Donut Unto Others

A long distance baking journey.

[donutuntoothers]

Steve

This weekend, I baked some bread. I generally like baking bread and feel confident enough about it to improvise--sometimes, that works, and sometimes, it doesn’t; I think in baking, you ain’t supposed really to do that, but whatever the crap. This bread that I baked was http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/king-arthurs-classic-white-bread-recipe. But I didn’t have any dried milk or whatever, and I used half whole wheat flour, and I added a buncha oats, so honestly what I baked was nothing like this recipe. My bread came out under baked...I’ve become suspicious of just about every bread recipe that doesn’t start at a fairly high temperature for the first few minutes for this reason. It could also be the oven I was using. I don’t think any of the changes I made should have resulted in it baking through more slowly--maybe the whole wheat?

Anyhow--here it is, how it turned out! Look at the weird top! It has kind of a nose or a phallus, huh?

[donutuntoothers]

Just in case...

you were curious about the lovely bakers who post, here is a page all about us! 

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

I’ve done more baking! Just today in fact! Made some B-A-N-A-N-A-S bread (how many of you sung out in classic, Gwen Stefani glory just then). Also, I’d like to note we’re adding a real handsome baker to our blog! Steves has been making some real smart looking prezzels if you haven’t seen em yet! 

Here’s a highly filtered picture of my bacon station. Instagram worthy one could say. My life became better the day I decided to put all my baking supplies in large Ball jars.

Look at them bononos! The darker ones aren’t gross. I promise. They were frozen. My fingers would prove it if they could move. I doubled my nana bread recipe so there are six bononos there.

TAKE THAT BONONOS! WITNESS!

Hmm, hmm. Here’s the batter all nicely separated into two pans. I am using these disposable bread pans instead of my own because I am giving one loaf to my landlord as an apology for my band playin’ too loud. Baking is the best form of apology. Sometimes...into the oven with em!

Reppin’ some Bruins pride during my baking sesh. Even if they didn’t get into the playoffs, I still love em.

This sausage also helped with baking. And by helped I mean she sat by my feat and waited for me to drop the entire bowl.

THE WORST PART OF BAKING. Things to do while those loafs are in the oven I guess.

Those pesky loafs started to get real toasty around the edges but my trusty metal cake stick told me they weren’t quite ready on the inside. Too gooey. Thus, they received blankets.

Ahh some lovely sun-kissed banana loafs. They are quite tasty and moist. Just like a good banana loaf should be. Here is the recipe I used! I did not add the walnuts and doubled everything to get these two loafs. I recommend doubling anyway should you want to fill a regular sized bread pan. I don’t think I would have been able to have a nice sized loaf otherwise.

[donutuntoothers]

Parcells

It’s me, Steve. I’m more of a fellah than either of the two other people who write here. How’s that relevant? I donno. I just must be real genderally conscious right now. Oof. Now, let’s see. How to make a parcell. That’s the question. So, if you are also asking how to make a Presley, you can read this and learn how! The recipe I use for these parcels comes from King Arthur Flour, which as all good Puritanical God-fearing New-Angulunders know is the ONLY flower for those of us what are Red Sox fans and Boston Bruins nuts. It is a flower--wait, wait...FLOUR, aha!--from VARMINT. Bernie Sanders approved. And we all know how important THAT is.

Hillary Clinton, you ruined my yesterday, by the way. ANYHOW. Presales was the point of this post. The recipe is here: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/hot-buttered-soft-pretzels-and-pretzel-bites-recipe Now. As for how mine turned out. The first thing to know, when making a hot butter pustule, is that you gotta make the dough. That means mixing it all up, man, with a spoon in a bowl. Then you NEED to KNEAD and let it rise awhile. Thing is, erectile dysfunction is not a problem for these pizelles: they only take about 40 minutes altogether to rise, 30 minutes to start with, then like 10 minutes more after you knot ‘em up. You gotta then cut and stretch the dough into these ropes, right, and tie em knotwise like parsnips should be, sitting Indian Subcontinent style: like a lady or a man, sitting cross legged in a skirt. Then bathe them in some baking soda solution. Salt the SHIT out of them snails, m’lad. Then bake em FAST and HOT and then out they come. You butter them, then; you butter the parsleys until they are buttered and good. They look like this in the end:

Prosleaves.

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

So like, it’s been forever. Thank goodness baking is part of ya soul and never leaves ya. Like we left this blog... Anyway.

SO. Here’s some ketchup...catch up of a few things that have at least happened in the past month-ish. At Easter, I made my family’s traditional Pascha bread as part of my roommates big Easter dinner with her family. It’s a Ukrainian bread my dad used to make every year. Now it’s my turn. I have been handed the torch. The bread pan. The flour. 

