So apparently I am just not meant to make sourdough bread.  Breaking a sweat, I needed that damn dough for 20 minutes and let it rise (more like melt) for 12 hours.  The bread wasn’t as flat as the last loaf, but was just as dense.  And it was still a bit wet inside.  Needless to say, another loaf goes in the trash.

I’m not sure what to do, but maybe I should start a new starter from scratch.  Paddy just doesn’t seem to be working out.  But for now, I’ll stick with active dry yeast.

The baking challenge this month over at the Daring Kitchen was to make sourdough using a sourdough starter.  I had never even heard of a starter before.  And I must admit, I was initially disappointed because I was hoping it’d be a more holiday themed challenge.  But nonetheless, turned out to be quite the learning experience.

I got started on my starter pretty early in the month.  I knew I’d be busy and seeing as how the starter takes 4+ days to create, I didn’t have time to waste.  Basically, a sourdough starter is a natural leaven “grown” by mixing a high content wheat flour with an equal weight of water.  It gets its kicks in a bit warmer temperatures and needs to “eat” every day until it matures (about 4 days), after which it needs to eat only once a week if kept at room temperature, less in the fridge.

My starter was three days developed when I decided to spontaneously go to Tampa to see the Script.  My mom was coming over to feed my bird twice a day, so she also looked after my starter.  When I returned three days later, it smelled really sour (my starter, not my bird), like it had gone rancid, and had a layer of liquid on top.  I thought for sure my mom had killed it, or at least that the bacteria had won the war against the yeast.  I looked at other Daring Bakers comments to see if they had the same results.  In the end, I decided to see if I could revive it, since everything I found said that starters are easy to nurse back to health.  Just in case, I started a new starter as well.

Back to wortk for a week, I had to keep discarding part of the starter so I could feed it more flour and water.  I work ten hour days, so I don’t have time during the week to make a yeast bread.  When the next weekend came around, it was time to put my yeastie beasties to work.  I also, after reading other bakers comments, lovingly named my starters.  They are living things, afterall.  Yeastie number one was named Paddy, since he was the one I revived after leaving town to see an IRISH band.  Yeastie number two was named Krusty because he would have a hard crust on top 24 hours after feeding.

The dough for sourdough is extremely sticky.  I had so much trouble with it.  I let my bread machine knead it because it stuck to my hands too much when I tried to.  I used Paddy in one loaf and threw in some chopped cheddar cheese, and Krusty was used in the other loaf and left plain.

Unfortunately, my end results fell flat, literally.  Sourdough Paddy had some holes in it when sliced, but was tough and didn’t rise.  Sourdough Krusty was just flat and seemed kind of wet, not at all like the dryness you expect with sourdough.

I still have the leftover starters in my fridge, waiting for another feeding and another chance to rise like a star.  I just didn’t have time this month to give it a second try.  But it ended up being an interesting challenge and my initial disappointment was dispelled by the creation of life, the creation of Paddy and Krusty.  They will probably soon be joined, as I don’t need two sourdough starters, to become super Paddy.  And I will try to feed him every two or three weeks since he’s in the fridge so I can attempt sourdough again.

In other yeastie news, I decided to make French pastries for Christmas breakfast.  We had a croissant challenge at the Daring Kitchen a few months ago but I was unable to participate.  So I pulled up that recipe and got to work.  I used good old fashion dry active yeast and cut all of the rising times in about half.  I started it at 5pm on Christmas Eve and when you have a dough that needs to rise 3 hours, fold and rise two more hours, then incorporate butter and rise another two hours between “turns,” it gets to be quite the lengthy project.  And cutting corners didn’t seem to affect the end result.  The croissants were plenty flaky and the pain au chocolat, pain au raisin with pastry cream, and galette suisse with pastry cream were equally delicious.  With my sister living in France, I think my parents appreciated the taste of France on Christmas morning.

So what else did I make this month, you ask?  When I say I was a busy baker, I mean it.  I made seven different types of cookies one weekend to give to friends and coworkers.  I also made my coworkers a gingerbread house in the shape of our office.  Funny enough, the gingerbread house was a previous Daring Bakers Challenge that I half-assed a couple years ago.  So I was glad to be able to finally see that one through.  Though it didn’t get all the details I wanted it to have, it wasn’t bad for the nine hours I put into it.

