Hello old friend

It's been years. People say that all the time but it has literally been years.

I have a number of excuses ranging from laziness, to a temporary exit from the kitchen. My biggest excuse is kitchen size. After my Thanksgiving pie post I started school as a transfer at The Catholic University of America. Despite the fact that I was coming in as a junior I stayed at the dorms. Admittedly I probably could have kept baking and razzled and dazzled with my dorm kitchen skills but for those of you who haven't been to a kitchen in a girls dorm... keep it that way. It's disgusting and I simply cannot work in such filth (read in a French accent). After I finished up at school I got my first apartment and the kitchen, although cleaner, still wasn't doing it for me. I was in a whopping 400sqft studio. My oven wasn't even a standard oven size; it was more like a little tike’s kitchen appliance. The two times I did bake I over-cooked and nearly burned. In my defense I was going from an electric oven to gas. I made a couple pies for my firefighter boyfriend to take to his firehouse (food is truly the way to a man’s heart) and a pecan streusel and pumpkin cookies, again for the firehouse. The streusel, while tasted fine, was definitely overcooked making the top way too crunchy for my tastes.

Recently, move boyfriend and I moved in together so for his going away I made 2 peach pies, 2 blackberry pies, a black cherry, and the boy’s favorite, lemon meringue. I probably made too many but we did some damage.

I also recently found a really great recipe for homemade bread here. I stumbled upon the recipe on Pinterest and had to try it. I read the comments on her blog and decided I had a few of the same issues with bread rising that were mentioned. Other than that, it's super easy. This being my first attempt at homemade bread I’ll take slightly less risen dough any day. It was still delicious and made fantastic sandwich bread. I think I’m going to attempt the recipe again this weekend while my fireman is at work.

 

All that being said, I’m still in the kitchen and still baking. Now that I have some actually counter space in the new place anticipate more baking experiments to come!

I am thankful for pie

Obviously, because pie is awesome. I hear about this great place called Dangerously Delicious, and it's all pie. I haven't been but it sounds pretty spectacular and came highly recommended by a fellow cook. I'll have to go there soon, nothing like warm pie on a winter evening. Any guy friend of mine reading, this would be a great date.
Speaking of pies, dessert was my responsibility for Thanksgiving this year. I ended up making two Pumpkin Pies, two Pecan Pies, and one Apple. On a side note I was watching When Harry Met Sally last night which is awesome because I always say "Pecan Pie" the way Billy Crystal does in that scene with Meg Ryan. Back to my pies, they turned out great but no holiday is complete without a little drama. Pecan Pie, for those of you who don't know is very watery before it bakes. Although I use the same recipe for my Pecan Pies I do tend to change up my pie dishes. I only have one decent pie dish so when it comes time to bake a lot I buy the pie tins from the store. Well this year I must have purchased a pie tin that was a little more shallow than usual because as I was loading my Pecans into the oven some of the sugary goodness spilled over. It sounds silly to say but my mom and I weren't too concerned about it and left it alone. Thirty-forty minutes later, I open up the oven to a massive cloud of smoke. My dad claims he couldn't see the kitchen from the living room but he tends to be a little dramatic (read very dramatic). I don't know what the chemical process is that takes place when something bakes but I can tell you that sugar continues to burn and burn...which now seems like common sense, oops. Once we removed what had turned into a black chunk of sugar moon rock and fanned out the kitchen, we were good to go. Another side note, our fire alarm did not go off which is pretty scary, I think the house would burn down before we'd get a chirp out of that damn thing.

So aside from a little bit of smoke, the rest of the pies turned out fine and drama free. I think I may have made the crust a little too thick with my Apple but my mom and I are big crust lovers. Crust is, after all, the secret to a great pie and it just so happens I have a great recipe from a friends grandmother. If you're curious for it shoot me an email and I'll send it to you, you've got to work for it.

I would be proud to partake in your Pecan Piiiie...

Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes

I actually made these a couple weeks ago. I was pretty excited to post about it but ADD kicked in and I forgot, my bad. Despite the late post I can still taste the buttery cinnamon filling, and let me tell you it was delicious. The brown sugar that makes up the cinnamon swirl sort of caramelized on the pancake making a... crème brûlée layer on the top. The cinnamon was great but I think that little bit of a crunch is what made it. No one likes a soggy pancake so it was nice that even after they sat for awhile they still maintained that sugary crunch. The recipe I found suggested a cream cheese topping but I think I mentioned before, that’s just too much for breakfast. With butter and syrup these cinnamon swirl pancakes didn’t need anything else. I would definitely suggest this recipe.

As you can see my swirl is a lot thicker than what they used in the recipe. I wonder how a thinner line of cinnamon would change it. Also I really messed up on the first attempt at a spiral, the cinnamon was still too wet from the melted butter so if you try this recipe, let it cool down before trying to pipe it on the batter otherwise it kind of goops out of the bag.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so I will of course be making some desserts. If I can remember I will try to take some pictures tonight on the pie process, I’m making two pecan pies, a pumpkin and an apple. Also on I received an order for a sheet cake to be completed by Sunday so look for pictures on that too. I will be a busy baker this week, have a Happy Thanksgiving!