baking:: trying a new recipe

I recently checked The Bread Bible out of the library and wanted to try the Basic White Sandwich Bread -I had heard great things about this recipe so yesterday morning around 11am, I started making the sponge starter. The starter needed to sit for at least an hour (I let mine sit at room temp for about 2hrs), then I used my KitchenAid to knead the dough together for the first rise. The recipe called for three rises (!), so I knew it would take a while- but last night around 11pm I finally gave up and stuck the two partially-risen loaves into the fridge. This morning I pulled them out, let them rise one last time and then popped them into the oven to bake.

The resulting loaves were DELICIOUS! And honestly, they should be, considering the amount of work that went into them: if I only count the rising time, it was about 7 hours! Add two hours for the sponge to come together and it's an all-day process. My normal bread recipe goes from mixed to baked in about four hours with two rises.

The flavor of the Bread Bible white bread was good, but it was the crumb and the lovely chewy crust that really stood out. I took a few photos to highlight the differences between the Bread Bible recipe and my regular recipe (sorry for the awful lighting- it has been dark and stormy all day!).

Here is my regular recipe: the Amish White Bread-

Note the denseness of the crumb and the thinner crust. This bread uses just water and flour with some sugar for sweetening. I usually use 2/3 all purpose flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour with this recipe.

Here is the Bread Bible Basic White Sandwich Bread:

See how much more air there is in the crumb? This recipe also uses powdered milk and less flour to make for a wetter, more pliable dough. I also used about 1/3 (by volume) wheat flour and added some wheat germ for crunch. The crust of this bread was really nice and crisp right out of the oven.

And the two slices side by side (Bread Bible on the left, Amish White on the right)


After all the effort making the Bread Bible recipe, I was surprised that it wasn't much different in flavor than my normal recipe. The biggest difference between the two loaves was the tenderness of the crumb. I'm now wondering if I can try making a sponge for my Amish White Bread recipe....

wordless wednesday: annual strawberry picking trip

complete set here

love thursday

This week I am loving:
-spring weather: not too hot and not too cold!
-little boys missing their first 'toofer':

-spray paint (10 minutes and you have a brand-new item!)
-sending the small men outside to play nerf gun wars
-caramel pecan brownies:

-upcoming date with the Dearest (it's a surprise so he doesn't know where we are going!)
-teaching yoga at a new studio...the students are amazing and I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching!
-getting together plans for the upcoming summer
-coffee with mexican hot chocolate mixed in

What are you loving this week?

do the fondue

Did you know that chocolate fondue is a full immersion experience? Witness:

By the time dinner was over, Monkey Boy looked like he'd been mud wrestling. All his clothes went straight into the washing machine, and he went straight into the bath.

Little Man was a tad more tidy (but check out the choco-stache):

day 52 of 365

Have I mentioned yet how much I love this new kitchen gadget? Because I do! We've used it three times in the last week and I can't wait to use it again. The kids love it, and it's so easy to set up and use.

The Dearest agrees:

how to cause and cure a migraine

Little Man is nearly five and somehow we have managed to prevent him from visiting Hell On Earth (aka Chuck E. Cheese). He's occasionally seen commercials about HOE/CEC, and now that he's in preschool some of his friends have told him about it. In the past few months he has asked several times if we could go to HOE/CEC for lunch so he can play games. I've always told him no, mostly because my one visit to HOE/CEC many years ago gave me an almost instant headache. I remember the place as being very dark, dingy, loud and dirty. So my motivation to go inside the local HOE/CEC was minimal.

But then we received a couple of birthday invites from some children in Little Man's preschool class. Both of them were for parties at HOE/CEC...one on Saturday (today) and one on Monday. Luckily my neighbor's daughter is in the same class so she was also invited, making it easy for us to swap watching the kids at the party. I took Little Man and Blondie to the party today, and my neighbor will take them on Monday.

I had braced myself for a repeat of my last HOE/CEC experience (this time including the fun of running after Monkey Boy, Little Man and Blondie). However, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The local HOE/CEC is actually very clean, well lit and has a huge bank of windows to let in lots of natural light. They had all kind of arcade games, including skee ball (remember that?):

And of course Monkey Boy loooooved the train/trolley (he probably spent 25 tokens just on this ride):

While Little Man greatly enjoyed this contraption:

All in all, the experience wasn't as bad I thought it was going to be. Unfortunately after about half an hour I started getting a nasty headache. By the time we left, I had a nice little souvenir: a migraine. ugh

Luckily the boys crashed when we got home and I was able to take a short nap. When the Dearest arrived home from his workout, we decided to head to our favorite Shabu Shabu restaurant for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook.

Shabu Shabu is a lot of fun: they give you a big plate of very thinly sliced meat, another big plate of raw veggies and a pot of hot water. You swish the veggies and meat around in the water to cook them, dip them in ponzu sauce and eat up.

day 27 of 365

The small men always love Shabu Shabu- even if they don't get to do any swishing themselves. Tonight Little Man was putting pieces of carrot on his chopsticks and "warming" them over the pot like he was roasting marshmallows.

Monkey Boy's favorite part of the meal is the 'ndoodless' or noodles. He's gotten pretty good at slurping them up:



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The Shabu Shabu was good enough to cure my migraine and I'm feeling ever so much better now. :) Off to bed, because tomorrow I'm doing a yarn crawl with the lovely Ms. Chelle. Maybe I'll even take some photos (ya think?).

dinner out

first day back on the school schedule
first day back with swimming lessons
still cleaning up from the party
4pm and no idea what to make for dinner
I polled the men and they voted for Spaghetti Factory
so we had dinner out: