I have bloggers writing block.

I made these really cool rolls, but I can’t think of anything witty to say about them.

So I hope you don’t mind looking at the pictures.

If you want, you can make up your own blog post in your head!

Here are the essentials:

These tasted good.

They were fun to make.

I can’t give you the recipe, but I can give you the link to Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

Happy 4^th of July!

It was a bit of a battle to post this before midnight… but here you are!

Yes, I used a mix. From Sprinkles cupcake shop. Yep, that one.

Yes, I made colored stripes.

Yes, they came out a little goofy and so not elegant.

But I’m a little goofy and so not elegant, so I think that is okay.

This guy didn’t seem to mind.

4^th of July Cupcakes

• Your favorite vanilla cupcake recipe (3 cups of batter)
• Red and blue food coloring
• 1 stick of butter
• 1.5 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

Divide the batter roughly into three separate bowls.  Mix red and blue food coloring into two of the bowls. In each cupcake tin, spoon a heaping teaspoon of vanilla batter, then of red batter, then vanilla, then red. Top it with the blue until cupcake tins are 3/4 full or so. Bake as directed in cupcake recipe.

For frosting, cream butter in large bowl. Add powdered sugar and cream until fluffy. Mix in the vanilla. Whip until spreadable and smooth. Decorate cupcakes as desired!

When you are sitting up late at night writing a paper or studying for a test, do you ever dream about being a bread baker? I do. I would happily go to sleep at 8pm and wake up before the sun to head into my friendly little bakery to start preparing fresh delicious breads for my amazing local customers. Spending dark quiet mornings surrounded by rising dough and the smell of yeast… What? You don’t have that fantasy? Hmm… well, you obviously have never made bagels. I’m telling you, the magical experience of actually creating your own homemade bagels is enough to make you want to put down your pen and put on an apron.

Rewind a few months. As graduation inched (flew, really) towards me, I began to feel more and more burned out on all the time spent on my computer, analyzing and fact checking and researching. I didn’t bake for weeks. I just needed to get my hands covered in flour and heat up my oven. There is something so grounding about the process of bread-making, and let me tell you, I needed some solid ground! And while I didn’t have control over the type of security that might come with, say, a job prospect for the future (and still don’t..eeek!), I do have control over my hands and the ingredients in my kitchen. And really, if all it takes is a little kneading, shaping, boiling, and baking to make me feel like I’ve got a handle on things, I’m a pretty lucky girl.

These bagels… well, they were just bagels. But I made them with my own two hands, and I’ll take pride in that, thank you very much!  I hope that, in the midst of whatever is stressing you out these days, you can find a Saturday morning to give these a try.

Take your time.

Get messy.

Knead until your arms hurt.

Be patient.

Savor the taste.

Don’t worry about life, just make bagels.

(Where are the directions you ask? The recipe I used was from my trusty Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. This book is too beautiful to smash all over the internet, so I suggest you hit the library or bookstore and get a copy!)

Chocolate cake.

Juicy, earthy vegetables.

Peanut Butter Fudge Frosting.

Try to hide them under your napkin during dinner.

Beg your father for just onnnnnne more slice.

Pop, thanks for making me eat my vegetables.

But more importantly, thanks for teaching me to love the sweet stuff.

Pop, believe it or not, your daughter, the same one who used to cry at the dinner table over a plate of sundried tomato meatloaf, has baked a chocolate beet cake. The same girl who needed a kiddie plate to separate her peas from her potatoes until the age of 17 has combined vegetables and dessert into one single pan.

Guess what? It was delicious.

The sailboat is for you, pops. The cake… well…. it was for you, but you weren’t around, so I ate it myself. In your honor of course. With a tall glass of skim.

All the love in the world to the best papa a girl could ever have!

Chocolate Beet Cake
Adapted from Veggie Belly

1/2 cup milk/semi-sweet/dark chocolate chips (your preference)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups cooked and pureed beets
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler and allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile, whisk together eggs, sugar, and oil. Slowly, add the beets, chocolate, and vanilla and beat until just combined.

Sift together the cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and stir until just combined, being careful not to overwork.

Butter and flour two 8-inch cake pans. Bake for about 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let most cool in pan, then carefully remove to wire racks to cool completely. Frost.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Frosting

1/2 cup butter (if using unsalted, toss in a dash of salt)
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4-1/2 cup cocoa
milk as needed

In an electric mixer, cream together butter and peanut butter. Add sugar and cocoa powder and whip until combined. Add milk as needed and whip on high to achieve desired consistency. Try to frost the cake before you eat the whole bowl!