Bread kneading. The most relaxing of processes. There’s not much too this bread. Mostly flour, eggs, sugah, some salt, and buttah. Butt. I usually use a KitchenAid to mix my dough but it wasn’t my kitchen this time so hand kneading it was. Oh. And yeast! That’s important for bread.

Braidin’! My dad never did this but I enjoy the way it looks after it’s risen.

Look, bread! These pictures make it seem like such a quick process but it requires so much patience. The bread has to rise in a warm area for at least an hour, then you have to knead it, braid it, and let it rise again. Then you coat it with an egg for a nice brown crust and let it bake for a while. And finally, voila! Bread!

It’s a big hit at Easter and I received many compliments on it. It’s a softer, slightly sweeter bread.

[donutuntoothers]

Woah

It’s been so long since we’ve blogged. LIFE. Life I say.

[donutuntoothers]

KARI

Hey girl.

Can you believe I haven’t baked a SINGLE thing since Christmas?

Well, you shouldn’t. Because I have. And I’ve just been a real jerk and not taken any pictures, so I have no way to post about any of them things.

However, in an effort to be more productive, I’m gonna reach in the past and talk to you about gingerbread. Maybe it will even inspire me to bake something today! It’s cool here today, after 90+ degrees F earlier this week, so it may be the perfect day for it.

Probably not gingerbread, though. It’s only September. Geez.

Gingerbread of the past is, of course, a different story:

What’s that? WHAT INDEED. Let’s take a closer look:

Yep. It’s my gingerbread recipe. Unlike the Cranberry Bread recipe, this one doesn’t come from an ancient wizard’s tome. It comes from a website-- unfortunately, not a website I can credit, because it was once bookmarked on my old computer, which is now defunct. I looked it up in November 2010-- yes, that’s about five years ago-- and wrote down an abbreviated version of the recipe on two yellow post it notes. I baked it for a Lord of the Rings marathon, then actually carried those same two post-it notes from Ithaca back to my parents’ house in Massachusetts so that I could bake it again for Christmas. I stuck them to this cabinet door while I was baking for ease in reference, and if you think I pull them out of a recipe box and stick them back on that cabinet door each year when I make gingerbread then you do not know much about my family.

I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that these gingerbread instructions have been living on that cabinet door year-round at my parents’ house for the past five years. I’m not sure what I’d do if they took them down.

Those post-it notes are a pretty tenacious product though, huh?

Anyway:

Perhaps you recall these spices? I’m about to make some sweet, sweet gingerbread with ‘em (not literally; this recipe doesn’t make a super-sweet gingerbread, it’s pretty subtle).

Grease & flour a 9x9 pan. I actually don’t own one of these, which may be one of the main reasons that I only make this when I’m at the homestead. Anyway, I like greasing and flouring a lot more than just greasing. There’s something really satisfying about a floured pan.

Got some molasses, got my Mom’s electric mixer. It’s not cheapo like mine, so it doesn’t spray batter everywhere. Woo!

As you can see, these were definitely taken at the same time as the cranberry bread pictures. That invasive asparagus. Whatever, who needs you? We’ve got butter and sugar.

BUTTER AND SUGAR I SAY.

Butter and sugar AND EGG AND MOLASSES TOO WHY NOT.

Ahem. Meanwhile, the important sifting of flour and spices and other dry ingredients. I wonder how this would be if some of the white flour were replaced with wheat flour? It’s already kind of a dark, dense thing, so maybe it would be overkill...

Combining the dry and the wet ingredients... This is where it starts looking attractive and smelling wonderful.

Pour it into the pan and into the oven it goes to bake one ho! Ok. That’s what my post-it instructions say. It means bake for one hour. That said, this oven never seems to take an hour to bake this thing. It’s always closer to half an hour or 40 minutes. Maybe because it’s a sinister dark cave without a working oven light?

OoooOoooh spooky. Anyway. It’s gonna have to bake for at least a little while, so you can look at a cat or something while you wait.

There’s one.

And one ho later, I mean, an hour later-- I mean, maybe like half an hour later-- voila! An unassuming brown square that’s warm and spicy and delicious.

I really failed you by not taking any pretty serving pictures of this stuff-- because it doesn’t really look like much in the pan-- but with some homemade whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled on top, it’s kind of the prettiest thing I make.

Actually, looking at this pictures is sort of helping me come to terms with the end of summer. It’s never something I look forward too... but I do look forward to makin’ gingerbread.

Hey Sarah! You get any good peach pie pictures last time you were here?

[donutuntoothers]

KARI

Yeah, I'm getting here. Finally!

Hey, Sarah. Remember when Christmas happened? I baked!

First off, I baked Danish butter cookies at Moss's ma's house. Didn't manage to get any pictures of that-- would you believe I forgot we had a baking blog?

I guess you probably would believe that. Given my scarceness around these parts OF LATE.

