BBA – Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

I am not a raisin lover, but I love them in cinnamon raisin walnut bread. I also love them in curried tuna salad, but that’s a recipe for another day.

Today we’re here to pay tribute to Peter Reinhart’s masterpiece, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. Up until now, I’ve only been able to buy this bread for $5 a loaf (it’s “artisan” bread, so I reason it’s worth it.)

I guess I’m an artisan now, because this bread was a ringer for my favorite loaf. It was easy to make, easy to shape, easy to love. It has just enough cinnamon to give it subtle flavor but not too much so you can make a darned good sandwich with it. I passed on the optional cinnamon swirl and brushing with butter and rolling it in cinnamon sugar since this one was served with dinner. But next time, and there will be a next time, we’ll definitely go for the full cinnamon experience.

And I’ll have it toasted with a touch of butter. Or maybe french toast. Or toasted brie and apple sandwiches. Or open faced with melted sharp cheddar. Or spread with cream cheese. Sigh. I can hardly wait.

I’m blessed to be a part of the Slow and Steady subgroup of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice event. I came to the book and the love of baking bread too late to participate in the main group, but Nancy very kindly invited me to join Slow & Steady. Thanks, Nancy! She’ll post a round up of the Slow & Steady bakers’ experiences on her bread blog, Corner Loaf.

*******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. I will be responding to comments but not keeping up with my Google Reader or visiting bloggers other than those who leave comments. I’ll be back around Sept. 22nd with a spirit refreshed by this blessed month of fasting and prayer. Peace.

Dorie’s Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

This week, my fellow Tuesdays with Dorie bakers are making the Espresso Cheesecake Brownies, selected by Melissa at Life in a Peanut Shell. She makes the most amazing creations! I tried to get these done before taking a blogging break for Ramadan, but the days and hours evaporated. I do plan to make these and will post about them after Ramadan is over.

All is not lost because one thing I did fit is was Dorie Greenspan’s Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream. I can truly say (and report from others) that this was the most chocolaty ice cream I have ever had. It starts out with making the eponymous ganache, a mixture of cream and chocolate (I used Valrhona Guanaja 70%). Then you make the custard, fold it all together, and chill it in the refrigerator until it’s cool enough to churn in your ice cream maker. Since it’s practically solid after chilling in the fridge, it doesn’t take a long time to turn it into ice cream.

Make sure you leave a little in the bowl for sampling!

If you love chocolate, you need to make this. It’s easy, incredibly delicious, and since it’s so rich, a little goes a long way. Because of its high chocolate content, it needs to sit out on the counter to soften up before serving. Although it’s tempting to sneak a taste, the flavor will be better if it isn’t frozen solid. I mostly served mine unadorned, because topping it with hot fudge was, yes, way over the top.

*******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. I won’t be actively blogging, but if you leave a comment, I will visit you. I’ll return around Sept. 22nd, refreshed after the blessed month of fasting and prayer. Peace.

Barefoot Bloggers – White Pizza with Arugula

I heart pizza. A lot. I could eat it every day, twice a day, and never get tired of it. But I have never made it at home. Until now. It took Andrea of Nummy Kitchen to pick Ina Garten’s White Pizza with Arugula for this week’s Barefoot Bloggers recipe for me to realize that pizza, like most everything, is better when you make it yourself. I bought a pizza stone for my Bread Baker’s Apprentice baking, so I baked our pizzas directly on the stone. It made the crust nice and crisp.

Ina’s crust is super easy. I substituted about 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour for some of the all-purpose flour, and it gave the dough a wonderful flavor and texture. Ina calls for fontina, fresh mozzarella and goat cheese, but I skipped the fontina. Even though we love garlic, I left it out of the oil this time as we were going out for the evening.

This pizza was incredible. It was good with the arugula salad, but I could be just as happy leaving it off.

Give this one a try, you won’t be disappointed! You’ll find the recipe here.

******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. While I have a couple of posts that I completed in advance (like this one), I will be staying away from active blogging. If you leave me a comment, I will try to stop by and visit you. I’ll be back around Sept. 20th, reenergized and ready to make bigger and better messes in the kitchen. Peace.

TWD – Creamiest Lime & Mango Cream Pie

This seems to be a recurring refrain here, but when will I learn?

I was lazing around before work, enjoying my coffee, and a thought snuck into my reverie:

“Why don’t I make a teeny little lime cream pie. It will be fun. And easy. Let’s just check the recipe and see if it’s doable.”

And we’re off…

I have these cute mini pie pans that I’ve been dying to use, so I figured I’d make 1/4 of the recipe (the math was easy enough for 6 AM). It all went well until the blending part. Putting a full recipe of the lemon cream in the blender was enough of an adventure. Putting 1/4 of the lime cream…I don’t think so. My brilliant (I thought) work around was to use my smoothie blender. Uh, no. The lime cream nestled at the bottom below the blade. So I went to the smallest tool in the blending arsenal, the mini chopper. I used my smallest spatula to get it all in there, and it worked! A benefit of the mini chopper was the motor is on top so it didn’t heat up the cream while I blended it. The downside is you can’t push a button and walk away.

