Mmmmmmmuffins

Muffin batter ready for the oven.

It can be very difficult to get out of bed in the morning when you are a grad student.  You often stay up working late into the night, and there is often no set time that you need to be in the office.  One way to motivate yourself to get out of bed is to have a delicious breakfast waiting.
That was my strategy for the first week of November.  On the weekend, I decided to make the Raspberry-Rhubarb Muffins on page 52.  That way I could eat the delicious muffins all week!  I also decided to make a  small modification to match the ingredients I had on hand, and my favourite fruit.  That's right, I substituted in blueberries.

The final product.

The recipe itself was super easy to whip up.  All of the ingredients are things that you would typically have on hand (well if you like to bake like me:)) with the exception of the creme fraiche.  The results were fantastic!  The muffins were super moist on the inside (probably due to the creme fraiche) and crispy on the outside.  Because of all the moist goodness on the inside, the outside tended to also get moist fairly quickly, but with a quick five minute warmup, I had a delicious breakfast all week.

Baking Showdown!

Cookies fresh from the oven.

What do you when someone challenges you to a baking showdown?  Well, if you are a PhD student, you start by analyzing the situation.  You think what recipe would give me the highest probability of winning?   How can I appeal to a wide audience?  Then, if you are me, you run to the Flour cookbook.

This is exactly what I did for the baking showdown that I was challenged to for the October Sidney-Pacific house meeting.  After deciding that I would want one chocolate baked good and one fruity baked good, I ran directly to the Flour cookbook.  After leafing through the pages, I settled on baking the chocolate chunk cookies from page 108 and the apricot almond tart from page 222.  

They were definitely a winning combination!  The cookies were just fantastic, the right amount of crunchiness and chewiness.  The tart was phenomenal!  By now I've baked a lot of items from the book, and this is my second favorite (after the cranberry & pear crostata).  Definitely a winner that I'll be making again!    

So, you are probably all wondering....  Did Amy win the showdown?  Actually, we decided to just bake together rather than compete against each other...  It's more fun baking with friends anyway. 

The apricot-almond tart...
Amazing!

Big Brother Coming to Visit

When you live far from your family, they'll come to visit every once in a while.  Since I'd come to Boston, all of my immediate family had come to visit, except my brother.  He's married with two small (and very cute) girls, so I didn't really expect him to make the trip down.  I had a very pleasant surprise this summer when he said that he and his family would be coming for a long weekend!

So they came and we did some traditional Boston touristy things.  Since we had some small children, I adapted my normal people coming to visit plan to limit the walking.  We also made a trip to aquarium, which was super fun.  

I also decided to have them all over so I could make breakfast.  In addition to the normal bacon, eggs, and pancakes, I decided to whip up something from the Flour cookbook.  Surprise!  I made the Homemade Pop-Tarts on page 88 of the cookbook.  The pastry was buttery, flaky and delicious.  It was a perfect combination with the raspberry filling.  Even my little nieces enjoyed!

The prepared pop-tarts getting ready for the oven.

It's Chelsea's Birthday and I'll Bake If I Want To

Almond macaroon batter

This summer was filled with weddings, birthdays, and trips.  Sometimes these events overlap like Matt's birthday and my roommates wedding.  Another overlap happened this in July with my friend Chelsea's birthday and a trip to my home and native land (O Canada).  Of course, I decided to bake something to take my place at the party.
I decided to make almond macaroons with bittersweet chocolate ganache from page 130 in the cookbook.  They were really great!  The cookies were chewy and sweet with the perfect amount of chocolate holding them all together.  Again, another great recipe.  My only complaint is that I didn't get to try more before dropping them at the party.  Happy birthday, Chelsea!

The finished product

It's Matt's Birthday and I'll Bake If I Want To

Chopped rosemary waiting
to be added to the shortbread.

 So, what do you do when a good friend of yours is having a birthday and you need to run off to your roommates wedding?  Well, perhaps some people would just say sorry I can't make it and sign a card, but not me.  I decided to....  guess what....  bake!
I decided to make rosemary shortbread cookies from page 146 in the cookbook.  I never realized how much butter goes into shortbread cookies before.  MADNESS!  Since they were sooo delicious, I've done my best to forget.  These cookies are savory and sweet at the same time.  It's really a great combination, I feel sad that I was only able to sample a few before dropping them off at the party.  I was told they all disappeared in the blink of an eye.  This recipe is fantastic and I'll be making it again soon!  Thanks Flour and Happy Birthday Matt!

