BBA Challenge #11: Cranberry-Walnut Celebration Bread

3 disappointing BBA Challenge breads in a row – I wasn’t really motivated to get the next bread on the lineup started. Did I want to continue with the challenge? Yes! Did I want to experience more disappointment? No! Thus, it was time for a nice-looking and yummy bread. At least the picture in the book increased my hope of having a nice result this time.

BBA Challenge #10: Corn Bread

First off, it should be said this was another disappointment in the BBA Challenge. When I stayed in the US as an exchange student I had corn bread quite a few times, and it was always really yummy. It is, therefore, needless to say that I was really looking forward to making this bread.

To please my kids, I went for the muffin solution. I had all the ingredients, followed all the directions, but the muffins wouldn’t rise at all.  I know, this was a quick bread without yeast, but usually baking powder DOES cause some growth, doesn’t it? Anyway, the smell was heavenly, but the muffins weren’t really that tasty. Actually, the flavor was ok, but since they were kinda gummy, they weren’t really appetizing. I wonder if the non-muffin version would have yielded a different result???

BBA Challenge #9: Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Long time no post! It’s been a long time, 1 month exactly, since I’ve blogged about a BBA Challenge bread. Actually, I’ve made 5 more breads in the meantime, but haven’t had any time at all to blog about them. Today is the day that I’m trying to at least start clearing the backlog.

BBA Challenge #8: Cinnamon Buns

I was kind of surprised to find cinnamon buns in a bread baking book. Wouldn’t they fall in the cake category? At least here in Germany, cinnamon snails (as we call them) are eaten in the afternoon when you serve coffee and cake. But I LOVE cinnamon buns. Thus, I was really looking forward to baking these rolls. And of course, I wanted to  advance with the BBA Challenge. To put it bluntly, though – I was disappointed .

BBA Challenge #7: Ciabatta

I was a little excited to finally start the next bread of the BBA Challenge – Ciabatta. Many bakers of the challenge were complaining the ciabatta didn’t turn out so perfectly because there weren’t enough holes, so I was wondering how mine would look like.

BBA Challenge #6: Challah

Next challenge in the BBA challenge – Challah. I was kind of nervous because of the braiding. I had made a “Hefezopf” for Easter 2 years ago, and couldn’t really figure out the braiding stuff, so I was hoping it would work out this time. But as you may have noticed in the picture above, I made a mistake – again…

BBA Challenge #5: Casatiello

I’m kind of rushing through Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice to catch up on the BBA Challenge. The next bread on the lineup was Casatiello, an Italian bread with bits of cheese and salami. I was looking forward to making this bread because I like the combination of salami and cheese, even though I’m not a big fan of meat.

Sour Cherries – Preserves and Jam

I have to clear a huge backlog, so here’s yet another post. I went sour cherry picking in July with my daughters and we got back with about 12 lb of cherries. Fortunately, I just had gotten this cherry pitter before so I was kind of confident that it wouldn’t take me forever to pit the cherries. But still, it took me 3 evenings and I didn’t want to see any cherries anymore.

BBA Challenge #4: Brioche

Bread #4 of the BBA Challenge: Brioche. This bread looked really appealing to me due to its shape. Also, my friend Sara is kind of obsessed with Brioche and has posted about it twice already (here and here). So it was time to give it a try.

BBA Challenge#3 and BBD#23: Bagels

Next bread on the BBA challenge lineup – bagels. I was really looking forward to making these because I LOVE bagels. There are places in Germany where you can buy bagels (even good ones), but I hardly ever get to go there. So I have to live without them or make my own. I’ve never made bagels before, so I decided that they were the perfect challenge for this month’s Bread Baking Day hosted by imafoodblog who chose the topic “Something you’ve never made before”.

BBA Challenge #2: Greek Celebration Bread

Being away for 2 weeks of vacation led to a big pile of posts waiting to be written. As I want to get on with the BBA Challenge, a bread post is going to be the first post after the break.

The second bread on the lineup was a Greek Celebration Bread. I chose the basic version even though I felt intrigued by the nice shape of the Christopsomos. This will have to wait for a special occasion, though.

BBA Challenge #1: Anadama Bread

My friend Sara introduced me to the BBA Challenge at Pinch my Salt that has been going on for a while. All the bakers participating in this challenge attempt every single recipe in Peter Reinhart’s book “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread”. I’m kinda late, but I still want to participate because I think this gives me the chance to bake breads I otherwise wouldn’t try.

Blueberries: cake, yet another cake and preserves

As I posted earlier, there is a PYO near by. This time some blueberries wanted to be harvested. I went there with 2 kids, 3 big bowls, and came back with 2 kids, 3 big bowls and about 5,5 pounds of blueberries. Phew! Now I know why blueberries are soooo expensive – it’s a really tiring and time-consuming job, especially when you hear “Mom, when can we go home?” like every other minute. I must admit, though, that I thought it was boring, too .

