Apple Cinnamon Muffins

In light of the fall season I made apple cinnamon muffins. I used a recipe from my favorite baker ever, Marcy Goldman. These were very moist and full of fally flavor. Since I live in California and don't really get to see fall I will just have to eat it instead. :)

Calzones with a Basil Dough

One of my favorite things to make is calzones. I have tried so many different dough recipes but always seem to come back to one, my mom's. It is so delicious! I added some fresh basil to this recipe to give them that little Italian kick.



The filling is fresh spinach, mushroom and ricotta with a basil spread.



I had some dough left over so I decided to make a loaf. We can never have too many loaves of bread in my house. Dustin and I go through an entire loaf in about 48 hours. I think we are carb addicts!









This is the same dough recipe I often use for my pizza. Sorry it took me so long to post this for you Carly! Just a word of caution though, I have never measured out my flour. I just add it until it reaches the right consistency or when the dough begins to leave the sides of the bowl but still sticks to the bottom.

2 1/4 t yeast
3/4 c warm water
drizzle of honey
2 T Olive oil
1/4 c honey (I usually put in 1/2 c since I am obsessed with honey!)
1 1/2 t salt
1 c Warm Milk
2-3 c Whole Wheat Flour
2-3 c All-Purpose Flour

Let yeast dissolve in water along with the drizzle of honey. Let the yeast get poofy for about 10 minutes. After yeast has poofed add oil, honey, and salt followed by one cup of wheat and one cup of white flour. Mix together. Add warm milk. Continue to add flour until the dough comes to the right consistency.

Continue to knead the dough for about 10 minutes until smooth.
Form the dough in a ball, lightly spray a bowl and put dough in the bowl moving it around to coat the dough so it doesn't stick to the bowl. Let dough rise for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

Punch dough down and, depending on what you are wanting to do with the dough, make that shape. If you are making bread make the shape and let rise again for about 30-45 minutes or until doubled.

Bake at 400 degrees

For pizza about 10-15 minutes. Make sure and keep an eye on it after about 10.
Calzones take about 15 minutes but watch those closely as well.
Bread should bake for about 15-18 minutes.

Oh Ashley, what a slacker!

Ok, I know... I have been the biggest slacker ever! It's not even that I have stopped baking, I am pretty much baking 2 or 3 times a week but taking photos and posting have not been on my priorities list for quite a while. But that time of year is coming... what time of year you may ask? Well, once fall hits it is baking season (at least in my world)! Pumpkin, apple, gingerbread, cranberry etc. There is nothing better than holiday baking. So... in conclusion, I promise I will do better these next few months and will be posting some fun recipes so stay tuned! :)

Here are the most recent baking excursions I have taken part in. My most favorite was for my boss' birthday. I asked him what kind of cake or dessert he would like and he asked for cupcakes or snickerdoodle cookies. Well, I decided to make things a little more interesting by making snickerdoodle cupcakes. I threw a deliciously moist cinnamon sugar muffin together with a cinnamon penuche frosting and wallah! a snickerdoodley cupcake! The frosting was almost like candy. It was delicious!



Of course I couldn't just make one type of cupcake so I used one of my favorite ingredients to during this type of year and made a pumpkin chocolate chip cupcake with a touch of cinnamon cream cheese frosting on top. YUM! The cupcakes were super moist and dense.



Lastly, one of my favorite things in the world are s'mores! I grew up on s'mores and could pretty much live off of them if necessary. So why not make a s'more cupcake? (I have pretty much decided that anything can be made into a cupcake flavor) I used a graham cracker cupcake and filled it with a rich chocolate ganache. I had a hard time trying to decide what I wanted to do for the frosting. My mom, being the brilliant woman that she is, told me to use actual marshmallows and toast them in the oven. What a wonderful idea! So easy and no frosting was needed. I slid three marshmallows on top of the cupcake, drizzled the marshmallows with melted chocolate and then sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs. Um... this might be one of my favorite creations yet!



The other night Dustin and I bought salmon to grill and I asked him what he would like to go with it. He said, "I want yummy soft rolls." So, I made him Parker House Rolls. These rolls pulled apart a lot like croissants. If you are watching your waste line I would suggest maybe not making these as they are soaked in butter before they are baked. If anyone is working on gaining weight so she can get pregnant like someone I know... these are PERFECT! :)






No, that is not doughy in the middle, that is actually how these pulled apart!



So fun and poofy!

Alright... Last thing. I wasn't planning on blogging about this but once I saw it I couldn't help but grab the camera to display. Sunday morning Dustin and I had his family over for breakfast while we watched General Conference. We made buttermilk pancakes with a homemade buttermilk syrup, fruit and topped with fresh whipped cream. WHOA! The buttermilk syrup is definitely the highlight of the dish. My sister-in-law Jen introduced me to this syrup and I don't think Dustin or I will ever go back to any other kind of syrup again.



I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! If any of you make something fun and delicious take a picture and send it to me! I want to show you off on my blog! :)

If any one wants any of these recipes just let me know! I would love to share!