But THEN, Moss and I went to Massachusetts on Boxing Day to have Christmas Part Deux with my family, and I swore a solemn oath: I Shall Blog this.

Then my extended family poked fun at me for having a baking blog.

Well, my brother made fun of me. Most of my extended family asked me what a baking blog was, exactly.

So, I baked a cranberry walnut bread with my Mom-- you remember, cranberry walnut bread? Like we were thinking about baking in tandem, but then it didn't work out, but I baked some for Thanksgiving, but I started it at like one in the morning and forgot to take pictures because once again I'm a dummy? Well:

This is how THAT loaf came out.

Tell you what, though: this here bread was made using only all purpose flour, and no whole wheat flour. You remember. Mothman. During Second Christmas, there was no such foolery-- we made it as it was meant to be, with the all-important whole wheat flour.

First, I've got to show you the Ancient Tome this recipe comes from:

Look at that! We got this shit from Gandalf. He picked it up while he was leafing through a bunch of other dusty tomes in Denethor's basement back in the first movie.

Naw, it's just an old Good Housekeeping.

Orrrrr eeeeeeees eeeeeeeeeeet?!

Anyway. We begin with chopping cranberries and walnuts, grating orange rind and also juicing said orange, melting shortening, greasing the bread pan, sifting flour. Aw yeah. All sorts of prep stuff. Aw yeah. This is why it's good to have a couple of people baking this together, even in a kitchen as teeny tiny as the one in my parents' house.

Hey. Hey, wait a second. I see you back there.

Get out of here, asparagus. You aren't part of this recipe. You son of a bitch.

Then, once you get all that prep taken care of, ya mix the dry, ya add your wet ingredients, mix in the cranberries and the walnuts. Listen, I'm realizing that a lot of these pictures show my mom's hands doing everything... but I did stuff too, I swear. It's just that I was the one taking the pictures!

Ok, most of the pictures. Not this one.

Or... or this one. BUT I SWEAR, I WAS HELPING MY MOTHER.

...fine. Look, we were on vacation. It was a happier time.

But look, somehow while we were drinking and yelling at asparagus and my mother was doing all the work, the batter got itself in the bread pan, the bread pan got itself in the oven, the house got all smelling like a beautiful warm delicious holiday wonderland, and we pulled this sucker out of the oven.

Aw yeah.

Cool it overnight, bring it to Grandma's house, slice it and arrange it all pretty on the table, and just go for it man. Pairs well with turkey, ham (apparently, since that's what we had for dinner!), sparkling wine, and yes, even that dastardly asparagus.

You win this round, greeny.

But seriously y'all, check out this gorgeous-ass bread:

Mmmf.

Aw yiss.

It's just the same picture from a slightly different angle but I CAN'T GET ENOUGH.

Sarah, I don't know why we only make this bread on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm looking at these pictures and I wanna eat it like oh so bad. Mmm.

Hey, it's late-- so I'm going to save my gingerbread post for next time. Here's a little teaser for you:

Are you ready to WORK, spices?!

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

Hey, look at that, we've made 50 posts!

I think I own some vests. We should do a buff baking pinup calendar. Or something. Maybe include some of those handsome men.

I don't know if I'm ahead of you in baking. You've done lotsa baking just without documentation. On paper (digital paper?), I look like I've spent tons of time baking but you've done lots more methinks. 

I can't wait to see all your second Christmas baking endeavors. Do you think they know about second Christmas? I don't think they know about second Christmas, Pip.

[donutuntoothers]

KARI

Also, I feel I should mention that I'm still very jealous of your TWO handsome assistants for those last couple of baking projects you posted!

AND-- that I dig your butch lady-baker sleeves-rolled-up arm tattoo look.

(If it were any hotter I might not be able to take the heat.)

(Then I would have to get out of the kitchen.)

(But that would be bad because I need to bake things.)

(So it's a good thing you aren't wearing, like, a leather vest or sporting a sexy mohawk or something.)

[donutuntoothers]

KARI

YES!

I made Danish butter cookies at Moss's mom's house, but forgot to take pictures because I am le idiot. It's okay though, because they came out tasty but not super pretty.

HOWEVER!

We are living la vida duo Christmas-o, and now we are at my parents' house having Christmas Part II. And there will be baking! Two generations of Johnson-Aldrich baking! By which I mean, I'll be baking with my mom.

We're making cranberry walnut bread (this time I'll actually get pictures of it, and I'll even post the recipe-- for certain Jessies and Jameses who requested said recipe after Friendsgiving) and I'll also be making gingerbread. Not cookies, though; it's more like a gingerbread cake. Which is good, because our blog will have gingerbread two ways and we compare them.

Your gingerbread cookies look tasty, by the way! Yes, I have many times forgotten about having molasses on hand for gingersnaps and gingerbread, but now I carry it with my every Christmas season since I never know where I'll be baking my gingery treats. Same with my ground cloves and ground ginger (usually everyone has cinnamon).