1/4 of the recipe produced a lot less lime cream than I needed, so I went with Dorie’s playing around suggestion of incorporating mango, but I just put it on the top. I hadn’t added enough butter to my crust, so I was getting crumbs sticking to everything that touched them. Mango just jumps out of my hands and this was no exception. I had carefully measured eyeballed how much I would need to artfully cover the lime cream, but forgetting to use my knife to transfer it to the pie, it all slithered out of my hand and landed all over the board. So now you have the less than artful arrangement of mango on top of this poor little pie.

Even so, this was a huge hit. The tartness of the lime with the sweetness of the mango was perfect. M. loved it, and he requested I make the full recipe next time. I don’t think I’d change a thing since it was so perfect with the mango.

This week’s recipe was selected by Linda at Tender Crumb. If you’d like the recipe, she’ll have it posted today.

******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. While I have a couple of posts that I completed in advance (like this one), I will be staying away from active blogging. If you leave me a comment, I will try to stop by and visit you. I’ll be back around Sept. 20th, reenergized and ready to make bigger and better messes in the kitchen. Peace.

BBA – Cinnamon Rolls

When there are just the two of you and you want to make a recipe for cinnamon rolls, do you:

a). Make the recipe as written, figuring it’s never hard to give away cinnamon rolls;

b). Do many calculations and halve, third, quarter or cut the recipe so it yields two rolls; or

c). Double the recipe.

You’re rational, so you probably do a. or b. I’m not rational, so I do c.

There is a method to my madness. Taking six leftover cinnamon rolls into work could cause a riot in an office of 60+ people. So I often double to reduce the number of injuries from people running to the break room.

The less hydrated batch

This time, I was glad I did because doubling presented an opportunity to see how two batches of dough behaved with different levels of hydration. My KitchenAid can’t handle a double batch of bread dough so I made two separate batches, and in hindsight the first one wasn’t adequately hydrated. I added too much milk to the second batch and it was stickier until I mixed in a little extra flour when switching to the dough hook. It was a beautiful dough and doubled more quickly, with a silkier feel and headier aroma. The less hydrated batch did double, and they both rolled out fine, but the silkier texture of the hydrated batch made that one a breeze.

After mangling the rolled up dough with various knives while trying to slice off the rolls, I stuck the whole thing in the fridge to firm up some and that made it a snap to slice the rolls.

Since I started on these rolls at 8 PM on a Sunday night, I retarded both batches, one in the freezer and one in the fridge. The next day, I had a furlough day, so I thought I would celebrate by making cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Now I love being furloughed!

The few that I made for us (M. actually took a vacation day so we could spend my furlough day together…isn’t he sweet?) I didn’t make with fondant, and I liked them the best (not that I tasted one that I iced the next day, but I think they might be too sweet with the fondant). I was pinching myself, I just couldn’t believe that I, the yeast phobe, had made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Strangely, when I baked up the rest to take to work the next day, they were well received but not as well as Ina Garten’s sticky buns. Those suckers cause a stampede. But these, these, with their notes of lemon and smokiness from the cinnamon, are perfectly balanced. Not too sweet, not too buttery, but heady with the yeasty dough and spicy cinnamon. Perfect.

******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. While I have a couple of posts that I completed in advance (like this one), I will be taking a break from active blogging. If you leave me a comment, I will try to stop by and visit you. I’ll be back around Sept. 20th, reenergized and ready to make bigger and better messes in the kitchen. Peace.

CEiMB – Ellie Krieger’s Thai Mushroom Salad

Our Craving Ellie in My Belly selection for the week was Grilled Thai Beef Salad. I’m not a huge fan of beef, and I’m chickened out, so I decided to take this one vegetarian and make it with portobello mushrooms. I also had some corn on the cob in the fridge so I grilled that up with the mushrooms.

The marinade/dressing was incredibly flavorful, combining lime juice, soy sauce, red chili paste, garlic and ginger. This is the second Ellie dressing in the last few weeks that I have completely flipped over (the other one was the dressing for the cobb salad, and I mixed up another batch of that one just the other night). I had a huge bunch of Thai basil from my CSA box, and it added an incredibly fragrant hit of flavor to this salad.

This salad was yet another Ellie recipe that I looked at and thought it sounded rather pedestrian, but oh my, the flavor combination was amazing! This one is going into the rotation. I encourage you to try it with the mushrooms or different grilled veggies in addition to or instead of meat (or even a nice piece of swordfish). But if you like steak, try that as it sounds like it would be great.

If you’d like the recipe, check out Jen B’s Cooking Carveout as Jen will have it, or you can find it on the Food Network site here.

This will likely be my last CEiMB post as I will be taking a break from active blogging for the month of Ramadan. I’m trying to get a few posts up before Saturday but arrrggghhhh I’m so behind! If you leave a comment here I’ll stop by and visit, but this is a good opportunity to get my rampant blog addiction under control! I’ll be back after Sept. 20th.

Peace.