a blog of sweet thoughts&recipes

So far most of our “big projects” or rather, purchases… have been made. :) Both venues have been booked… the DJ, florist, and caterer are all taken care of (of course, not the deets, but they’ve been booked!)… the Save the Date is in progress, the videography has been purchased, and the photographer (for the big day and for our engagement shoot!) has been booked!  I can NOT believe we’ve accomplished so much in a little over than a month of planning!  Honestly, I’m startled by how quickly everything was done, and by God’s goodness.  He’s surrounded us with truly talented (and awesome!) people through the years… friends who are talented AND willing to help with our special day. We’ve definitely been super blessed by the Lord. :)  

Despite all the progress we’ve made, I know there is a ton to be done… especially since I want to be a little bit more hands on with the big day. :)  Google Docs, Google Reader, and Pinterest have been really truly helpful… I find myself using all three every day.  These three tools help organize and simplify a lot of wedding planning, and the best part is you can share the content on all three with other people.  So far I’ve been trying to narrow down which specific projects I want to take on, and it’s been really fun.  Super excited to start working on everything! :)

P.S. Any volunteers who want to help me with my projects? ;)

The InkSpot Workshop is giving away an Heirloom set from Ice Milk Aprons!  You can check out the aprons here: Ice Milk Aprons ! 

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly…

… Jolly because of all that butter and sugar you’re consuming.  Oh my.

I’ve been baking a bit this winter break…

- Roasted chestnut cookies rolled in cinnamon powdered sugar from smittenkitchen (no photo available)

- two batches of caramel sauce (one with the addition of spiced rum)

- banana cream pie (also no photo available)

-  black and white checkered cookies (with a border!!!)

Here are some photos…

Raw and sliced:

After baking:

These were relatively easy to make… I mean, there were no difficult techniques required in forming the dough of making it.  It was the time and the effort that tired me out.  These cookies are pretty and tasty… but they may only be worth it if you need to impress somebody.  It should be noted that this dough can be made ahead of time and frozen for up to a month. The dough took approximately a day… and I baked them the next morning as Elissa from 17andBaking mentioned that it is better to allow the dough to rest in the fridge overnight before slicing and baking.  I rather liked the dough and it was crisp and nice… but you need to make sure to slice the dough evenly and thinly to achieve the best results.  Refer to the link at the beginning of the post to find the recipe and instructions.

Quick little snippets about each recipe (sorry to do this but I’m too lazy to have separate posts for goodies I didn’t even get the change to photograph!)

The roasted chestnut cookies were DELICIOUS.  They are Deb from SmittenKitchen’s take on the traditional “mexican wedding cookie”, which typically uses almonds.  There are other version across the world (russian teacakes), but these taste just like Christmas!  I happen to love chestnuts so I was munching along as I shelled the roasted nuts, and they are delicious on their own… but these cookies were definitely a great way to allow them to shine.  They were admittedly a little too much work for what they produced and were a bit on the expensive side as we bought pre-roasted nuts at a vendor outside the Japanese market, but I thought trying this recipe was very fun and tasty!  I would love to make them again if time and cost weren’t an issue.  Oh, and another thing… these cookies taste better after they have cooled.  I didn’t really like them that much straight out of the oven, but after they had cooled, I couldn’t stop eating them!

The caramel sauce was also a first for me, as I’ve never made caramel before in my life.  I also don’t own a candy thermometer and I was terrified that I would burn the sugar and ruin a pot.  It turned out to be shockingly easy and I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more drama between me and my caramel sauce.  I think I may have undercooked the sugar a little though, and Joanne Chang, author of Flour and the owner of the bakery Flour and Flour 2, wrote in her book that a good indicator of whether or not your caramel is done through checking the layer of caramel at the bottom of your pot/pan.  Simply by tilting the pan a little bit allows you to check the bottom and discover if the actual color of the caramel is a golden amber brown.  Sometimes the layers of caramel can be deceptive and appear darker than the true color of the syrup.  The caramel was eventually poured into cups of hot chocolate and drizzled over hot cinnamon sugar apples that topped vanilla bean ice cream.