Deliciousness cooling.

It's My Birthday and I'll Bake If I Want To

The half-eaten results.

I'm heading back into the photo vault for this one.  I'm slowly catching up on my baking blog posts.  This particular entry dates back to this past June.  My birthday to be exact.
I'm very lucky to live in a great community with lots of great friends.  I invited them over to join me for nice wine, conversation and dessert.  It was a really great evening and of course I decided that I should bake a little something.  I decided to go with the raspberry crumb bars on page 150.  They have a great flaky shortbread base and are absolutely delicious. They were so good that I sent 2 of my friends home with the recipe.

Last House Meeting!

Peanut butter cookies ready for the oven.

Throughout the year, I've been baking for my fellow SP House Council members once a month at our house meetings.  It's been a great chance for me to improve my baking skills and check a couple recipes off my list.  The April house meeting was my final meeting as President and my last chance to subject my officers to my Flour recipes.  The April house meeting was election time, and one of the questions from the audience was if the home baked goods would continue through the next year :).  I guess we'll see.

The final bread pudding.

I made two treats for my last house meeting.  The first was the peanut butter cookies on page 114 of the cookbook.  If you are a peanut butter cookie fan, these are a must.  I'll need to pass this recipe along to my mom later.  The second treat was the berry bread pudding on page 256, also delicious and it disappeared quickly.
It's really been a great year serving as President of SP.  I got to work with some really great people, got to work on lots of interesting projects and made a lot of friends along the way.  Hopefully, they weren't just using me for my baking :).

And the Winner is...

Pears ready for roasting.

I'm slowly getting caught up on documenting my Flour cookbook baking adventures.  This installment is from the end of March and was my most ambitious baking project to date.  I live in Sidney-Pacific Graduate Residence at MIT.  Over the course of the year, the residence hosts a series of competitions for the different halls in the dorm to compete against each other.  It happened that the March competition was right up my alley.  That's right, it was a baking competition.  

Cream infused with hazelnuts

Once I heard what the challenge was, I went straight for my trusty Flour cookbook and picked out 3 recipes sure to impress.  I decided to make the Homemade-Nutella Tart (page 224), the Roasted Pear & Cranberry Crostata (page 237) and the Intense Chocolate Brownies (Page 149).  The recipes were fairly intense, so instead of going out the night before the competition, I spent it in the kitchen whipping up crusts for the tart and crostata. 

Chocolate brownies in the making.

The completed Nutella Tart.

Sunday evening was the main event.  I woke up early on Sunday morning to get the pears started.  According to the cookbook, they needed to be roasted in the oven with ginger for 2 hours.  I was slightly reluctant to do this since ginger has a strong flavor.  I put my faith in Joanne and went ahead with the roasting.  Time would tell if it was the right thing to do.   

Once my pears were roasted, I headed down to the main kitchen in the building to complete my confections.  Some of the other competitors were also there slaving away on their creations.  They had ambitious plans that I was unsure I would be able to beat.  Despite the pressure, I proceeded with my plan.  I started making the homemade Nutella.  Once I smelled the cream I had infused with hazelnuts, I knew the 9th floor (my floor) had a chance in this competitioin.  I spend the rest of the time in the kitchen assembling my tarts, baking the crostata, and making the brownies.  The results were awesome, but could we win?  The answer was yes!  The 9th floor beat out 12 other groups for the victory.  More than that, the Roasted Pear and Cranberry Crostata is the most delicious thing I have ever made.  The ginger that I was so skeptical about was perfect.  I'll definitely be making it again....  If I get the time with research. Thanks Joanne!

The Roasted Pear & Cranberry Crostata.

Research is in the Lead!

Brioche ready to roll.

Surprise, surprise.  I'm behind on my baking posts.  Things have been a bit crazy lately, making it difficult to keep up with the posts.  Luckily, it's now summer, and my Sidney-Pacific Presidential duties are nearly over (one more day to go!).  I'm going to make a serious effort to catch up on my baking and my posting.

This post is actually for some treats that I made back in March.  I know, I've been really bad.  I used the leftover brioche dough to bake up some awesome brioche au chocolat according to the recipe on page 78 of the cookbook.  Since I LOVE chocolate and breakfast treats, I knew this one would be a winner.

