Apple Baking Bonanza

The weather is getting cool and crisp here in the NorthEast and what's better than a fall crisp day and apple picking? This weekend was a rainy, dreary weekend and unfortunately was supposed to be an apple picking weekend. A couple of my coworkers, Cheryl and Paula, and I were planning an apple picking/baking Saturday for this weekend, but then the rains came! So instead, we compromised and purchased our apples, but continued with the original plans to bake. Cheryl kindly offered up her home for the baking festivities. So Paula and I trecked it out all the way into Scituate, RI! And on our way, we also stopped at Cracker Barrel and Super Walmart. Two venues I had never been before, but now may frequent often. They were fabulous!

To begin our bake off, we started with Dutch Apple Pie with Oatmeal Streusel. A very simple and tasty recipe to make.



We then took a stab at making Apple Turnovers. We were not very comfortable working with the puff pastry and felt that the way these looked when we took them out of the oven were not very appetizing, however, once cooled and with the glaze...they weren't that bad!



Our next recipe was Pumpkin Apple Muffins with Streusel Topping. I think it was unanimous that everyone loved this recipe the best. We even thought they were better than Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Muffins and those are pretty good.



We liked the muffins so much that we even decided to bake this recipe as a bread.



I forgot to take a picture of the finished bread once it came out of the oven. We divided all the baked goods up between the three of us and as you can tell from the picture above, my block of bread is almost gone.

I just want to mention that I had a wonderful time baking with my friends and I hope that they will join me again in another baking bonanza!

Good Ol' Fashioned Shortbread

I was in a baking mood once again this morning and decided to make a batch of shortbread cookies. The ingredients appeared to be really simple: flour, sugar and butter, how hard could that be? The recipe called for 1 1/4 cups of flour, 3 Tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 cup of butter. I was to mix the flour and sugar together in a bowl and then CUT the butter in. Not sure about all of you bakers out there, but I didn't have a fancy gadget to help me cut the butter into the mix and had to revert to using two knives. I tried my best to cut that butter in, but I don't think I did a good job because after the whole cutting process, I was then to form the dough into a ball and knead until smooth. I could hardly get the "dough" into a ball, never mind knead until smooth. After struggling for a while with that, I decided to add a little warm water to the mixture to ensure that it would stick together to at least form a dough. That seemed to work to my advantage and the results of my labors this morning are below:





I have to say that they came out very tasty, just like shortbread cookies that I have purchased from the store. But don't let the "simple" ingredients fool you. I guess I will just need more practice with cutting butter! Till next time!

Homemade Cinnamon Buns

Not sure if you all are catching on to my fascination with baking with yeast, but here is another post on homemade baking. This time, it was ooey, gooey, cinnamon buns. This recipe was quite easy to follow and they turned out fabulous. I even brought them into work to share with my fellow co-workers and received numerous comments. This recipe is definitely a keeper. Perhaps it will become a traditional favorite at Christmas time or Easter. Of course, I took lot's of pictures along my journey:


The infamous yeast rising.


The infamous dough rising after an hour.


The dough all rolled out onto the counter in preparation of the delectable cinnamon and sugar.


The dough all rolled up after the cinnamon and sugar was added.


The roll cut and placed in the baking dish.


The rolls doubled in size after another hour and are ready to bake!


Voila! The baked rolls.


The finished product! Yum!

Homemade Bagels

I have always wanted to attempt making homemade bagels, so one Saturday, I set out for the task. I obtained the recipe from all recipes.com. After reading the reviews on it, I decided to give it a try. I have to say that it wasn't hard to make at all, but very time consuming. Unfortunately, you can't tell from the pictures below, but they came out very flat and not as big as I expected. Perhaps I will add another teaspoon of yeast to the mixture when I make them again and add flavorings such as cinnamon and raisins, or go all out and attempt wheat bagels. But for my first stab at it, I don't think I did that bad.





I was always afraid to bake with yeast, the whole concept of "killing" the yeast scared me away from it. But it's not all that hard and I can honestly say that I am mastering it quite well. Tune in next time for my homemade cinnamon buns! YUM!

Update from my Kitchen Aid Mixer

So yesterday I decided to utilize my kitchen aid mixer once again. I was in the mood to make dinner with it and tried to do a search for dinner recipes from kitchenaid.com, however, they mostly had dessert recipes on that website. So I decided to make a homemade chicken pot pie and make the crust from scratch (which I have never ever done before). Luckily, I had the recipe for the shell of the pie in the guide that came with my mixer and I basically made the filling on a whim, hoping it would taste good. The pie came out GREAT, if I do say so myself! I have pictures, which I will post later when I get home, but I honestly think it was just as good as a store-bought chicken pot pie. The only thing that I wish I had done was either brush the top of the pie with some butter or oil in order for it to brown up a bit.


Alot of green going on with the peas and celery, but delicious all the same!


Yummy!!

This recipe is definitely a keeper!!

Yumm...Fresh Bread Baking in the Oven!

After college, I began to enjoy cooking! I don't know if it was the whole "fend for yourself" attitude since I was living on my own or if it was the whole "need to lose all of your beer drinking weight from college" attitude that made me start to love cooking. Whatever it was, I love to cook.

I received the Kitchen Aid mixer for my bridal shower and have not even begun to experience its full potential. Besides from using it for the basics such as mixing cake, cookies or cupcake recipes, I have realized that it can do a hell of alot more. I decided it was time for me to learn how to make fresh bread. I've always been scared of making bread...something to do with the whole yeast thing. Perhaps it was the time when my mom tried to make Portuguese sweet bread and she killed the yeast, so the bread never rose that scared me away from trying to make bread. Because if my mom couldn't make it...what makes me think that I could ever make it? So today was the day that I encountered this challenge! I decided to use the basic white bread recipe found in my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer user guide. I had all the ingredients on hand...yes, even the yeast (I had purchased this element a couple of weeks back in anticipation of making bread one day). I was feeling good and ready, up for the long haul ahead of me, since after reading through the recipe, it appears that I would have to wait several hours for the bread to set and rise with this whole yeast thing.

Got my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer out, attached the dough hook (nifty little gadget, I tell you) and away we went.


Once all the ingredients were mixed in our fabulous gadget here, I was instructed to cover it and let it sit for 20 minutes in order for the dough to ferment. This picture illustrates the fermentation. The dough basically doubled in size which demonstrated that the yeast was working...YEAH!!

After seperating the dough into two pieces, I was then insrtucted to roll each of them out flat with a rolling pin and then in turn, roll them (like a jelly roll) and tuck loose ends under. I then placed them in greased loaf pans and brushed them with oil. Then they were placed in refigerator for 4 hours. The instructions mentioned to leave them in the fridge between 2-12 hours.


At this point, I was already getting excited for the outcome!
And here, ladies and gentlemen, are my final products!! Not bad, I must say for a first timer!




Yummy fresh bread!! Reminds me of those breads that you get at Panera or specialty bakeries. I'm very impressed with myself but I owe it all to my Kitchen Aid mixer! I couldn't have done it without my mixer!