De Baking Psychopath

  Gus! Beloved Gus! In the last 9 months since I created Gus, he's fed our family so well! Bread, pizza, crumpets, pancakes/waffles, naan...everything has been tasty and fragrant! Long live Gus! It is therefore fitting for me to share this wonderful sourdough recipe as my 200th blog post, as in many ways this sourdough starter has represented the journey and learning curve of discovering and executing new baking recipes over the last few years. It has been a tasty and wonderful time of personal growth that you, my readers, have shared with me over the Interwebs.  This recipe was first used for its intended purpose: pizza. The pizza crust from this recipe is great--fluffy and stretchy and really fragrant from the "Pizza Dough Flavor" from King Arthur Flour (basically a blend of cheese powder).  Then we decided to use this recipe to make rolls to eat BBQ with, and that was a smashing success, so since then we've made this recipe as rolls a few more ...

Close, but no cigar. This past visit to Philly was a fruitful one, as we went to the Metropolitan Bakery to do another taste test of the now-legendary raspberry bars. I decided to be bold and ask the staff whether they knew whether the crust of the raspberry bars was of the same recipe as the lemon bars, or very different. They didn't rightly know, but before we left, the helpful staff member had dug out the ingredient list for all the bakery items and found the raspberry bars. We discovered that in contrast to the simple shortbread crust of the lemon bars, ground and chopped almonds were important components of the raspberry bar crust, and thus I had my next scavenger hunt clue to continue the chase. This recipe, which DOES include almonds in the crust, comes from the cookbook of another famous bakery, Tate's Bake Shop.  The crust is a bit crunchier than the last one I tried, but I think I will need to swap out some of the flour for almond flour to see if I can improve ...

It's Fall! I had a hankering to make something pumpkin-y, so I decided these soft, cakey cookies fit the bill! I sort of messed with the recipe, decreasing the sugar in the recipe by about 1/4 cup and throwing in an extra egg white that was left over from another recipe, as well as throwing in a handful of toasted pecans, so I am not sure if my cookies represented the correct texture, but regardless, they were soft and moist, gently spiced, and not too sweet. Definitely a repeater. Everyone enjoyed them very much! Pumpkin Toffee Cookies (Adapted from Two Peas and their Pod ) Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), at room temperature 1 & 1/4 cups granulated sugar (original recipe had 1 &1/2 cups) 1 cup canned pure pumpkin puree (unsweetened) 1 large egg + 1 egg white (origina...

My husband doesn't like muffins or quickbreads. But he likes coffeecakes. I think he finds the former to be too dry much of the time, and he prefers the moist plushness of coffee cakes due to the addition of yogurt or sour cream. I don't remember why I made this coffeecake but I had some cream cheese to use, and I decided to flavor the cream cheese with some freeze-dried strawberries I had no idea what to do with. The strawberry added a nice fruity flavor to this yummy crumb-topped cake.  This cake was husband-approved. I cut it into gigantic squares, and he ended up taking a square for lunch many a day! Cinnamon (Strawberry) Cream Cheese Coffee Cake (Adapted from Bake or Break ) Ingredients: 1/4 cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick), softened and cut into small chunks 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 cup chopped pecans pinch of salt 4 ounces cream cheese, softened 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 t...

Here is installment 2 of the Pandora box of granola recipes that I have unleashed upon myself!  I don't remember what I was searching for, but I found online that the Metropolitan Bakery granola won a blind taste test at Epicurious.com . Looking at their ingredient list online, I discovered that the famed granola bore a strong resemblance to the contents "Almond Oat Cereal" recipe that is in their cookbook, so I decided to see what the fuss was all about. This granola, after eating the Bedford Springs Granola for a few weeks, felt sort of pedestrian due to the lack of fragrant coconut, but as I ate more of it, I grew to enjoy and appreciate the pure oat and nut flavor. The milk powder also lent a nice sweetness to the clusters. Also, the wheat germ was deeply nutty and fragrant. One thing that was not in the original recipe that I ended up adding was salt. Just a pinch of salt made a huge difference in the flavor and tastiness of the granola, so definitely don...

This summer, I had to drive out to a remote animal facility to do a special set of mouse experiments. This was a difficult task for me for a couple of reasons. One, I had not driven the car in over a year, and even when I had, I'd never had to drive by myself nor for the distance I would have to commute to reach this remote facility (about 12 miles each way). Two, because I'd never worked out at that facility before, I had to pack up all my materials (chemicals, tubes, solutions, etc) and have it shipped out there and back, so I had to be really careful I had EVERYTHING I needed, or else I was pretty screwed.  Luckily I survived on both accounts: the experiment went as planned, and I now have a new-found confidence in driving! Hooray! At the end of the month, to thank the wonderful veterinary staff who helped me through the process and made sure I had everything I needed and checked up on my mice, I baked up a couple treats and left them there on my last day. These capp...

This past Wednesday, I met again with my committee. This was my fifth committee meeting, and my mission in this meeting was the holy grail of all PhD candidates: seeking permission to write the thesis dissertation. In some ways, I was very blase about the meeting. I figured the more I stressed out about it, I was just going to give myself more pressure, so low expectations were in order to keep myself sane. Plus I had found myself responsible for two transient students in the lab, back-to-back leading up to and immediately after my meeting, eating up a lot of time trying to keep them organized and moving forward on their projects during their short time (why I am always in charge of students in the lab is a rant for another time). Lastly, I also have spent the better part of the last month writing a review article and JUST got it submitted, finally, so I frankly haven't had the time to focus on the presentation for my meeting.  I didn't make very much for the committee th...