I am putting away my oven mitts and stepping away from the kitchen for the rest of the year.  That’s not saying much since there’s only four days left in 2011.  And actually, I might have lied.  I bought fruit to candy peel and want to make a stollen next weekend.  But that’s it, seriously.  I need to catch up on sleep.  Did I mention that December was crazy?  See you in 2012!

With winter finally hitting Phoenix (as much as winter does here), the lovely aromatic spices start to fill the air.  To kickstart the season, last month I made Bobby Flay’s pumpkin bread pudding.  There are quite a few components that go into it, but after reading reviews of its sweetness, I omitted the caramel sauce and opted for vanilla ice cream rather than creme anglaise.  I was excited to finally use that can of pumpkin that’s been sitting in my pantry for a year.  So you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered it was a can of pumpkin pie mix.  Not the same.  I reduced the sugar in the pumpkin bread and the custard since the mix contains added sugar, and I also reduced the liquids since it contains water.

The end result wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t phenomenal like I was expecting.  If it gets made again, I will use my own pumpkin bread recipe that doesn’t contain vegetable oil.  I always can taste that in breads.  And I’ll mix in normal bread cubes as well seeing as how the pumpkin bread soaks up the custard so much, it’s really just a pumpkin mush.

Then came Thanksgiving.  I have decided that when I turn 30, I am going to take over cooking the meal for my family.  That gives my mom one more year of doing it.  Yikes!  I’ve only got a year and 4 months left of my 20′s!  Anyways, I did help her this year by taking on some of the dishes.

My hatred of pie dough is starting to dimish.  I’m finding it’s getting easier and a bit more manageable to make.  I made two pies this year, the normal derby pie, and Alton Brown’s pecan pie with a pecan crust.

The pecan pie gave me no problems at all, thanks to the incredible Alton Brown.  It used golden syrup (which I had in my pantry) rather than corn syrup.  Gives the pie a bit more complex, nuttier taste.  Thanks Alton!

I didn’t have many liberties with the derby pie because my family can’t stand change.  But I used three different kinds of chocolate for the bottom layer since the recipe we have “floats” the egg custard on top.  I discovered that using good quality ghiradelli chocolate chopped may taste good, but doesn’t look quite as good.  The pieces weren’t heavy enough so they floated to the top of the custard.  The only other change I made was to substitute half of the corn syrup with golden syrup.

My other Thanksgiving duties included making corn bread muffins, rolls (which ended up being a loaf of bread thanks to my bread machine), cranberry sauce, and a garlic cauliflower side dish.  What I’m realizing is that I’m really bad at timing multiple dishes.  I thought it would all just come together at the same time, but then the pies didn’t get done quick enough so I had to wait to put the corn bread in, which delayed the cauliflower.  Good thing I didn’t make the whole meal this year because dinner would have ended up being 4 hours late and dishes would have had to be reheated.  I’ve got just under 2 years to sort out my timing issues before I take over the reins.

Speaking of reins, Christmas is just around the corner.  Last weekend I went to Tampa to see the Script (with cookies, of course) so I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet.  And I always bake for my coworkers and that hasn’t even started.  Ooh, so much to do!  This year for my coworkers, I’m not going to make tons of different cookies.  I’m cooking up a great idea, but you’ll have to wait and see so it doesn’t leak out to the masses.  With that project, shopping, and baking other little treats, I’ve got my hands full until Christmas.  We shall see if I can pull it all off.  Until then, I hope you, my readers, have a very lovely and happy holiday.

Now to the challenge of the month.  I wasn’t able to complete last months Daring Bakers Challenge at the Daring Kitchen, so I used a United Way bake sale fundraiser at work to motivate me to do this months.  Glad I did too, because it was quite tasty.  Ever heard of povitica?  Yeah, me neither.

Basically, it is a sweet dough (fun with yeast!) that includes scalded milk.  Then the dough is rolled out thinly, a ground nut mixture is spread on top, and it is rolled up and coiled about to make a loaf of bread that has distinct spiral designs.  I really enjoy making dough now.  I used to dislike yeast because I didn’t like the idea of cultivating living organisms to cook and eat later.  That probably explains why I don’t like yogurt.  But after a few Daring Bakers challenges that focused on yeast doughs, I find them fun and delicious.  And they’re super easy with my fabulous KitchenAid mixer and dough hook.