Proofing

This recipe was actually super simple since I already had the brioche dough made from my sticky bun adventure.  All I needed to do was thaw it out, whip up some pastry cream, assemble, proof and bake.  OK, so maybe it's not super simple, but at least the one step was out of the way.

The magic of the baking is shown in the pictures.  I rolled out the dough into a precision 20" by 5" rectangle.  If you look carefully you can see my tape measure in the picture.  Every engineer needs a tape measure:).  I topped the dough with the pastry cream and folded and sliced into 10 pieces.  

Ready for the oven.

One of the great things about this recipe is that you can freeze the made up dough and pull it out when needed.  This meant I got to enjoy broiche au chocolat for the next 5 Sunday mornings :).  

The finished product.

With the pastries divided up, it was time to proof the dough and after a couple hours, the dough was pillowy, soft and ready to go in the oven.  After 30 minutes, they came out golden brown and absolutely delicious.  This is my favorite recipe in the cookbook so far!   Only 101 more recipes to go.  Can I pull this off?

Sweet Sticky, Sticky Buns

The brioche dough in progress.

So, if you know me and you know the amount that I bake, you realize that I have fallen grossly behind on reporting my baking adventures.  As a PhD student, I've found that I have way too many things to do and not enough hours in the day.  If I took the time to write this blog, I wouldn't have time to check facebook every hour :).

The buns ready to

However, I've come up with a plan to get my blog reporting back on track.  No more baking until I catch up on my writing.  Also, I now have more time since my presidential duties have finished.  So, here's my attempt to get closer to baking again.
Back in March, I decided to make one of the most popular items at Flour, their sticky buns.  These are so famous that they landed the owner of Flour on the Food Network.  The first step in making the sticky buns, is to make up a batch of the brioche dough on page 73.  I have never seen sooo much butter go into a batch of dough in my life and unfortunately, I was kneading the dough by hand. The dough definitely looked questionable for a while, but Joanne (the author of the Flour cookbook) told me what to expect and the dough turned out beautifully.

The buns have risen!

After the dough had enough time to chill (overnight), I started making the sticky buns for my Sunday morning breakfast.  This part of the process actually turned out to be way easier than anticipated.  In no time, I had beautiful sticky buns ready to rise.  I let the yeast work it's magic for about 2 hours and then popped it in the oven.  In 40 mins, I had delicious, golden sticky buns. 

Finally!  Sticky Buns!

These were actually really good warm.  A caution to anyone trying this at home, more than one of these might cause diabetes.  They are super sweet!  Overall, it was a great recipe, not my favorite so far, but definitely well worth the effort. 

Mmmmm.... Cheddar Scallion Scones

Scones ready for the oven.

There is no better way to relax after a long day in the lab/office than baking.  That's exactly what I thought when I came home and decided to make cheddar scallion scones.  This actually happened about 1 month ago on a cold winter day, let's hope my posting frequency increases once my classes and presidential duties are over.  Yeah right. :)

It had been a long day and I was craving a warm bowl of soup and a scone seemed like the perfect treat to accompany it.  As an added bonus, baking this recipe would mean I could check another Flour recipe off my long list.

The completed scones cooling on a wire rack

The scones were actually remarkably easy to make, either that or my baking skills are improving.  No, it must be the latter.  The results were good, but a bit saltier than I would have liked.  Nevertheless, they still miraculously disappeared in 3 days and it wasn't my little tassie devil oven mitt that did the job :).

Monthly House Meeting - One Month Late

Melting delicious butter for the cupcakes

So, I have once again been very lazy about posting my latest baking adventures. It's finally spring break, not that graduate students get a spring break, but this should be my chance to finally catch up on posting and perhaps get some more baking done :).  Just don't tell my advisor, I should be catching up on my research.

So this post is for the February (yes February) house meeting. In addition to subjecting the house council members to my random rants during the meeting, I also subject them to my baking escapades after the meeting.  For the February house meeting, I decide to bake the Chocolate Cupcakes with Crispy Magic Frosting on page 186 and the Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies on page 103.   

Chocolate cupcakes cooling on the stove

So, I've learned a couple things already during this baking project:  1. It's actually really easy (and fun) to make everything from scratch.  2. If you knew exactly what went into these items, you would never eat them.  It's the buttery, sugary goodness that makes it delicious.  

