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Don't let their pretty metallic good looks fool you...
It’s been slow in coming this year, but the first glimmer of the itch to begin my Christmas baking has finally hit. I’d gone to Williams-Sonoma several days ago and purchased a set of very pretty snowflake cookie cutters. In my mind I saw them iced with pure white icing and glistening with a combination of clear dusting sugar and metallic dragees.
Some of you may well be wondering, “What in the world is a dragee?” While the name might ring any bells you’re sure to remember them – those hard, silver balls so popular in Christmas cookie decoration, be they for the buttons of snowmen or the ringers of bells, or simply glistening tips on snowflakes and stars. I was confounded when I tried to find them, having opted not to purchase them at Williams-Sonoma. I found a single brand at my local grocery store and the jar was on the very top shelf, nestled between the boxes of specialty extracts and colored dusting sugars. The price alone nearly blew me out of the water at $10.99 a jar, but I was determined that I was going to make beautiful, magazine-picture worthy cookies and coupled with how hard we’d looked for them I just went ahead and bought them.
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So wrong... but so darn funny.
My husband found an article about these cookie cutters while roving about the intertubes the other day. I can’t remember where – most likely boingboing.net or neatorama.com knowing him. I got a peek at them over his shoulder and burst out laughing. They’re so, so, terribly wrong – and yet so very right! While some might be appalled, I know I have many friends who would split a wide grin upon seeing these cookies. Like almost everything else, it turns out that they’re available on Amazon and I just had to add them to my Amazon aStore.
If you live outside the southern states, this may not be news to you. In fact, some of you might well be saying to yourselves, “Gee, didn’t we reach that point last month?” Well, here in Texas things aren’t quite so clear cut. One day you’re wearing shorts, as I was just past Sunday, and the next you’re getting a winter storm warning and threats of snow. No, really – snow! The last time I saw snow was February 14 of 2006. Not exactly a white Christmas, but hey, a white Valentine’s can be just as romantic!
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The latest commercial for Freschetta’s “Naturally Rising” pizza begins with an old Matrix shopping-riff that’s become rather old. A woman steps up to the freezer section and stands looking at case after case of pizzas. “OK. I need a better pizza. One made with only real cheese. Aaaand dough that rises naturally, with no chemical leaveners.”
The irony, of course, is in the ingredients in the pizza itself. Oh, sure, the dough rises by itself! But… what bout the rest?
Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Tomatoes (Water, Tomato Paste), Low Moisture Part Skim Mozzarella Cheese (Cultured Pasteurized Part Skim Milk, Salt, Enzymes), White Cheddar Cheese (Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Yeast, Provolone Cheese (Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Contains 2% Or Less of Cornmeal, Parmesan Cheese (Pasteurized Cultured Part-Skim Milk, Salt, Enzymes), Vegetable Shortening (Palm Oil, Soy Lecithin, Butter Flavor), Salt, Sugar, Butter Flavored Oil With Garlic (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Garlic Flavor, Salt, Artificial Flavor, Soy Lecithin, Beta Carotene [Color], Vitamin A Palmitate), Spices, Datem, Malt (Malted Barley Flour, Wheat Flour, Dextrose), Wheat Gluten, Dextrose, Guar Gum, Garlic, Soy Lecithin, Ascorbic Acid. Contains Milk, Soy, and Wheat.
Yeah. I think I’ll stick with plain flour, water, yeast and salt. Seriously… good pizza dough only takes an hour or so of ACTUAL work (though you do need time for fermentation), and can be made ahead and frozen for later use. One fresh veggie pizza, hold the butter flavored trans fatty acid, coming up!
Again, sorry for the hiatus. I know some of you have likely been wondering what in the world is up. Well, some health problems stuck their head up in August, ran through September, and saw me in the hospital in October. I’m fully recovered now, and past the first of the Holiday Madness. Tis the time for baking, however, and with the bills about to pour in everyone’s going to be getting baked goods for Christmas this year!
Look for updates soon, within the next week.
Thanks to Ipstenu of Ipstenu.org who helped customize my template and who manages some of my back-end stuff for keeping the back end neat, tidy, and updated software and security-wise while I was gone.
Well, I’m back from hiatus, and I’m picking back up with the BBA Challenge. I am now several weeks behind, but as I’m not an official member, I am not too worried about it. It’s a task I’ve set for myself, a challenge that I wish to complete, and while it has fallen by the wayside it is something I wish to pick up again.
This week’s bread was challah, a traditional Jewish bread, though I don’t know how traditional what I ended up turning out actually was. Other than pretzels this is the first shaped bread I have done, and I found the process very interesting. I really liked how well my finished bread turned out. The contrast between the golden bumps and the paler crevices and the dusting of poppy seeds all made for a stunning visual impact, as if the double-layered braid was not enough. I do seem to always choose the more seemingly difficult options out of those presented by Reinhart for each category. It all plays to my over-achiever nature, I suppose.
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Sorry about the unannounced hiatus folks.
I was sick for a good 2 weeks, and just after that I had company for 10 days. Upon getting ready to bake again I found out that my copy of Photoshop had gone wonky and it didn’t want to allow me to reinstall. If you’ve had to deal with Adobe Tech Support you know the HOURS it can take to get something sorted out when it comes to a serial number not wanting to validate.
I’m back, I’ve baked, and I have pictures to edit! Look for an update by this weekend!
While I’ve only recently begun baking, BreadBaking Day is fast approaching its two year anniversary! BBD#21 celebrates pizza which, in my mind, is THE quintessential American food. When it comes to pizza the possibilities are quite literally endless. We’ve strayed far and wide from the simple pizza napoletana with its buffalon mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes, basil and extra-virgin olive oil. Now there is Chicago-style deep dish pizza with the sauce on top, New York style with its floppy slices, California-style with its gourmet toppings such as artichoke hearts, and on and on. Every area has its own take.
Butter, whole milk, eggs, salami and cheddar cheese. Just when you thought bread couldn’t get much richer than brioche, along comes its Italian cousin. Casatiello can be made with just about any cured meat, and perhaps I should have splurged for some sopressata or at least some prosciutto. The latter, at least, would have been much leaner, and by extension more healthy, than the hard salami that I chose. Unlike brioche, however, I am in love with this bread. A little spicy mustard, some crisp romaine and a few slices of the tomatoes now ripening in my garden and I have a sandwich that surpasses most anything I ever took in my lunchbox. In the words of my husband, “This is awesomeness in a loaf!”
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Man cannot live on bread alone, or so it is said. With that in mind I sought to expand my baking repertoire beyond just bread. That search lead me to The Daring Kitchen and the monthly Daring Kitchen Challenge.
The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar.They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.
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