So, as promised, here are my little Easter cupcakes I made. Of course, the birds look more like Jabba the Hut than cute little bluebird chicks, but they're still cabbage-patch adorable, right?
They seem a little labour-intensive, but they're actually not that tough. I found the idea on Martha Stewart's site, where (of course) they look perfect. I think if I make them again I'll use mini eggs for the bodies, because I had frosting issues. Of course, I also bought minimal ingredients, and instead adapted it for what I had lying around, so you get what you put in...but they still taste delicious! The cake recipe is from here, and is one of my favourites, and I used my usual buttercream recipe from Bakerella. Enjoy!
Get excited, people! I don't think I'll go all-out on the spelling again, but today it's...crème brûlée! Finally, a way to put all of those yolks from your angel food cake to work!
This tasty treat is actually not as hard or intimidating as it might seem, it was actually pretty straight forward. I based my version on another one from Alton Brown at the Food Network, but because I was too cheap/lazy for some of the ingredients, and had some other ones laying around instead, I did a few swaps. Ready? Here goes...
Or, as the boy calls it, angel wing cake. Whatever you call it, it's a super light, sweet, tasty cake! It was my mom's birthday on Wednesday, and rather than make her one from a mix, I thought I'd go all out and make one from scratch, since it's her favourite. Just as a head's up, this recipe calls for 12 - yes, one dozen! - egg whites! Have no fear though, because I found a tasty awesome recipe that calls for 6 yolks, so it's not all going to waste, so I'll post that one next weekend. (Spoiler alert - it's creme brulée.) I adapted the recipe from this one, by Alton Brown, on the Food Network website, and it worked like a charm.
Okay, as promised, round two of the bread experiment...and it's a success!! As of the last post, I was waiting patiently for the bread to finish rising, so that I could hack it up, and bake it. It looked something like this:
Once it's risen for at least two hours (apparently up to 5, or even overnight is okay/better, so whatever floats your boat), and then collapsed - I "helped" mine by dropping the mixing bowl, whoops - you take the dough and the bowl it's in, cover it (I just put loose plastic wrap over it, so gasses could get out), and put it in the fridge. You can leave it in there for up to two weeks, and just hack off the bits you want to make one loaf at a time - perfect, because I don't have the patience usually to wait for several hours for bread to rise!
I hacked off my loaf, about the size of a softball, and sort of kneaded it mid-air. Hold it in your hands and smooth the top, and tuck the excess underneath - kind of like a botched facelift. Put it onto an upside-down baking pan dusted with cornmeal, cover it up with a cloth (a slightly damp cloth is best, according to my mom), and leave it in a warm place for at least half an hour, up to 1 1/2 hours. It won't rise a ton, but it will get a bit bigger.
Before:
After:
That yellowy stuff? Is cornmeal. I honestly didn't know what it was until I bought it. Then I realised that's the same stuff that's on the bottom of bagels...just blew your mind too, didn't it? Thought so.
Wow guys, this is kind of a big change from my typical, rot-your-teeth-out, deliciously sweet stuff! But the Boy has volunteered to make us minestrone for dinner, so I thought the least I could do was make some lovely bread to go with it! I'm not a huge fan of super complicated recipes, and this one seemed pretty simple. I found a variation of it on a blog, but it's actually from a book (Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day), which has lots of suggestions, variations, yadda yadda. I think if I ever actually bought a cookbook, and stopped using the internet almost exclusively for recipes, I'd probably get this one, I love bread that much.
But enough chit chat, here goes. I'll be totally honest and let you all know that I haven't actually finished making this bread yet - in case you missed that from the "part one" in the title. So, fun times, you get to learn along with me! I'm at about the halfway point in the process, so either later tonight or tomorrow I'll finish it up with how the bread turned out, and lots more lovely photos. Who knows, if it's better than my tried-and-true soda bread recipe, I might be making this from now on.
This is a very current photo of where the bread is at right now:
Awesome, right? I feel like it's going to take over the apartment, so if you don't hear from me again, you'll at least know what the suspect looks like.
