I’m a recipe hoarder. I admit it. There it’s out in the open. An interesting recipe that I haven’t tried yet tempts me like a shiny new penny. Then you’re on twitter.com & EVERYBODY is talking about this great bread recipe. Paula from @VanillaBeanBake has made 6 loaves this past week. You can see where this is going.
Yep. Have to try this bread recipe. It was quite an adventure. Was going to get started making it when I discovered I had NO YEAST! No yeast. Didn’t seem possible in this house but there I was. Wanting to get a lot done so didn’t want to break the work rhythm to go get it. Picked yeast up in the evening when I was running another errand.
Mixing the dry ingredients together using the trusty Kitchenaid. No yeast was in here as I discovered later. Oops!
Innocently heating the milk for the English Muffin Bread!
Get home & decide to get this going. Mixes up super easy. Got the batter in the loaf pans. Set them aside covered with a damp cloth. Go back to check them about 30 minutes later. They haven’t risen a bit! Big failure! The recipe says it takes about 45 minutes to rise so baring a miracle these puppies are NOT going to rise enough. Glance to the side. There sits my brand new unopened jar of yeast! Oops! Maybe it’s not the recipe. Maybe it’s operator problem. Maybe I’ll retry the recipe in the morning.
Here I am adding flour still under the delusion I'm making bread.
The batter that I so innocently was going to rise & make a beautiful loaf of bread.
Nice & cool in the morning so it’s a wonderful time to retry a bread recipe. Again the English Muffin Bread batter mixes up easily. This time I try making it WITH the yeast. Suspect that will have a positive influence on the outcome. Check the bread in the loaf pans after 20 minutes and lo they are rising. Must be the yeast! The bread rises just as quickly as the recipe says & I slide the bread pans in the oven.
"Real" bread--you know, the kind that has YEAST in it.
Bread cooks for the required time. Pull out of the oven 2 beautifully browned loaves of bread. Oh yes, it is going much better today. Naturally, I have to give the bread a taste test. Slice off a piece as soon as the bread has cooled, butter it & share it with Sarah. It’s good! That’s our verdict. I have to be honest though & say that I’m not sure how often I’ll actually bake this bread. As delicious as it it, & it IS delicious, I prefer breads that can serve double duty. We enjoy using homemade bread for our sandwiches & this is not a sturdy enough bread for sandwiches. If you’re only looking for something to slice & eat or slice, toast & eat, you’ll be very happy with this bread.
All those beautiful airholes are what makes for wonderful toast!
If you’re an experienced cook, I’m sure you enjoyed my “little” mistake. Probably reminded you of a few of your own mistakes when cooking. If you’re a novice cook, take careful note. Doesn’t matter if you’ve cooked for 50+ years, there are going to be times when you make mistakes. It’s not the end of the world. Just try again. Sometimes when you make a mistake, you’ll like the results better, but not when you leave the yeast out of your homemade bread. Trust me on that one.
Tags: bake, baker, bread, cook, cooking, English Muffin Bread, recipe, Sarah, vanilla
See these huge piles of orange peels? They’re left over from preparing Ambrosia for a function I catered. I carefully wrapped them in Saran Wrap & refrigerated them. Today they are going to become candied orange peel!
Orange peels leftover from making ambrosia
First I had a small crisis. I couldn’t locate my Fannie Farmer Cookbook! This is THE book to go to for preserving foods as far as I’m concerned. Did a google search & couldn’t locate the recipe. Didn’t really want to use another one because I’ve used this recipe before & been very pleased with the results. However I did locate it online. It contains the entire cookbook! Unfortunately, it does not have a search capability. Took me quite a while to find my recipe but it’s in there.
Pot with orange peels & cold water. Next step is to gently boil them.
Took half of the orange peels & placed them in a 4 quart heavy pot. Added cold water to the pot until the orange peels were covered. Slowly brought the water & peels mixture to a boil. Gently simmered the peels until they are soft. Drained them & allowed the peels to cool enough to be able to handle them.
The orange peels have been drained. They are now cooling.
The next step was taking a knife & removing the white portion of the skin. While working on that, I put 2 cups of sugar & 1 cup of water into a medium saucepan. After the sugar dissolved, I continued cooking the syrup until it made threads when dropped in a cup of water. In the meantime, the orange peels were cut into strips. Once the syrup was the proper thickness, the orange peel strips were added to the saucepan. They cooked at a gentle boil for 5 minutes.
Orange peel that has been cleaned & cut into strips. It is now ready to be cooked in the syrup.
Orange strips simmering in syrup.
I added a cup of sugar to a bowl. Using a slotted spoon, I removed the orange peels from the pot & allowed them to drain. They were then put in the sugar & tossed until covered. Removed the orange strips from the bowl of sugar & placed them on a pie pan to dry. In the morning, I will bag them. They will then be available whenever I need candied orange peel. The remaining syrup was placed to the side to cool. Later, I will use it to sweeten a batch of tea. That will give the tea a pleasant taste of orange.
Strips of orange peel being tossed in sugar.
Now your orange peel is finished. Let it dry & then bag it.