I whipped up this challenge in 4 hours which is pretty good considering that the dough has to rest for an hour and a half and bake for about 50 minutes.  Since I took it to work for the United Way fundraiser, I combined the dough for what should have been two loaves and baked in a bundt pan.  It gave me a tall loaf that I was able to slice up and wrap individual portions easily in plastic wrap.  Okay, I also used the bundt pan because I only have one normal bread loaf pan and didn’t want to spend ALL night baking.

The only modifications I made from the classic povitica recipe was that in the filling, I ran out of walnuts so I used a mixture of walnuts and almonds.  I also substituted some of the white sugar for brown sugar and in the filling and added a little bit of maple syrup.  It was yummy, though I only saved two small pieces for myself.  My coworkers usually benefit from my baking challenge so I was glad to help out United Way this time.

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

Right now, I’m just baking for the fun of it.  But I end up spending quite a bit of money on ingredients and either need to slow down or start charging.  I made a cake earlier this month for a friend.  Took it to karaoke and fed the bar.  A few weeks later, I made a cake for a coworkers mother.  He worked a couple days for me that I had needed off so I offered to make him a cake.  More time and money.

The next few birthdays/events, I’ll just whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies instead.  They’re a bit cheaper but mostly they’re quicker.  Well, except the cookies I make for bands.

The Script is in town tonight.  Of course I have to bring them cookies.  So I made chocolate chip (with two different kinds of chocolate), snickerdoodles, and sugar cookie instruments.  Combined time to make/decorate = 14 hours.  I decided to make the sugar cookies into the band’s instruments that they use on stage.  Danny’s and Glen’s, piece of cake.  Mark’s and Ben’s . . . well, each cookie probably took about 15 minutes.  Multiply that by 10.  The reason they take so long, besides the fact that I hand painted them with food color, is because I frost them twice, first with a buttercream and then with an icing that hardens slightly and dries shiny.  I’ve found that if I don’t do the coat of icing, the buttercream melts and the cookies stick together and lose their decoration.  And I don’t skip the buttercream because it’s much tastier than the icing.  I’m happy with the way the cookies turned out.  I just hope they hold up in transport and also in the Arizona heat.

I made a cake for Father’s Day but wanted to do something different.  I always seem to make the same old chocolate or white cake with chocolate or vanilla frosting.  BORING!  But my family likes the standard, traditional cakes that we always make.  So I decided to make my dad a german chocolate cake.  I knew he liked devil’s food cake, but a cake that red kind of grosses me out.  So I made a cake with 4 layers and topped with ganache.  It was decadent, that’s for sure.  My mom loved it while my dad only ate one piece.  It was not diet-friendly.

The baking challenge this month over at the Daring Kitchen was a fraisier.  It’s a delicious, light, and summery french cake.  Overall, not too difficult either.  You just bake a sponge cake, split it, moisten it with a simple syrup, and layer with pastry cream (one of my favorite things) lightened with whipped cream and strawberries.  Like most of the challenges at the Daring Kitchen, it takes time.  The cake has to cool.  The syrup has to cool slightly.  The pastry cream has to cool before incorporating the whipped cream.  And the completed dessert has to chill to sort of set up.

I decided to make my main fraisier with a strawberry and blueberry border.  It was perfect for my annual 4th of July cake (though a french fraisier may not be the most patriotic dessert for an american holiday).  Lately, I’ve really been into square cakes.  I only have one 9×9 inch square pan though, so I baked the sponge in that and then MacGyver‘d a square mold out of cardboard that I could build my dessert in and lift out of.  I froze the cake overnight after assembling so it was easy to remove from the mold.  It was fantastic and the recipe is definitely being added to my collection.  It went with me to work because I figured it was bad enough having to work on a holiday, and would be nice to treat my coworkers who also got stuck working the day.  They were all impressed with it and actually thought I bought it.   Psha!  Me?  BUY A CAKE?