Challah!

Growing up my brothers and sisters and I were always very well educated in the traditions of the Jewish religion. Many of you may think that is strange since we are not Jewish and never have been but it is because of my mom and her love for the Jewish religion that I have learned to love their traditions and culture. If anyone walked into our house at Christmas time you might be slightly confused. Among the Christmas tree, stockings and nativity you would find a beautiful silver menora and dreidels. I love it!

So yes... I have played with dreidels. :)




Anyway, my mom also has a Jewish cookbook that she uses occasionally. One of my favorite recipes she makes is her challah bread. I think I was missing her yesterday because I had a sudden craving for it. I bust out my Peter Reinhardt's Baker's Apprentice book and made his version of the rich egg bread.

I don't have the recipe available to me right now but if you would like it email me and I would love to send it to you.



If you want to read the history or tradition of Challah bread go here.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter INTENSITY!

As many of you know... Dustin is obsessed with peanut butter so whenever I want to make him a treat I try and make it as peanut buttery as possible. These chocolate muffins were so rich and yummy to begin with but I decided to add a peanut butter filling just to put them a little over the edge. I think Dustin was pretty pleased with the results. :)

Let's make Doughnuts!

Buttermilk Honey Bread

Probably the softest and best white bread I have ever made! Perfect for Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or slathered with butter and honey (my favorite!).

Check out the recipe here.







And yes... this is the amount of honey I put on my bread.
This is why I am known as "Pooh" at my house. :)

My Mom

My mom is one of my best friends in the world! I have never met a better woman and hope someday that I can be as genuine, strong, and selfless as she is. Not only is she all those things... she is also crazy! :) Every time we are around one another we are the biggest goof balls and pretty much frighten every one around us with our dorkiness. No one understands me like she does. She has always been there for me through every happy moment to every struggle. I owe my mom everything and I hope someday to be the kind of mom that she has been for me.

I love you mommy!

Growing up one of my favorite things was coming home to the smell of my mom's freshly baked bread. I was so spoiled by my mom's homemade bread that I can rarely eat any kind of the store bought brands. My mom would let me help her in the kitchen whenever she baked which is where I found my love for baking.

Bread baking is pretty much my passion so whenever I find a new recipe I like I get super excited to try it. My goal in life is to find that perfect crusty on the outside and fluffy, chewy, and moist on the inside, with incredibly flavor, bread. This is probably the closest I have gotten to my goal. This bread had incredible taste and texture on the inside. The outside was super crusty right when it came out of the oven but became a little softer once it cooled. I pretty much decided that I am going to have to get a brick oven to achieve my ultimate goal but this will definitely do for now.

Marcy Goldman's French Country Bread

I also got this recipe off of Marcy Goldman's site, BetterBaking.com. Every single recipe I have tried from her has been incredible! I am sorry I can't post the recipe but you can purchase each recipe individually if you don't want to buy a membership.

Daddy's little girl

When I was growing up I would often wake up to the smell of cinnamon raisin bread toasting in the toaster. It was always cinnamon raisin bread with a tall glass of chocolate milk for my dad for breakfast (unless we had chocolate chip cookies then he had those with the chocolate milk :)



The smell of cinnamon raisin bread is very nostalgic for me so when my father in law told me how much he loved it I jumped at the opportunity to make it for him. I used the recipe from Peter Reihhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" which is my new favorite bread book of all time. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to bake bread. The pizza crust and ciabatta recipes are also exceptionally good.


Recipe coming soon!

Going Bananas!

Well, Dustin and I are now officially poor as church mice. Ya know on Disney's Robin hood where all the animals are sent to jail because they can't pay their taxes? That is us. Can you picture it? We realized how difficult it is to be self employed and to pay taxes. Note to self... take out taxes whenever you receive a paycheck or the end of the year will be the death of you.

We really wanted dessert tonight so I scrounged around looking for anything to satisfy our sweet tooth. I found some black bananas in the freezer and decided to make some banana nut muffins. I used this recipe from Taste of Home but made a few alterations on half of the batter. Dustin is obsessed with peanut butter and chocolate so after I filled muffin tins with batter I put a dollop of peanut butter on top and used a knife to swirl the peanut butter around then topped them off with a few chocolate chips. I didn't get a picture of these ones because they were gone before I even got the camera out. So good!




Banana Nut Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 medium)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Combine the eggs, bananas, applesauce and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.

Coat muffin cups with cooking spray; fill two thirds full with batter sprinkle with nuts. Bake at 375° for 15-18 minutes or until muffins spring back when lightly touched. Cook for 5 minutes longer before removing to a wire rack.

Green for Good Luck!

Happy St. Patricks' Day!

There are only so many days in a year that you can spread, frost, or dye baking creations with different colors. This year I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity the color my foods green. I didn't go too extreme but green can also be an unappetizing color that may scare some.

I have made cinnamon rolls a dozen times and have tried a different recipe every time. I used the recipe from Joy of Baking. Find the recipe here.