Bread was not the only thing I was baking. We had a 4 day weekend on Valentine's weekend and then another 4 day weekend, due to frigid temps, this past weekend. We made the standard chocolate chip cookies for when friends come over on that first 4 day weekend. Then, we made what I call snow day cookies. Snow day cookies are usually new recipes. First, we made chocolate sugar cookies. These were good. I'm not a chocolate person, but these weren't extremely chocolaty. Everyone in my house loved them. This is definitely going to be a recipe that becomes more than just "snow day" cookies! I did use less sugar than the recipe called for. Instead of 2 cups of sugar, I only used 1 1/2 cups. No one missed that extra 1/2 cup. We also made some chewy lemon snowdrop cookies. Now, I'm not exaggerating when I say I must have read over this recipe at least a dozen times as we were making these. Monster and I followed the directions perfectly, yet still, the dough was not dough. It was a bunch of tiny crumbs. So we added more lemon juice. Four more tablespoons to be exact, until dough actually formed. After we finally got the dough to form, we continued with the directions. Ours do not have as much powdered sugar on them as the directions say because Sunshine requested we don't put a lot on. They turned out alright. Surprisingly, not very lemony. I was a little disappointed by that, but they were still good. I probably will be looking for a recipe that is more lemony. If I'm going to make lemon cookies, I want to actually taste the lemon. I want to pucker when I eat them. Monster and I had fun baking them though. It's rare that he bakes with me. We did a lot of work with fractions. Baking is full of teachable moments.
I'm on a bread making kick. I think that the 2 feet of snow just makes me want to do some warm and cozy. I decided to break out the bread machine and try some new recipes. Now, I've had things that I've made before not turn out so great or just weren't our taste, but I had my very first ever true Pinterest fail. I decided to make lemon loaf because I found this recipe on Pinterest. I actually followed this recipe to the letter. Total fail. Not only did it turn out looking horrible, but it tasted just as bad. Seriously, though, I just had to laugh at it...it was that bad. We fed it to the birds. We figured it's so cold and they were probably hungry enough to eat it! Thankfully, other recipes I tried out were much more successful! Since I had fresh strawberries and cream cheese on hand, I decided to make Strawberry Oatmeal Cream Cheese Bread. This turned out very good. It's on the sweeter side, obviously, so it wasn't great for sandwiches, but good for toast and made fantastic french toast! I decided that I wanted to make a bread that I could use for sandwiches, so next I made Steakhouse Wheat Bread. This was fantastic. In fact, it was so good, I wasn't very good at sharing. I gave the kids and Husband plain old boring store bought bread so I could keep this one for myself! After not sharing, I thought it would be nice to make something for the whole family (well, not Sunshine because she only likes hotdog buns for sandwiches). I went with something versatile. I tried out a recipe for Soft Oatmeal Bread. I did change it a little by using bread flour instead of all purpose flour. I thought it would make it a little less dense than all the reviews were saying it was. I think it did the trick. This bread was fantastic! A great all-purpose bread. What started out as a "snack" for me turned out to actually be something awesome for my bread. I came across a recipe for Cinnamon Butter Bites. They sounded interesting, so I gave them a try. I cut the recipe in half because, well, a pound of butter seemed a little excessive. These were really easy to make and, since it's so cold outside, I didn't even need a freezer. I just stuck them on the porch to freeze. Once they were frozen, I popped one in my mouth and gagged. I guess I didn't fully realize that it was literally eating a pat of butter. I had half a pound of these butter things, now, so I decided to try it out on toast. Wow. So good. It's just cinnamon honey butter already in convenient pats to use! What was a disaster of a snack idea turned into a great addition to all my bread making! Bread was not the only thing I was baking. We had a 4 day weekend on Valentine's weekend and then another 4 day weekend, due to frigid temps, this past weekend. We made the standard chocolate chip cookies for when friends come over on that first 4 day weekend. Then, we made what I call snow day cookies. Snow day cookies are usually new recipes. First, we made chocolate sugar cookies. These were good. I'm not a chocolate person, but these weren't extremely chocolaty. Everyone in my house loved them. This is definitely going to be a recipe that becomes more than just "snow day" cookies! I did use less sugar than the recipe called for. Instead of 2 cups of sugar, I only used 1 1/2 cups. No one missed that extra 1/2 cup. We also made some chewy lemon snowdrop cookies. Now, I'm not exaggerating when I say I must have read over this recipe at least a dozen times as we were making these. Monster and I followed the directions perfectly, yet still, the dough was not dough. It was a bunch of tiny crumbs. So we added more lemon juice. Four more tablespoons to be exact, until dough actually formed. After we finally got the dough to form, we continued with the directions. Ours do not have as much powdered sugar on them as the directions say because Sunshine requested we don't put a lot on. They turned out alright. Surprisingly, not very lemony. I was a little disappointed by that, but they were still good. I probably will be looking for a recipe that is more lemony. If I'm going to make lemon cookies, I want to actually taste the lemon. I want to pucker when I eat them. Monster and I had fun baking them though. It's rare that he bakes with me. We did a lot of work with fractions. Baking is full of teachable moments. Since we had a friend over, I had to have a craft prepared, because that's just who I am. Husband, who knows me so well, asked me the night before Monster's friend came over what my plan for them was. I told him there was no plan and the boys were going to plan and entertain themselves. Husband just looked at me. I let him off the hook and told him we were making ninja stress balls. I didn't get to snap a picture of Monster's friend's, but they all came out cute. Purple one is Sunshine's. She didn't quite get the concept of how they look like "ninjas".
3 Comments
Cilla
2/22/2015 07:07:04 am
I love my bread machine, but I hardly ever bake the bread in it, I just use the dough setting. I have an awesomely simple bread machine recipe for Challah dough that I bake in the oven and then make french toast with. It's delicious!
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Me
2/22/2015 07:31:08 am
I actually currently have dough for soft pretzels going in my bread machine. :) I would love your Challah recipe!
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