The last cake this month was for my mom’s birthday.  My sister and nephew flew in from France a few days before, so we were having the whole family over to see them and celebrate the birthday.  Since my nephew had been requesting strawberries 3 times a day (he’s 2), I decided to please everyone and make a chocolate cake (for my chocoholic mother) with ganache and strawberries and cream filling (like a cake I had in LA’s Sweet Lady Jane bakery) and a white cake on top (for those who don’t like chocolate-overload) with strawberries and cream filling.  Again, my favoritism to square cakes had me whipping out my 9×9 inch pan and assembling the cake in the same pan, flipping it out when thoroughly chilled.  Ingredients to finished product took about 11-12 hours.  And though it wasn’t perfect (didn’t make enough frosting to crumb coat and cover again), it turned out better than I expected.  Everyone loved it, which means my family must be warming up to the idea of new things.  Surprisingly though, the chocoholics preferred the white cake.  I had more than half a cake for my coworkers the next day.  I should start charging them!

And now, I’m going to take a couple weeks off from cakes.  Well, I’m going to try at least.  My sister requested a remake of the german chocolate cake since she wasn’t here for the Father’s Day one.  Mmm… cake.

Jana ofCherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

T-minus 24 hours until the challenge was due and I still hadn’t read over the recipe fully.  I glanced at it so my kitchen would be stocked with the necessary ingredients, however.  But motivation, or lack thereof, was my problem.  The challenge was great.  I love baklava.  But I’ve gotten used to being lazy since all I could do for the last couple of months was sit around and nurse a fractured foot, which I finally saw a doctor about three days ago.  He confirmed that yes, it is fractured, in two places in fact, and prescribed 4-6 weeks in an orthopedic boot.  And apparently I will be good at child bearing since I have a high tolerance for pain, so my x-ray technician said.  But having skived off last months challenge, I knew I needed to do this one.

The phyllo dough was quite easy to make, thanks to my awesome kitchen-aid stand mixer.  Still the greatest kitchen invention ever.  Set it and forget it.  Well, at least for 10 minutes while it kneaded the dough for me.  Then the dough had to rest for a couple of hours which worked out well since I had some errands to run.

Upon my return, I employed two friends to help with the baklava.  They prepared the filling while I rolled out the sheets of phyllo.  Then I quickly assembled the layers and boiled the liquid it would soak in once baked and out of the oven.  I am a great hostess, making my guests work and then sit around while I’m busy in the kitchen.  And after all that, they couldn’t even try it seeing as how it needed to sit out overnight to drink up the liquid.

Quite a fun challenge, all in all.  I enjoy making pastry dough.  It’s such a simple thing but most people just go to the grocery and buy pre-made.  I still haven’t tried the baklava since it’s not drunk yet, only tipsy.  I shall try it later today once it’s had it’s fill of the sweet, sweet nectar.

    Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

First was the Easter cake.  I’ve had a duck cake pan for quite some time and never used it.  So I decided to make the duck cake (chocolate) and decorate it in flowers to look Easter-y.  But it couldn’t just stand alone, so I put it on a yellow cake lake with a couple rice crispy ducklings.  Turned out quite well, though there were a couple details I would have liked to add but didn’t have time.

The next cake was dual purpose that fairly seamlessly worked together.  Half was for my dad’s birthday that featured a modeling chocolate dinosaur, which in no way was a reference to that fact that he just turned 60.  The other half was flowery for Mother’s Day.  A blue sky with scattered clouds was above both scenes.  The idea was good, but I only spent about 4 hours decorating it.  It could definitely have been more professional, but I also didn’t want to use fondant.  It’s not my favorite medium.

Other than that, I’ve still been churning out cookies.  Ari Hest and Matt Wertz each were in town, so I took them some goodies and guitar picks.  I flew to Minneapolis to see Bob Schneider and his fantastic band/crew with a few Bob Bars and derby pie bars since it was Kentucky Derby Day.  And a couple days ago I went to see the Script in Los Angeles so I made them my renown fortune cookies with personalized fortunes for the band members.  One of Danny’s cookies simply had my phone number in it.  He hasn’t called yet, by the way.  I didn’t have enough time to personalize fortunes for the crew too.  Those things take long enough to make as it is.  They also got Bob Bars (no fail) and white chocolate chip craisin cookies.