And don’t worry, I didn’t really eat them all myself, I shared a few

Love you Tom! Happy Father’s Day to the best step-father a girl could ask for

Buttermilk Cranberry Scones
Adapted from Pinch My Salt

2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1/2 cup buttermilk, or milk with half a tablespoon of vinegar (let sit for a few minutes)
1 large egg
1/3 cup cranberries, chopped up
a bit heavy cream or melted butter (optional, for brushing tops of scones)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk or sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. Add butter chunks and toss lightly with flour; place bowl in fridge.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together egg and buttermilk; place bowl in fridge.
4. Measure out and chop the cranberries; set aside. Prep a baking sheet with parchement paper or light greasing. Lightly dust a counter top with flour. Pour a little bit of heavy cream or melted butter in a bowl and have a pastry brush handy.
5. Remove bowls of flour and buttermilk from fridge. Cut butter into flour with a pastry blender or rub together with your fingertips until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add cranberries and stir to combine.
6. Add buttermilk mixture all at once to flour mixture and stir until the mixture clumps together. Dump mixture out onto floured counter top and, with floured hands, gather into a ball and knead once or twice to combine everything. Pat into a circle about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 8 slices, like a pie, or cut with biscuit or cookie cutters into whatever shape you prefer. Put scones on lined baking sheet and brush lightly with heavy cream or butter if desired
7. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 13-15 minutes until lightly browned. Remove to cooling rack.
8. Eat them in honor of your step-dad!

Insert awkward face here.

You know that thing that you put off for a few days when you were really really busy with finishing college? And then a few days became a few weeks? And then a few months? And the longer you put this thing off the harder it became to sit down and get this thing done?

Oops. I’m back. I sure did miss you. I wish I could say I have tons of delicious treats to lavish upon your hungry eyes saved up from these past few months of silence, but the truth is, I had to put the lid on the cookie jar altogether for quite a while.  There was one bake sale incident that involved a lot of box mixes (Thank you, Betty), but my oven has been pretty cold lately.

Here’s the good news. I graduated. Got the whole school thing over with. So now I can fully devote myself to the pursuit of creating and capturing delicious food.

And what better way to celebrate my return to the blogosphere…. Than with the birthday of one of my favorite people around!

Happy Birthday Betsy!

Okay, so I made you only four cookies.

But they were really really big cookies. In fact, I took a batch of snickerdoodles and divided the dough in half. And then I divided it in half again. Then I rolled them in cinnamon sugar and baked them on one tray.

Big love deserves big cookies.

If there is one person that would really want me back in action here, its Betsy. So this is for you, girlfriend! And my other devoted fans. Hi Mom. Hi Grandma.

I do have a few more things up my sleeve for you – so, if you haven’t given up on me yet… stay tuned!

Snickerdoodles
Adapted from PopularCookieRecipes.com

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a mixing bowl, beat the butter on medium speed for 30 seconds or by hand with a fork.  Add the 1 cup sugar, baking soda, and cream of tartar.  Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.  Beat in the egg and vanilla until well blended.  Mix in flour until ingredients come together in a ball. Cover and chill for 1 hour. (Eco-friendly tip: instead of using plastic wrap, try putting your dough in tupperware or covering it with another bowl!)

Combine the 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  Divide dough into 4 balls and roll in cinnamon sugar mixture to coat. Place balls of dough 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and press into flat discs, about and inch or so thick. Bake until edges are just barely golden. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. If desired, lightly press a metal cookie cutter into the top just to break through the top crust for a pretty decoration!

It’s spring break folks. So naturally I made homemade pop tarts.

You know, I never even really liked pop tarts that much. Especially the ones with the strawberry filling.

I like these pop tarts. Want to know why?

Those two pictures should really pretty much explain it. But I’ll tell you the secret. They aren’t REALLY pop tarts.

They are flaky, gooey, sweet, buttery, pockets of yummy.

Not hard, artificial, chalky slabs of chemicals. See below.

Yeah, I went there. Move over Kellogg’s.

Homemade Pop Tarts
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Pastry
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pats
1 large egg
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) milk

Stir together flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the butter is in pea-sized chunks or smaller. Gently whisk together the egg and milk in a small bowl and add to butter/flour mixture, stirring until the dough comes together. You may need to use your hands and knead the wet ingredients into the dry to get a uniform dough.

Split the dough in half and make two rectangular blocks. Chill for 30 min or so (or longer, if needed). Take one piece of dough and roll out on a floured counter until 1/8″ thick. Cut pop tarts to desired size (roughly 3×5 for large pop tarts or 1.5×3 for minis). Repeat with second block of dough.

Filling

1  large egg (to brush on pastry)
3/4 cup strawberry jam
1 tbs of cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbs of water

Mix together the jam and cornstarch mixture. Brush half of your rectangles with the beaten egg (used to seal the edges) and spoon a heaping table spoon of filling into the center of each. Place another rectangle of dough on top and carefully seal the edges with your finger. Use a fork to press ridges along the outside of each pop tart, and poke holes in the top layer of dough with a fork, making sure the holes go all the way through the top layer of dough.

Chill pop tarts (can be uncovered) in the fridge while preheating the oven to 350. Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly golden at edges. Cool on pan.

Topping

confectioner’s sugar
milk
sprinkles

Pour some sugar into a bowl (1-2 cups) and add milk a little at a time, stirring with a whisk, until the glaze is fluid but not very liquidy. Whisk until all lumps are dissolved. Pour generously onto each pop tart and add sprinkles! Let glaze dry before storing.