Everything I’ve made I have sampled… except for the banana cream pie which is a Christmas gift.  However, I tasted what was leftover of the pudding I made for the pie and it was pretty good… but I think I’d like a more delicate and vanilla-ey flavor next time.  I’d also like to try using a vanilla bean for the gorgeous black specks. I used a vanilla wafer crust which seemed tasty, but since I didn’t taste it…  I have no idea.

Two things to note: I have also baked a tasty loaf of yeasty cinnamon swirl bread and then proceeded to make even tastier french toast with slices of that bread.  I also made homemade thin mints which definitely improved with age… and were oh so tasty without all the bad bad preservatives.

Overall, it has been a pretty great break full of baking.  I’m currently reading Joanne Chang’s cookbook, Flour, and I am pretty excited about it so far.  She has a great voice in the book.  The only thing that makes me a little sad is the lack of photographs. Not that there aren’t any photos… but I’d like a few more.

Next task… marshmallows?  I wanted to make them over break but never got a chance… but they’d make a lovely accompaniment to hot chocolate, I think.

Merry Christmas & Happy Baking! :)

FINALLY. Another recipe.  It’s been a while… but this has been one of the coolest things I’ve ever baked.  It was my second time EVER working with yeast and it was definitely not as intimidating as I thought it would be.   The first time I used yeast I made pizza dough and that’s such a distant memory…  This second experience working with yeast was somehow more scary— I was terrified the dough wouldn’t rise properly because I messed up on the flour proportions and mixed some of the ingredients out of order.  But it was such a great experience overall!  

I first saw the recipe on Elissa from 17andbaking a few weeks ago and I was determined to try it. I feel like I’ve been in a rut of baking very normal sweets… the run-of-the-mill cookies, quick-breads, muffins and cupcakes.  Nothing particularly… crazy.  This proved to be less of a challenge than I thought it would be, but it was definitely time-consuming.  It is pretty much an all day project!   I loved every minute of it though and even created a warm area in my apartment (my room with the heater on) for the dough to rise.  I definitely would make this again but with a few adjustments….  

This was the result :

As you can see, the crust is pretty brown and had a thicker and harder crust than I would have liked.  I think it may have been because of the dark pan I used, but it wasn’t really too much of a problem.  I’ve heard that William-Sonoma’s gold-touched pans are ideal for baking because they don’t cause extra and unwanted browning, but they can be a little pricey.  Another thing that I’ll be adjusting the next time I make this is cut down on the amount of butter used for the filling.  I don’t own a pastry brush, so this may be the cause of the extra butter, but I find that hard to believe… as I had twice the amount of butter than I needed!  I ended up pouring the leftover butter into the pan, hoping that the dough would somehow absorb the buttery goodness… but I think it simply contributed to a more browned crust.  One thing I changed this time is substitute grapefruit zest for the orange zest since that’s all I had on hand. I couldn’t really taste the grapefruit so I’m assuming it doesn’t make that much of a difference.  Another thing that I noticed was that the bread was slightly more dense than I would have desired, so I think I would increase the rising time for both rising sessions. A lighter loaf is inarguably more heavenly!   A lot of icing also dripped down the sides when I drizzled it on, so I’d probably try to split the layers while it’s still warm to insure more icing in the actual cake rather than a light coating on the top.

All in all, I’ll be making this again when I have a free day… but first, home-made thin mints, upside-down apple cake, pumpkin pie, banana creme pie, and pastry dough. :) 

Happy Baking!
-Mandy 

P.S. I didn’t post the recipe here because I felt like it was too long… but you can check it out at Elissa’s blog!  The link directs you straight to that specific blog entry.

Sigh…. I suppose it’s a good thing there’s another one this weekend. :)

On another note… how lovely is Ulla Johnson’s Fall 2010 collection?

Love this dress on the right!