A Baking Bonanza!

I was a baking fiend this weekend!  I started out with a batch of Pioneer Woman's French Breakfast Puffs.  They were so moist and the cinnamon sugar coating was so tasty...but DBF and I learned an important thing about ourselves.  Neither of us likes nutmeg.  I'll definitely be making those again, minus the nutmeg.  I bet they'd be good if I sub'd the nutmeg with cinnamon...

Next I moved on to these amazingly tasty loaves of white bread.  Made from scratch and hand-kneaded, they were definitely worth the work.  This recipe made four loaves.  This bread is so good that it makes me want to not bother buying store-bought bread anymore.  But my loaf pans are tiny and a bit small for sandwich bread.  Does anyone know of a place that sells loaf pans that are more like the size of loaves of bread you'd buy in a store?

DBF and I took a trip over to Target to look for organizational racks so I can make my cabinets look more like this.  I ended up finding the upright racks she stores her muffins tins and cutting boards in at Walmart for about $5.  Now my muffin tins are all in order and easy to grab - I love it!  But anyway, back to Target.  My store had tons of holiday clearance, but just the usual stuff - wrapping paper, candy, ugly decorations, etc.  I wasn't impressed...until I spotted this Nordic Ware mini-loaf pan.  I just couldn't resist.  Nordic Ware makes the cutest stuff!  They had a bunch of cute muffins too for around $6.

Nothing fancy here, just a store bought cake mix with some funfetti icing - but doesn't it look like a huge donut?  

Now for our favorite new treat - Georgian Cheese Bread.  It doesn't look like much, but boy was it good.  The dough was super sticky and didn't rise very much (it was a bit cold in the house) so I wasn't expecting much when I put it in the oven to bake.  I think next time I'll double the recipe since the loaf came out on the small side.  DBF has already put in a request for me to make this one again ASAP.

Inside - light, fluffy dough and delicious cheese!  Two of my most favorite things, all merged into one.  I didn't have any Havarti cheese in the house, so I used mozzarella and a mexican blend and it came out great. Next weekend I'm going to give these Pepperoni Muffins a try.

My New Career - Cookie Decorator

The baking bug got me on Friday and I set about making Pioneer Woman's oh-so-delicious looking truffles with sea salt.  The recipe was easy enough, melt together chocolate, condensed milk and some vanilla, let it set up in the fridge for a couple hours and then dunk in more chocolate.  I can't remember what I was doing on Friday that made me want to finish up the truffles Saturday morning, but it must have been good because I left the chilled bowl of chocolate in the fridge overnight.  Saturday morning came...with a migraine so the chocolate went unattended for the day.  By the time I took the bowl out this morning, the chocolate was rock hard.  A minute or two in the microwave fixed that in a jiffy.  I rolled out the chocolate into balls and stuck them in the freezer for a couple minutes before dunking them into the milk chocolate. I've never had chocolate sprinkled with sea salt before and boy have I been missing out.  These are gooooo-oooood!

Inspired by some hilarious cookie cutters I found at Target, I also thought I'd whip up a batch of cookies and decorate them.  Whenever I tackle something creative, I always have the most amazing pictures in my head of how its going to turn out.  I picture beautifully created cookies with intricate frosted details, sort of like the magic I see all the time on Bake at 350:

All you have to do is follow the instructions, right?

What could be easier?

Sigh.  What I always forget to factor in is that by the time I've made a million chocolate truffles, whipped up the batter for shortbread cookies, rolled it out, cut out ninjas with my new cookie cutters, bake the ninjas, washed the dishes and bowls and measuring spoons and measuring cups I've dirtied and let the cookies cool....I couldn't care less about how the cookies look.  So I ended up taking some of the extra melted chocolate from the truffles and "decorating" the ninjas with it.  If you can call this decorating.

The important thing is that the chocolate got on the cookies.  Who cares if it looks like they were in a mud-flinging contest, right?  Right?

Seriously though, how funny are these cookies?  They're ninjas in three various action poses.  I kept breaking off their limbs, so these two are just about the only ones that stayed intact during my baking and decorating project.

Have you noticed these adorable containers?  They're from the Temp-tations line, sold on QVC and I'm in love with them.  My sister noticed them a while back and got a set for my mom, who loved them so much that she bought a set for my sister in return.  Happily, it was my turn to get in on the fun and these were my birthday present from my folks.  You can throw them in the microwave, the oven, the dishwasher, you name it!  And they're so cute that so you can serve your dishes right out of them without having to transfer your food into something a little spiffier than your garden variety Pyrex dish.  There are tons of colors and shapes and sizes, but each set stacks right inside itself for easy storage.  They also come with metal racks with handles, so you can take the dish right out of the oven, put it in the rack and carry it to the table - no pot holders needed!  Ok, enough of me sounding like a commercial.  Go check them out, they're really cute and practical.