Sure, it looked interesting - one might even say it looked good, but it did NOT hit the spot. Hm. Ok, after flipping through one of the recent King Arthur Flour catalogs that showed up recently (I luuuuurve King Arthur Flour!), I decided to try their bread bowl recipe... (I have to say I LOVE that they include recipes in the catalog!) So first you throw together the ingredients...
Whizz it all together in your handy dandy KitchenAid stand mixer that you love love love and can't live without...
...and then let the dough rise while you run out for some errands with the dog...
When you get back, admire how much the dough has risen (even though you used active dry yeast because you didn't have the instant yeast called for by the recipe), and envision what beautiful bread bowls you'll be dining from shortly. Speaking of which...
...follow the recipe and shape the five bread bowls. Hm, they don't look very big...are these bread tea cups? Oh well - the dough will rise! The recipe calls for letting it rest/rise in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Well, the fridge was full with Thanksgiving leftovers (this was, after all, Black Friday), so I stuck it out in the freezing garage instead.
Hm. That's the problem with making bread. You really miss out on the near-instant gratification you get with so much other baking. Hm.
Ok, let's make some cookies! This was Peter's mum's ginger cookie recipe. Whenever he's sent them to me they've been these nice puffy cookies - with some real height to 'em. Mine didn't turn out that way - not sure why. He's used butter instead of the Crisco called for in the recipe - so I did the same. He's bumped the temperature down from 350 to 325 - so again, I did the same- just baking them longer. Maybe the dough should've been chilled a bit, or maybe they needed a little more flour to give them more structure.
Oh who cares - they tasted GREAT! Even the sun peeked through the window to give them a little extra sparkle...
So four and a half hours after the dough was put into the garage I brought it back out. Some of the dough balls had forms some serious bubbles. Once popped/sliced, these loaves became some of the smaller bread bowls - disappointing. (And I LOVE slices of pizza with huge bubbles in the crust!)
Once they had more resting inside, were sliced and then baked, they looked great! Sure, kinda small, but very "rustic" looking!
Considering this is the first "real" bread I've baked in a looooong time I have no real complaints. We've decided when I try them again, I'll just make four bowls and increase the baking time a little. And maybe give them more rising time since they were a bit heavy (but they do have whole wheat in them, so that's to be expected).
And what does one do with bread bowls on a cold, wintery day? First you get the bf to make chili his favorite way, carve out those bread bowls, fill 'em with chili, and grate on some cheese. YUUUUUM! And since the bread bowls were so small, you can TOTALLY justify having seconds! ;-)
And don't forget - ginger cookies for dessert! YUM!
3 comments:
Hmmm, those cookies look really different from what they should be. Not a big deal so long as they taste fine, but still, I really do wonder what it could all be about.
Yummy, yummy bread bowls with chilli and cheese...mmm.
Peter - You've said you're also not having the best results with them lately. Is it the same thing for you - that they're going flat? Maybe I need to go back to your mom's (mum's) original version, using Crisco and the higher temp, and see if that makes a difference. Or maybe I'll look around online, see if I can find basically the same recipe, and see if something's gotten lost in the translation (like a chilling period?) I'm not quite certain why some recipes tell you to chill a dough (like chocolate crinkles I believe?) and others don't now that I think about it....
Tabby - You know it! And with the guys coming over tomorrow nite for a potluck dinner, it looks like I'm making beef stew in the oven all day! More good cold weather cookin'!
Post a Comment