BBD #22: Sweat Breads – Raisin Bread

Bread Baking Day (BBD) is a monthly event featuring bread. This month’s theme is Sweat Breads and is hosted by Stefanie from Hefe und mehr.

I’ve been owning a bread machine for almost 5 years now, and with the machine there came a booklet with a couple of recipes. I tried quite a few recipes, but there are 3 recipes I make over and over again because they are so yummy. One of them is raisin bread which perfectly fits this month’s BBD.

Snowy Mespilus and Raspberry Jam

We have a snowy mespilus (Amelanchier ovalis) in our backyard which we had planted because of its nice flowers and of the berries that attract the birds, but flipping thru my garden book the other day I realized that I didn’t HAVE to leave the berries to the birds, but could make jam out of them. To cut a long story short, I went outside and picked all the berries that were still looking good. Unfortunately, the idea of taking a picture of the shrub came to my mind when I was done picking, so that’s why the berries above were the only ones left and are already shriveled.

Redcurrants

I haven’t written much lately – bad time management, I guess. Actually, I’m away too often to pick and buy fruits and make different jams and such, so there’s no time anymore to post about everything. I’ll try to clear the backlog, though.

Lemon Syrup with Mint and Lemon Balm

I grow quite a lot of herbs in my backyard, and I’m proud to say that I’m kinda successful with my mint and lemon balm. Well, I think it’s not really hard to grow these herbs, but still… They are growing like crazy and I have so much of them that I don’t really know how to use everything up. Thus, I was looking for recipes that would use LOTS of mint and lemon balm, and found a syrup that sounds really delicious. It takes 2 days to make it, but the result is so yummy that it’s really worth the wait. It’s so refreshing that it’s just perfect for a warm day.  I have to admit, I made five 1 pint bottles 4 weeks ago and all of them are gone now! Obviously, I did something wrong – I wanted to PRESERVE the herbs grown in my backyard .

I adapted this recipe a little bit because I have Moroccan Mint in my backyard, and not peppermint and spearmint the recipe asks for, and I also  increased the  amount of lemon balm and mint because, well yes, I have so much of them. Without further ado, here’s my recipe:

Birthday Cakes Part 4: Ladybug Cake

My youngest daughter is a big fan of ants. She loves her books that have ants in them, she loves the  ants that enter our house, she loves to draw ants (actually, she draws dots and says “Look, an ant”).  So, a couple days ago she turned 2, and  I wanted to make a beautiful cake for her. BUT: have you ever seen an ant cake? I haven’t…  I DID find some ant cakes on the internet, but I couldn’t figure out how to make them (e.g. here). So I was looking further and on my favorite site I found this really beautiful ladybug cake. My daughter likes ladybugs – not as much as ants, but enough to be happy with a ladybug cake, I thought. It’s a 2-layer cake, originally filled with cream, but this was too heavy for my taste, so I replaced the cream filling with a mixture of mashed chocolate coated marshmallows and quark. The other ingredients that might be difficult to find in the US are toffifay and mikado sticks (also known as pocky). But you can make the legs, antennae and the eyes with other sweets, too. The result was a really cute-looking cake, but it was a little dry. It was really good the second day, though, when the frosting and the filling had soaked the  cake. Here’s what you need to make this cake:

CSA Box Problem Resolved \(^_^)/ – Cabbage Quiche

I really had some trouble using up all the weird things from my last CSA box, and not all of the dishes were a big hit (like, sauerkraut with potatoes and sausages – I just can NOT eat sauerkraut, or lemon muffins with parsnips in them – ugh!), but there was one dish that really surprised me – a cabbage quiche. I took this recipe found here as a basis (it asks for savoy cabbage, but mentions that cabbage or leek do well, too), and added some Kasseler style smoked pork chops (this might be hard to find outside of Germany, so it can be replaced with ham or smoked ham). The result was a very flavorsome and moist quiche I will definitely make again. Next time, though, I will prebake the crust so it won’t get that soggy. Here’s the recipe (makes about 6 servings):

Just a deep-drawn sigh…

Sigh! This week’s CSA box is a real challenge. I have NO idea at all how to use up all the parsnip, cabbage, savoy cabbage, sauerkraut and dill. Any ideas are welcome. The other things in the box are  2 lettuces, spring onions, carrots, and a salad cucumber. And the cheese box contains a vanilla yogurt, Brie, Gouda, alpine cheese and Maasdamer cheese. So if you can think of any interesting combination, please let me know .