Everybody's Having Babies

These are the second set of baby cookies I've done recently and I have at least one more set to do in the near future. This week in fact. These are for my boss. My gift to him and his wife They had a baby boy March 27.

The Real Deal Baby!

I had every intention of putting my little girl to bed Saturday night then getting up to start my hot cross buns so that we could have them for Easter brunch. No such luck. I passed out and didn't get up until 7 am just to say to myself "oh well" and roll back over. At least my mom's coworkers will get to enjoy them for breakfast.

They were easy enough to bake. Easier if my five year old didn't have to fight for my attention while I was making them. And then I ended up proofing them around the same time the ham went in the oven so I had to put them in the fridge to slow the proofing down until the oven was ready for me. But most of them came out beautifully and they are as delicious as they look.

Now I say these are the real deal because my mom doesn't remember hot cross buns coming with all this frosting that grocery stores put on theirs. And she remembers different fruit being in it. And a lot of times I hear people say that there shouldn't be any frosting on them at all. All the sweetness should come from the bun. AND. I got this recipe from one of the new books I purchased recently: Irish Traditional Cooking by Darina Allen.

Hot Cross Buns

from the book Irish Traditional Cooking by Darina Allen

1 oz fresh yeast

1/2 cup superfine sugar (I used regular sugar only because that's what I had on hand, it's not too hard to find though)

1 to 1 1/4 cup tepid milk (I ended up only using one cup)

3 1/4 cups bread flour

6 T butter

1/4 t cinnamon

1/4 t nutmeg

1 to 2 t mixed spice (I had to look this up and the mix varies but I used a mix of 6t corriander, 5t cinnamon, 3t nutmeg, 2t ginger, 1t cloves and I only ended up using 1 teaspoon in this recipe)

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup currants

1/2 cup golden raisins

1/4 cup chopped peel (double checked with my mom, orange peel)

2oz shortcrust pastry (recipe to follow)

egg wash (milk, sugar and  egg yolk according to recipe, I just used one egg beaten smoothe)

shortcrust pastry

8T butter

2 T superfine granulated sugar (again, I just used what I had)

1 egg

1 1/3 cups flour

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and beat for several minutes. Reduce speed and mix in flour. Chill for at least an hour before use.

Dissolve the yeast with 1 T of the sugar in a little tepid milk. (I used 1 cup of milk here)

Put the flour into a bowl. Rub in the butter; add the cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice, a pinch of salt and the remainder of the sugar. Mix well.

Beat the eggs and add to the milk. Make a well in the center of the flour. Add the yeast and most of the liquid and mix to a soft dough, (add more milk of necessary). (Here, since I added the yeast to 1 cup of milk I added the beaten egg to the yeast/milk mixture and that's all I needed for the recipe, I didn't need anymore milk)

Leave for 2 to 3 minutes, then knead until smooth. Add the currants, sultanas and chopped peel and continue to knead until the dough is shiny. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm place until it doubles in size. Punch down the dough, by kneading it for 3 to 4 minutes. (I just punched it down) Rest it for a few minutes, then shape it into 1 1/2 inch balls. ( I got 16 out of this) Put them onto a baking sheet and brush the tops with egg wash. Mark the top of each bun with a cross. Carefully put a cross made of thin strips of shortcrust pastry onto each bun. Leave the buns to rise again to double their size, and brush again carefully with egg wash.

Bake in a preheated oven at 425* for 5 minutes, then reduce the heat to 400* for a further 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. (The commercial baker in me that's used to not having the luxury of changing oven temps for everything I put in the oven just stuck with 425* for 15 minutes and they came out fine.)

**Side note: This is my first time working with fresh yeast. Boy was I surprised by the smell.

P.S. Check out my Easter Egg pics here. They were so pretty.

New Stuff!

Today I got some extra money for the extra jobs I've been doing and I quickly went to invest my money properly. I went cookbook shopping. I went a wee bit overboard. But, like I said, it's an investment. The Silver Spoon is somethng I've wanted for awhile. It's the Italian's cookbook bible. Mastering the Art of French Cooking is something my mom wanted me to have after watching Julie & Julia. And Irish Traditional Cooking is something I picked up because: 1. I needed a good soda bread recipe, 2. I needed a good hot cross buns recipe and 3. my mom and I are curious about our Irish heritage. She grew up a little closer to our heritage than I got a chance to but she says her memory is foggy. So, I picked that up too.

Yeah a little overboard but I can't wait to attack them!

90th Birthday Cake

This is the 90th birthday cake I referred to in my last post.  I was told it was a big hit and people were asking for my number. I love doing cakes but they take up so much time and energy. But they also get the biggest reactions. So, basically, you get back exactly what you put into it. I never went to bed the night before I delivered it so I crashed HARD Saturday night. Crashed so hard that my daughter got up in the middle of the night and I didn't even know it.

Baby Shower Cookies

I've been lucky enough lately that my "side business" (it's not totally official yet) is picking up. My latest project was for a friend that found my on facebook through another friend that I did those purse cookies for. I love these cookies so much. They were so much fun to do and I was given some creative license with them.

Next project that I'm working on now is a birthday cake for a 90th birthday party. Can't wait because the party is also a close friend's first big catering gig. I know she's gonna rock it. Actually it's three people I went to school with that are starting this new catering company. I'll let you guys know more when I know more. I don't want to give you guys the wrong info.

Pancake Day

Well, apperently it's Pancake Day. Guess what that means! Breakfast for dinner and I'm makin' pancakes. My basic go to pancake recipe from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cook Book:

1 1/4 c AP flour
2 T sugar
2 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
1 egg
1 1/3 c milk
3 T oil

• mix dry ingredients in one bowl
• mix wet ingredients in another bowl
• add wet ingredients to dry ingredients
• spoon desired amount of batter onto hot buttered griddle
• when batter bubbles and edges look dry flip and cook until golden (2 minutes max)
• remove from griddle and serve immediately

Add whatever fillings you wish right after you pour onto griddle and before you flip. Blueberries, chocolate chips, bananas....

HAPPY PANCAKE DAY!!!!

P.S. I had some yummy banana pancakes while my daughter had a chocolate chip pancake. Yummmmmmm........

I was pretty busy this week. At work, my work load has practically doubled and I only get about 2 more hours a day to get it all done. I like the pace, keeping busy and all, but a little help on the little jobs would help out a lot. But that's for me to tell my boss, not you. Then, I had two cakes to do. One was originally scheduled for last Saturday but we got snowed in. We never get snowed in. Normally, flurries and a dusting shuts everything down. But this was at least 6 inches and that's unheard of here. So that cake was rescheduled for Thursday. Then the other cake was for this past Saturday. But I also had 40 purse cookies to decorate.

I didn't sleep much last week.

So here are the labors of my love:

I still need to get a picture of the snow day cake from my mom. If I don't post it here it will definitely be on flickr.