Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Faith {30 Days of Gratitude}


What does faith have to do with bread?  Why when I had all of the prep for Thanksgiving did I spend today making sourdough?  See what the boules up above turned into?  They smell better than they look. (both are out of the oven now)


Last week I promised my primary kids bread like pioneers made so I woke Sheldon (my sourdough start) up and spent today in a kitchen covered with flour and watching for flour, water, and salt to work it's magic.  A few years ago for girls camp I starting thinking about the analogy of sour dough bread being like faith.  There are several ways to get your start, sometimes they are borrowed from other people, started on the kitchen window sill with flour and water and careful feeding, ordered off of the internet, "cheater" starter with potato water and yeast.  None of them are wrong, but just like faith it starts in many different ways.  Soul searching alone, born in traditions our parents teach, etc. but eventually faith and sour dough have to grow on their own and not rely on others.  The analogy goes on, but I have a disaster of a kitchen to clean up and it's getting late.

Is anyone interested in me sharing my sour dough technique once Thanksgiving has passed?  Either traditional sour dough boules or bread without any of the sour dough tang that simply uses sour dough starts to leaven the bread.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Baking {30 Days of Gratitude}






I know that this could fit in either "hobbies" or "good food" but baking can almost be therapeutic for me.  Kneading bread dough, shaping, creaming butter and sugar.  It doesn't hurt that the end result is delicious.



This pie was a test run for Thanksgiving and the 'birthday cake' for my Mother-in-law.  My new pie plates are bigger than my old ones so I needed extra dough and extra filling so this ended up with a crumb topping and a shallow pie.



It wasn't necessarily the prettiest pie and Mary Berry would have been appalled at the bottom of my crust, but I have a few weeks to keep going.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Baking Therapy

There is something about a clean kitchen that screams to be used. That and my Pinterest addiction have found me in the depths of baking therapy. 

ICU is closed tonight and I'm second to be called in, so what better to do than bake grasshopper poke cake. 

Grasshopper Poke Cake

Ingredients
1-Chocolate cake mix, baked per instructions on box
1-can sweetened condensed milk
1- hot fudge (I think it was about 11 oz jar)
1 package Keebler grasshopper fudge cookies chopped (we ate some dipped in the cool whip and still had plenty of crumbs)
16 oz cool whip (real whipped cream doesn't work well either)
1 package Duncan Hines mint frosting flavoring
1 cup Andes mint chocolate chips

Bake chocolate cake as usual and let cool. For ease I used a triple chocolate cake mix. I'm not certain why but poke cakes turn out better for me if the base is from a mix. 

When cool use the backside of a wooden spoon or clean dowel to poke holes into the cake. Pour sweetened condensed milk over top of cake, ensuring it covering into holes. 

Heat hot fudge until soft, mix in 1/2 of grasshopper cookies and spread over cake. 




Mix frosting flavor packet and cool whip (this is a good point to dip one of the cookies you set aside) then spread over top of fudge/cookie layer. 

Top with rest of cookies and Andes chips. Refrigerate overnight.  



We didn't make it overnight, but I did wait until Charlet was home from Young Women's. 


We did have a yummy skillet lasagna first, my house smelled delicious!