A couple of notes from this recipe, fortunately, nothing major ;-)
| The result A cake that is closer to a brioche than a typical cake. It is actually very close to a cinnamon bun. Delicious with coffee or hot chocolate. I am very happy with the result! And proud of myself too! :-D |
This is a recipe I have been wanting to try forever! I lived in Louisiana for a few years and just loved this tradition, how people eat this cake all Mardi Gras season. It was a neat way to end the day on Fridays at the office. People in Louisiana are always very convivial and I've learnt so much about the various traditions (besides what people see on TV) of the Carnival season in Louisiana. So this is a salute to those whose friendship made these years fantastic! The recipe I found was this one. I don't remember when I found it but apparently it comes from the February 2006 edition of Southern Living. Well, I can tell you I am incredibly happy with the end result, so this recipe goes into the family recipe book!
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My challenge this week: to make brioche, you know, that sweet, light and fluffy bread one eats for breakfast. So I looked online for a recipe. Frankly, I should have looked first through my cookbooks because the plethora of recipes out there is overwhelming. But I picked one that said it was easy... And I followed the recipe word for word, I did not get impatient, I did not skip any step. I was proud of myself. And yet, the result was so disappointing. Mind you, my daughter loved it, she kept eating it, she even took some of it to school today. My husband loved it too, he even compared it to something his mom makes, and he has only the highest compliments for his mom’s cooking. But I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the taste, the look or the texture of it. The dough looked weird and never rose. The bread itself was dense and looked more like a cake than bread. So I decided to make another one. I looked at other recipes to see if they were doing this differently. I looked through a book I have on breads and one thing struck me. It mentioned that for brioche, you could just mix all ingredients, like the recipe I used mentioned, HOWEVER, the dough then needed to rise for 12 hours!!!!! 12 Hours!!!! The recipe mentioned 2 hours! And I believe that this was the problem. Thus, I mix the ingredients, same ingredients, in a different way. And I have to say, the result is spectacular. The dough did rise, the bread looks like a bread and tastes fantastic too. Now, remember, I used the same recipe as the day before (except the butter was softened instead of melted). I just changed the way I mixed the ingredients and I got a totally different result. Here is my modified recipe.
I just love the smell of fresh bread, but I didn’t want to make my regular country bread, I wanted to try something else. Many years ago, I subscribed to one of these mail-order recipe collection, “The Great American Home Baking”. I have the whole collection, four full binders, but I admit, I rarely made anything out of this collection... and yet, I’ve always been reluctant to get rid of it. I thought it was time to finally use them. So I went through the first category, “Biscuits and Rolls”, and selected their Sweet Breakfast Rolls. Ingredients:
Preparation:
Makes 16 rolls. Invite a few friends over who don't mind being guinea pigs and try out new recipes... kind of... A mix of tried and true and new is always safest and having a contingency plan, a must (for me, at least, as one of my friend was teasing me about last night). Main Course: Stuffed faluche I found this recipe/idea online. When I was researching recipes for the faluche a few weeks ago, I came across a video from my hometown's TV where this preparation was explained and it sounded soooooo good, I just needed an excuse. This recipe can be prepared as an appetizer or a main course, just change the size of the bread. Ingredients:
This weekend's project: bread, to give myself and the family a break from sweets. I chose to make a "faluche". This is a bread that is typical of my hometown in Belgium (and surrounding areas) as well as the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardie regions in France. In my hometown, they usually have a more rectangular shape, while in France, they tend to be round. This bread is pretty flat and very white and it can be used in a variety of ways, whether savory or sweet. To give you an example, my daughter had some with honey mustard and ham; while I had some with seafood salad. Below the recipe, you will find a way children from my hometown eat theirs after school. I just ate some that way and childhood memories came flooding back.
It's been a busy week with not much time to bake, unfortunately. So today, I decided to make a recipe I knew would be quick and delicious: scones and cream.
I used a recipe I found many years ago and I have to admit, although the end result is pretty good, I was so impatient this morning that I didn't follow the directions closely and it could have ended in disaster. Unfortunately, I am not experienced enough to be able to experiment and invent. However, as I said, the end result is pretty good, so maybe it is a fool-proof recipe. Today I’m sharing a homemade pretzel recipe taking you less time than it takes to get a fancy manicure. Less time to cool a cupcake. I make a lot of cookies and it’s safe to say that these pretzels are SO much easier than any cookie I’ve ever made. A homemade pretzel recipe that is SO simple… you’ll wonder why pretzel making seems so hard. Not so easy! (for me) So playing around on Pinterest, I come across this recipe for 30 minutes homemade soft pretzels. They look delicious and easy to make. All the comments seem to agree... I'm going to try it! Let's just say, this was a disaster of epic proportion... And proportion is the word. I know it has somehow to do with the amount of flour. I can't figure out if I put too much (some pieces would come off, not adhere to the rest of the dough) or not enough (it was so sticky at some point, I had to add flour). The small balls of dough would not ROLL, no matter which surface I used, it would just slide. My husband even tried it and even though he was more successful than me at getting a long string, the fact that we couldn't get it uniform or round... So I just gave up, I threw it all out and I posted a comment on the website. Sally was nice enough to respond very quickly. I still believe I can do it but maybe I should wait for a bit less humidity, 99% must be screwing with my dough, right? :-D |