In the Katie Lane Food Pyramid, chocolate would have its own level, 5-6 servings daily.  In case you are curious, the other categories would be labeled Mashed Potatoes, Watermelon, and Birthday Cake. But that is beyond my point, which is that chocolate simply rocks my world. I have been this way my whole life. A choco-holic, you might say.

There could be worse things, I suppose. I could be addicted to TV shopping, or World of Warcraft, or meth. But instead, my parent passed along a seemingly genetic insatiable desire to fill my belly with sweet, smooth, delicious chocolate. Give it to me in a bar, chip, or candy coating, fill it with peanut butter or cover it in sprinkles, I’ll take it and I’ll love it. Never, ever offer me a choice between a dessert that involves chocolate and one that doesn’t. It’s kind of offensive.

So….awkward thing here. These cookies do not have any chocolate. Here’s why. I have this dear friend named Charles. One of the first things I learned about him is that he was allergic to chocolate. I was heartbroken for him. How tragic! I always felt so guilty when I accidentally offered Charles a handful of sticky, half-melted M&Ms (isn’t that the best way to eat them?) or a scoop of creamy chocolate ice cream. It just felt cruel, like dangling a Milk Bone in front of a dog wearing a muzzle.

Charles never really seemed to care. He ever found out a few months later that his chocolate allergy had subsided and he still barely ever ate chocolate. That just confused me. I think that if I suddenly found out I could eat chocolate after being denied for years and years of my life, I would eat every single Hershey kiss in a 10 mile radius. But that’s just me.

Charles came to visit this weekend. He had a long drive, and I love to make cookies for people who have to go on car trips. (Correction – I like to eat cookies on long car trips, so I assume the same is true of everyone.) I knew Charles would probably enjoy a non-chocolate cookie the most, so I resisted my urge to force-feed him Dutch-process cocoa powder and whipped up some of these peanut butter cookies.

Maybe next week I’ll write about how much I love peanut butter…

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
adapted from www.annies-eats.net

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½  cup sugar

¾ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup honey
1 large eggs

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; whisk together and set aside.  In another bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, honey and sugar.  Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture and beat just until incorporated.

Roll the dough into 1½-inch balls, and roll each dough ball in sugar.   Place the dough balls on an ungreased baking sheet, a couple inches apart.  Press the back of a fork gently into each cookie. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until slightly puffed and golden.  Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Check out this article in this week’s Skid News!

Also, this recipe is linked up to Sweet as Sugar Cookies!

Attention everyone. I have fallen in love. Head over heels in love.

I am in love with baking bread.

First, there is that heavenly smell of rising yeast that fills every inch of the house and welcomes you home with a big bready hug as soon as you come in the door.

Second, there is the endless variety of bread-making options. Rye, wheat, white, swirled, loafs, rolls…. It never ends! I bet you could make a different type of bread every day of the year!

Third, there is the undeniable comfort that comes in eating a hunk of carbs. All toasty warm. Slathered with a nice pat of butter.

Seriously though, do you know how cool the process of making bread can be? I’m not talking toss some flour and yeast in a bread machine and call it a night. I’m talking stirring, kneading, rising, punching, steaming, baking. I’m talking enzymes and glutens and fermentation. I’m talking flour and water and muscle and patience.

Okay, I’m not sure if there is such thing as a bread nerd…..but I would like to be one, please. As I mentioned before, my brother and I are baking through Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice one recipe at a time. It is a one-way ticket to bread obsession, let me just say that.

Now I started all this by reading through the 100+ pages of introduction – all about the science, technique, and history behind bread making before diving in to any recipes. I thought, like a good little college girl, that studying up would make bread-baking a cinch. Nope. I’m here to tell you: bread is hard work. After 10 minutes of kneading a tough blob of gluten, I start to get a little sweaty, I won’t lie! But the satisfaction of opening the oven and pulling out a beautiful golden loaf of cinnamon-raison-walnutty goodness is SO worth it. I have only made a couple recipes so far, but each time I just feel extra proud – more so than I ever would with a plain old batch of brownies or cookies. There is something just complex enough, yet still ever-comforting that makes bread a fascinating and rewarding art.

So if you want to fall in love, take a Saturday afternoon and spend some time getting to know bread.

Hi trusty readers.

I have neglected you a little these past few months. I’m sorry. I wish I could say I won’t do it again, but I probably will, at least for the next few months.

But today, I am not neglecting you. I am bringing you the first real installment of my Adventures in Bread. My brother and I are baking through every recipe in Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. You may have heard of something similar where a bunch of bloggers got together for this exact purpose. Well, we missed the boat, but we will do it Lane family style. A little late and with lots of fun and love.

So first I bring you Anadama bread. Anadama is a traditional New England bread made with flour, corn meal, and molasses… with a great little story about how it got it’s name:

“A fisherman, angry with his wife, Anna, for serving him nothing but cornmeal and molasses, one day adds flour and yeast to his porridge and eats the resultant bread, while cursing, “Anna, damn her.”

What a lovely little bread this turned out to be! I was pleasantly surprised at the success of the loaves for my first real try at yeasted bread. It is sweet and has a great texture from the cornmeal and is simply perfect toasted with some butter and tea.

Next up? Cinnamon Raisin Walnut bread!!