Right now, there are no concerts on the calendar for the next two months.  That will probably change, but in the meantime, I’m going to try to come up with some signature recipes.  Will probably focus on the standard chocolate chip cookie first.  Usually I just make the recipe from the nestle bag.  But I’d like to see what I can do with making my own recipes.  Will take some time and I’m sure there will be several taste-testers involved, but we’ll see if I can create the most delicious cookie.

I made the maple mousse first since like me, it needed some time to chill, though I do most of my chilling on the couch and the mousse did it’s thing in the refrigerator.  There is one thing that really disgusts me (well, there’s many things) and it’s gelatin.  Powdered animal bones used to thicken food makes me want to vomit.  Nonetheless, I picked up a box of it at the grocery store and got to work.

The mousse was easy to make and I hear it tasted quite nice.  I tried a spoonful of it but left it at that since I’m disgusted by gelatin, but mostly I didn’t eat more because I was getting over a cold and my sense of taste was off.  My other senses were out of whack too.  I swore I smelled chicken salad in my kitchen one morning and thought maybe something had gone bad in the fridge.  Turned out that it was just the cup of coffee that I brewed.  It may have tasted like chicken salad too but I couldn’t tell.

Next order of business was the edible container.  Bacon in baked goods seems to be the trend these days; salty and sweet.  Well, I’m not a huge fan of bacon, particularly because it’s quite unhealthy and apparently kind of expensive (I never bought bacon before!), but I thought making it a bit sweeter by candying it would cut down on the surprise factor of finding it in a cookie.  So I used David Lebovitz’s recipe and chopped the strips into very small pieces, which I added into a slightly modified version of a thumbprint cookie recipe on allrecipes.com.  A few of the thumbprints were filled with blackberry jam before topping with the maple mousse.

Friends, family, and coworkers had a hard time discerning the bacon bits in the cookie.  Most of them would not have known that that was the secret ingredient if I had kept it a secret.  I’m doubtful that I’ll use that recipe again though.  I guess I wouldn’t be completely opposed to trying bacon in a cookie again, but I’ll leave out the gelatin components.

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blogCheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

I really hadn’t worked with yeast much before last December.  I think it always kind of creeped me out that yeast is a living organism.  But in December, I made Stollen (you might remember that baking challenge that I loved so much I made twice) and tried my hand at Belgian waffles.  I’ve realized that yeast is not so scary.  Gelatin, on the other hand, still disturbs me.  Ick!

The yeasted meringue coffee cake wasn’t that far different from stollen.  The yeast didn’t get proofed ahead of time though, it was done in the mixing and kneading processes.  And may I just say that I love Kitchen Aid.  Manual kneading is soooo last year.  The biggest thing about working with yeast is allowing plenty of time.  It has to rise, then be manipulated into whatever form you’re baking it in, then rise again.  This coffee cake was shaped just like the stollen last December so the process was simple enough.  Just spread on a layer of meringue before rolling it up into a wreath to give it a certain moistness.

For my two coffee cake wreaths, I filled one with chocolate chips and walnuts and the other with apples and cinnamon.  They were both good, but I’m partial to the chocolate chip variety.  Chocolate just makes everything better!

Oh, and I do remember that I promised to share my January Daring Baker’s Challenge, but again… lazy!  It was an entremet, which I had never heard of.  Basically, I made a sponge cake that had a design in it, then used a springform pan to shape it and fill it.  My filling was just more cake.  I thought it might be good to turn the project into a boston cream pie.  It was a good idea, but I didn’t make enough cream and didn’t want to make more because I already had enough time invested in it.  Overall, the challenge was pretty interesting, but probably not one I’ll do again.  If I want designs in my cake, I’ll get out some icing and my pastry tips.  That’s also less likely to set off the smoke alarms.  Oops!

The next few weeks will be more of my forte.  Cookies!  For bands!  Will be seeing Ari Hest next weekend and Matt Wertz shortly after that.  I shall try to start posting here again.  I know I’ve been a bad blogger, but I can change!  Until next time… (which won’t be a couple of months, I promise!).

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.