The cookies and the cupcakes were no exception.  I was surprised when I was baking how fast everything actually was coming together, until I started icing with the crispy magic frosting.  Yes, that's right, magic frosting.  I set up my pastry bag and star tip with the goal of making a cupcake that looks as good as the ones in the cookbook.  They make it look so easy, surely I could do it to, right.  

Cookies fresh from the oven

Wrong.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't ice the perfect cupcake.  For some reason, the so called "magic" frosting would rather stick to itself than the cupcake.  After 1 hour, I finally iced a couple reasonable cupcakes and had several catastrophic failures.

I boxed up the cookies and cupcakes and took them down to the meeting.  The cookies and cupcakes all magically disappeared, even the cupcakes with the questionable frosting.  Gotta love graduate students.  I unfortunately didn't get a chance to sample the cupcakes, but the cookies were fantastic.   My favorite cookbook item so far!

The final cupcakes - some were more elegantly iced than others

Winter Officer's Retreat = Epic Baking Challenge

Pie crusts in progress.

Life as a graduate student can sometimes be overwhelming.  Actually, it's overwhelming most of the time.  The past couple of weeks, make that months, have been one of those overwhelming times.  Lots of random things to take care of and no time to post about my latest baking adventures.  I'm finally getting around to it now.  I guess a month late is better than never!

Ahmed making the blueberry pie filling.

If you know me, you likely know that I'm really involved with student activities at my dorm Sidney-Pacific.  At the end of January, we host a retreat for all of the 50+ officers involved in the government.  As one of the retreat planners, I thought it would be a good idea to bake all the desserts.  I thought it would just take me a couple hours, I'd be able knock a couple recipes off my list, and the officers would be able to enjoy some home-baked treats.  Unfortunately, as usually happens in research and in life, I grossly underestimated the time required.

Midnight Chocolate Cakes cooling

For the retreat, I decided to make the Double Two-Apple Pie on page 203, the Blueberry Lemon Pie on page 217, the Plum Clafoutis on page 252, and the Midnight Chocolate Cake with Milk Chocolate Buttercream on page 163. Not an easy task, so I decided to start early on Friday night with the pie crusts (Pate Brisee I on page 92.  This portion of the baking was actually easier than I expected, it only took me 30 mins to make the dough for 2 pie crusts and the mess was pretty minimal. 

Double two-apple pie ready for baking.

Since the retreat and the baking was all going to happen on the same day, I decided to recruit a baking helper.  Ahmed was lured in with promises of sweet treats and only two hours work.  We worked away for four hours in the big kitchen at SP to prepare the dessert for the retreat.  I wouldn't have made it without Ahmed and Mirna's help.  As it was, I just scraped out 20 mins to clean up and finish preparing for the retreat. 

Overall the results were delicious and the house government walked away from the retreat dinner high on buttery, sugary goodness.  They didn't even seem to notice the the snafu with the chocolate chunks in the icing (they were there by design, I swear!).  Overall, recipes approved (especially the blueberry pie!) and five recipes to take off my list.  Epic baking challenge completed!

Sucessful First Committee Meeting - Time to Celebrate with Cornmeal-Lime Cookies

My first PhD committee meeting took place on Friday.  This is a pretty big event in the life of a PhD student.  A group of leading experts in your field evaluate your progress and scrutinize your research.  Needless to say, I had been fairly stressed out about the whole thing.  Good news!  My committee members actually seemed happy with my work and my aggressive schedule that has me graduating in 16 months!  For the first time in my PhD, I'm actually starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

After celebrating the successful meeting over drinks with a friend, I decided to start this baking project.  Will I be able to finish the Flour cookbook before finishing my degree?  It's definitely going to be a challenge, I'll need to bake a new recipe every 4.9 days.  If I can make it, another question arises.  Will my clothes still fit?

To celebrate my committee meeting success, I decided to make the cornmeal-lime cookies on page 118 of the cookbook.  I'd never tried them myself at the bakery, but they came highly recommended by my friend Heather.  I spent an hour zesting, mixing and baking and the results were delicious!  They have the interesting texture of cornmeal and a distinct lime zing.  It's a really great recipe.  I think I need to compare my results to the professionals at Flour this week.