posts tagged with 'baking'
our twelfth night
Usually the highlight of the twelfth day of Christmas in our house is getting to eat the gingerbread houses. But today I needed something to occupy my mind so while the boys were with their grandparents I made us a King Cake. Behold!
one more treat to finish off Christmas!
I don't claim to know much, or anything, about celebrating Three Kings Day. But in looking up the date of Twelfth Night (because I can't count, apparently) I saw a picture of the type of King Cake they make in New Orleans and it certainly got my attention! There's supposed to be a little plastic baby inside, but since we don't have any of those I used a Pichu figurine instead (Pichu is a baby Pokemon, for those of you not in the know). But sadly, nobody got it in their piece this evening! Does it still count when you find the baby in the leftovers?
Besides the cake, we also celebrated the end of the Christmas season by taking down our tree. We didn't quite get it out the door by sundown, but it was pretty close, and any witches would have had a hard time getting settled as we bustled around putting away ornaments. Over the last couple weeks the rate of needle dropping really settled down, though moving the tree out of the house knocked off about half of the remaining needles. Luckily Elijah was doing strong work on sweeping patrol.
What's next, now that Christmas is over? Who knows. Besides a lot of leftover cake!
gingerbread
We finally got to make gingerbread houses today! It was the usual chaos; more than usual, even, since I did something wrong with the dough and the pieces puffed up and spread out much more than usual. We ended up having to cut the edges straight after they came out of the oven, but that was fine. The kids—our boys and their friends—did more of the work than ever before, which made some parts of the experience easier and others harder. Since there's a fair amount of waiting when making gingerbread houses from scratch, we also watched the Phineas and Ferb Christmas special and took a long walk in the woods (long in time if not in distance; two-year-olds aren't so quick on their feet). It was a delightful day, and the houses came out pretty good too!
the almost-final products
giving up on keeping cool
Back in July and early August when it was really hot I was doing all kinds of things to keep the house as cool as possible. Turning fans on at night, closing windows and blinds during the day—and of course minimizing baking and boiling. I didn't even like to run the vacuum during the day, it made so much heat! And then we had a beautiful stretch of mild days with cool nights, and even a few days that you might call chilly... and I almost started to think that winter was on its way. Well, it's hot again now. But since I've already transitioned to winter mode I don't care, and it's all cooking all the time. Last week it there were all the baked goods and jam the boys made for the fair, and since then we've kept right on going the same way. I made bread and biscuits over the weekend and Leah made cookies; this morning Harvey baked some dog treats (since the fair he's gotten interested in dog training) and I made sourdough bread and enchiladas for dinner. Sure it's horribly hot, but on the plus side it makes the breeze from outside feel downright pleasant! And of course we get to enjoy all the baked goods. Tomorrow I hope to make jelly from the grapes we pressed at Backyard Farm Club last week, which will add humidity as well as heat. Oh well, it's almost September... surely it'll be getting cool again soon!
the real Pie Day
With the geometry work we've been doing this year, Pi Day felt like something we could really pay attention to. (There may, unrelated to anything else to do with this post, have been some discussion this morning at the breakfast table about how many digits any of us could remember of that famous non-repeating, non-terminating decimal.) But really, to me the significant Pie Day was yesterday, May 9: the day I made the first rhubarb pie of the year.
Scout is interested in cooling baked goods
I could have made one earlier, as far as the rhubarb was concerned: it was lack of time that held me back. But that doesn't matter, because it's having pie that we want to celebrate. Harvey and I, at least; the other boys don't care for it. Luckily they were able to fall back on the brownies I made on Saturday and the M&M cookies Leah made on Sunday. We ate the first slices of it after supper yesterday, and there's now either one big piece or two little ones left. You see how excited we were. Suffice it to say there will be more pies before long... the season has begun!
the complexities of personifying sourdough
Keeping the sourdough starter healthy, with the amount of bread we make, means sometimes throwing out some of it. I need to keep feeding it faster than I tend to use it up. Occasionally I feel bad for the starter that I'm washing down the sink or scraping into the trash or the compost. It won't get to fulfill its destiny of becoming bread! Then it occurs to me that, from the perspective of the yeasts and bacterias and things that make the sourdough so wonderful, dying in the over is maybe not the best outcome. Probably lots more opportunities available to them in the waste stream! So I try and wish them well as I send them on their superfluous way. I'm still going to make lots of them into bread, though.
