted. 

I promise to do better next time.

xx

Spike

Popovers

Growing up, we used to always have Yorkshire pudding instead of popovers. As far as I can tell, the recipe is very similar. One difference? Yorkshire pudding falls in the middle, where popovers stay puffed- or at least mine did. I used a little hot oil in the muffin tin and didn’t need to cook the popovers quite as long- which was good because dinner was ready. We had these with a little (maybe a lot) of butter for dinner last night. 

Leftovers this morning with more butter and perhaps some cinnamon sugar or some maple syrup I picked up in Vermont this weekend. Cute little maple stand by the side of the road while running a 100 mile relay. Turns out, maple syrup is good running fuel. 

Find the recipe with Paula of Vintage Kitchen Notes and Amy of Bake With Amy.

xx

Spike

Strawberry Chocolate Galette

Totally thought I had another week to post this recipe. Whoops! Ah well, made it just in time. Tuesday nights are already crazy for me- running from the day job to teach spinning at night. Today I also had to make a dessert to bring to a work picnic tomorrow. I’ve got two desserts in the oven as I type and I’m covered in flour.

For the galette, I used just buttermilk, no ice water, to make the dough. Filled it with strawberries, the only berry in the house, and a handful of chocolate chips. Folded up the edges and sprinkled with sugar and ta da. Not too shabby for a Tuesday night dessert. 

I’d love to try the dough again with sour cream and change up the fillings. Can’t wait to see the combinations everyone else came up with this week. You can find the recipe with Lisa of Tomato Thymes in the Kitchen and Andrea of The Kitchen Lioness

xx

Spike

Blueberry Nectarine Pie with Lime Ice Cream

This week’s Tuesday recipe was pretty perfect for this time of year in New England. I’m really not a big blueberry fan, but I tolerate them slightly more if they are baked (in sugar). The recipe calls for baking the pie in a cake pan, so you end up with a fairly deep pie with lots and lots of crust. 

All of the blueberry lovers seemed to really enjoy the pie which was mostly blue with a few delightful bites of nectarine. The lime ice cream was kind of a last minute decision. I was going to make brown sugar vanilla ice cream but decided to use the limes up from the fridge. Ended up quite nicely. 

You can find the pie recipe on the blogs of Hilary of Manchego’s Kitchen and Liz of That Skinny Chick Can Bake

The ice cream recipe is below. Back later in the week with more blueberry recipes (from a the lady who doesn’t like blueberries…)

xx

Spike

Lime Brown Sugar Ice Cream 

zest and juice from two limes
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup of lightly packed brown sugar
3 egg yolks
pinch fine sea salt
1 cup light cream or half and half 
1 cup heavy whipping cream

In a medium saucepan, combine the zest, lime juice, sugars, egg yolks, salt and the light cream. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 170f. Remove from the heat and strain with a fine sieve into a heat proof bowl. Let cool for 10 minutes. Whisk in the heavy cream and let cool another 10 minutes. Refrigerate overnight, with a piece of plastic wrap pressed against the surface to prevent a skin from forming on the top. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions and enjoy. 

Semolina Bread

Ugh, where do I start? Semolina was $5.99 for a small package at the store and I was having none of that. The dough was so sticky in the food processor that it sounded like it was dying, so I took it out, added even more flour and kneaded by hand. Then the last rise was pathetic despite the humidity. It baked up flat. Tasted okay. Cutting it straight up into cubes and putting in the freezer for croutons later. 

Picture of Toby hanging by the pool instead of flat bread. 

xx

Spike

French Strawberry Cake

Made this one way back during memorial day weekend. Memorial Day weekend also happens to be my birthday weekend and a college day cookout with my friends (where we pretend to still be in college and hang out drinking beers in the backyard all day). Obviously, this is one of my favorite weekends of the year. 

Despite getting yelled at for wanting to make myself a birthday cake (later rectified when Ed made me a perfect bday cake, from scratch no less), I knew this strawberry cake would be perfect for a cookout. 

What’s really nice about the cake is that it is not over the top sweet. I can’t remember how much the recipe called for in the strawberries, but I only added enough to get the juice going. The extra sugar was not missed! The photo was a quick one as the cake was being devoured. If you want to try this cake while strawberries are in season, check these two blogs for the recipe: Sophia of Sophia’s Sweets and Allison of Sleep Love Think Dine

xx

Spike

Naan Problems

Update: I forgot there were three weeks in May and the naan recipe isn’t due until June! Ugh! Maybe I’ll get my chance to try it again.

On Sunday, we had a few friends over for a cookout. College day, more specifically. This is the one time each year my friends and I like to pretend we are still in college and drink, eat and play games all day in the backyard. We always make and consume crazy amounts of food. I made the french strawberry cake that the TWD crew will post in two weeks (so good without a ton of sugar), chicken satay, and naan. Well, I meant to make the naan.

I had the dough all prepped and ready for the grill but some how it got lost in all the food and never made it to actually being cooked. So today, I tried to salvage it and bake it up. Yeah, not so much.  It had dried out and no amount of spritzing with water could salvage it. I didn’t even bother taking a picture. I figured a picture of Toby lounging in the yard would be much better.

So, how did everyone like the naan? Should I make another attempt?

xx

Spike

Sticky Buns

I’d like to rename these butter buns. Or maybe butter buns are just what I have after eating one. Butter in the dough, more butter folded into the layers, even more butter to make the topping. So one would logically conclude that these would be both rich and delicious.

And they were. I made half the batch (freezing the second half of brioche for another day). I skipped pecans and mix both brown and white sugar with the cinnamon for the filling. And, a confession, I reduced the butter that you fold into the dough by about a third. These were enjoyed at a mother’s day brunch. I only wish that the desserts I had baked for  the second mother’s day event had been half as good (sorry mom, I’ll make you some sticky buns soon to make up for it). 

This is a project and a half but if you’re up for it, check out the recipe on our hosts’ sites: Lynn of Eat Drink Man Woman Dogs Cat and Nicole of Cookies on Friday

xx

Spike

Hungarian Shortbread

I’m committing to sticking with the Tuesdays with Dorie schedule for this book. So, despite a crazy day and evening, I fit in this Hungarian shortbread tonight.

It was raining all day, which meant traffic was bad. I got home half an hour later than usual, which gave me about 20 minutes to say hi to my boys, stuff a slice of piece in my face, get the cookie dough together and refrigerate, then change into my spinning clothes.  Then I was off to teach spinning. Home again, I de-spinned myself, ate another slice of pizza, finished up the cookies, photographed, and now here we are. I’m tired. 

I quartered the recipe and baked the shortbread in a cupcake tin. Altogether I had 7 individual cookies, 4 with orange marmalade and 3 with a chocolate chip filling. Surprisingly, I liked the orange better that the chocolate. I think the rhubarb jam that was part of the recipe would be even better, you know given the time to make it. 

Find the recipe with Lynette of 1smallkitchen or Cher of The not so exciting adventures of a dabbler…

xx

Spike