I ate too much pie
Sometimes it's nice to have these random non-holidays to notice. Yesterday it was Pi Day. We wanted to make a pumpkin pie, but found that we didn't have any pumpkin left so we had to settle for pecan. Well, Harvey had to settle; I like pecan better myself, and so, we find, does Elijah. In fact, it's the only kind of pie that I know how to make that he likes; usually he just eats the crust. He asked for a chocolate cream pie, but after I looked up the recipe I told him that I would need a little more time and mental space to attempt to make one. I never have before. I also made pizza—pizza pie, right?—but when I told the kids we were having pizza pie they imagined a wonderful pizza/pie combined concoction, so a couple of regular old pizzas was a little disappointing. But not too disappointing, because pizza. There were only two downsides to the day: we ate it all so quickly that we forgot to calculate any circumferences, and I ate too much of everything. It was so good! But I really didn't need that last slice of pie right before bed...
pies all round
fat-free
After the big winter feast folks at park day continue to bring food. Not everyone, but enough that the kids have come to expect that there will be a good supply of treats and don't bother to bring their own snacks any more. I try and do my baking part every other week or so, and this morning I got up earlier than I maybe would have otherwise to make mini muffins. Maybe a little bit too early, because after melting the butter I completely forgot to mix it in to the batter, a mistake I didn't notice until just after I put all three pans into the oven. Oops.
Well, we had just learned that the Shrove Tuesday pancakes were meant as a way to use up rich ingredients like eggs and butter before the Lenten fast... I never would think to fast from butter, but maybe it was my subconscious saying something? The muffins were fine even without butter; not nearly as good as they would have been, but totally passable for the kids of park day. They weren't fasting either!
how are my children like the young Alexander Hamilton?
Yesterday morning Elijah asked me if we were having potatoes with breakfast. No, I told him. He asked what we were having and I said french toast. "What else?" he asked. When he heard it was just the french toast he wandered away looking disappointed. Standards are high around here! Despite the lack of potatoes yesterday it was kind of a busy baking day, actually; even if you don't count the french toast I made biscuits, wheat bread, sourdough bread, and brownies. And soup for supper. The biscuits also were not universally appreciated. During our school time with friends I said I was going to go make a snack and Harvey was excited for a second, then suspiciously inquired if it was going to be sourdough biscuits; clearly that's been our school snack too many times for his liking. Whether or not they were as exciting as everyone could want biscuits just out of the oven with butter and jam must have been fine, because five kids (six if you count the baby, who does actually eat now) finished them all in pretty short order. So I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing!
party at the park
Our Park Day is still going strong. Stronger than ever in one important regard: folks bringing food! The feast I predicted last week came to pass, and it was one for the ages. I made coconut macaroons this morning and Harvey made chocolate chip cookies; there was also thumb-print cookies, stroopwafels, peanut-butter fudge, other chocolate chip cookies, gingersnaps, and peppermint candy. And it wasn't all sweets. There were also spring rolls and saffron buns. The kids all ran around a lot, but I have some doubts as to whether they burned more calories than they took in. For the adults there isn't even a question! I think some folks are planning to be there next week too, but we're taking a break... not only do I anticipate being busy with Christmas prep, but the season is enough filled with treats as it is!
escalation
Last week at park day one of the parents brought popovers to share. Now, I often bake snacks or desserts for school days, or at least bring leftovers to share, but I hadn't thought to offer treats to our friends at the playground. Knowing that was a thing, though, I just had to get in on the action, so yesterday I brought a tin of chocolate cookies I made the evening before. Only to find that this other dad brought popovers again PLUS chocolate cookies with crushed up candy canes on them! Folks hardly looked at my cookies, paling as they did compared to the wonder that was the other cookies (ok, they actually ate them all up, but clearly everyone thought the other ones were better in every way). Now there are plans for a veritable feast next week—bread, desserts, hot drinks... It may end up being a swan song for the group this year, because I'm not sure how many folks are going to want to come out on December 22. Then again, this group has surprised me before...