I'm not sure when I'll get around to posting pictures of it, but we'll be doing that baking tonight. Because I feel like you are real ahead of me!

Oh! By the way! I had no idea there was a fudge recipe on the back of Fluff! I've never made fudge. I may just have to buy Fluff and try that recipe out :)

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

After we finished the fudge, we played some more videah games before realizing this gingerbread was taking too long for us if we wanted to make it to that hockey game on time. An hour and twenty isn't quite two hours buuuuuttt it's close enough.

Little sugar covered poops! We're real mature adults here. Steve also missed some of the finer points of cookie spacing which had to be amended before baking could happen.

Steve just really went for it when it came to covering the gingerbread poops with sugar. Even when we ran out of tray space. Thankfully they don't take long to bake so we didn't have to stifle Steve's motivation.

They turned out great! And they taste amazing. I feel as though I need to make a checklist of all the types of cookies I've made against all the ones I still need to try.

[x] gingerbread

[x] chocolate chip

[x] vegan chocolate chip

[  ] uhhhhhhhhh sugar?

Anyway, that's all the baking I did over Christmas that I took pictures of. I also made some square chocolate chip cookies. Y'know, the ones that come in rectangles and you break off each little square to break. Yeah they're easy mode but they still taste good.

You do any Christmas baking, girl?

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

So, while the gingerbread toughens up and gains a few levels, it's time to make some fudge. This is the fudge recipe you find on the back of the jars of Fluff. My mother has been making this fudge as long as I can remember up until the last couple of years. Now it's time for me to accept the annual responsibility of fudge making.

It's the easiest recipe, the hard part is just making sure you don't burn the sugar since you have to boil this over the stove on very light heat. While I started mixing, Steve was kind enough to do some dishes! Matt just stood around taking pictures. Like some sort of picture taking bum.

Look at those dumb dishes in that dumb, clogged sink. The worst.

Lotsa gooey stuff. It's almost to the point of no return! As in, the point where you can add the chocolate. The fun part of making fudge is when you have to add the vanilla to the boiling Fluff. It causes a tiny little explosion. It's pretty neat. And sciency.

Steve is helping me get all the yummy fudgey bits out of the bottom of the pot. Real technical stuff.

Woof. It looks so good! Now we have to painfully wait for it to coooooool before we can dig in.

In the meantime, it's tradition to grab a spoon and dig out the slightly hardened, but still warm fudge in the bottom of the pot. It's the best thing ever.

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

So much pain. I have a very hate/love relationship with this show.

So, Stevesie and Matt(sie?) came to visit this past weekend for a good ole' Bruins game and some other fun shenanigans. At the suggestion of what to make, Matt thought gingerbread cookies sounded spectacular. Those are his words. Sort of.

I've never made gingerbread cookies but after looking them up in my electronic Betty bible (ie. the Betty Crocker website) I found they aren't too complicated. Lotsa spices live cloooves, alespice, cinnamohn, and lotsa gingah.

Initially, we faced some complications. For one, I forgot the molasses (an essential element in gingerbread cookies). So off we ventured to the grocery store where we also picked up ingredients for fudge because why not. Steve picked up some snacks, too. Gotta have snacks.

Then, it turns out my dishwasher and sink are completely backed up which is butts. The sink won't drain unless you run the garbage disposal and the dishwasher has some real gross water in it. I never trusted that thing. Now I really don't trust it. Blasted technology.

After all that the cookie making could truly commence.

Lotsa mixin', lotsa molasses. So much molasses. The smell offended Matt but he suffered through to take pictures. Such a brave soul.

I'm lookin' all butch with my rolled up sleeve and my arm tat. It's all covered in tattoo goop (ie. coconut oil) and I don't wanna get it on mah German beer shirt. It takes some real guns to run an electric mixer dontcha know.

Once everything is all mixed, ya gotta let the dough chill in the fridge. It sure smells good. We don't have any fancy plastic wrap in this apartment so I use parchment paper to cover everything. Resourcefulness.

It's time to make fudge and play video games.

[donutuntoothers]

KARI

Uh. I wish I could tell you it gets better? I mean, I guess it does eventually... Eventually...

Look, I may have signed you up for some pain. But it's good pain! It hurts so good!

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

Girl. I have so many Angel feels. I got to that episode. Where all the love stuff goes down and then everything goes wrong! I can't handle this. I want it back to how it was.

[donutuntoothers]

SARAH

Hoh man! Those muffins look ah-maz-ing. I did not bake last weekend because of end of the semester nonsense. I do plan on baking when that there Mr. Burger and that Matt kid come to visit this weekend though! I'm pondering making some fudge and I plan to make gingerbread cookies at the request of those attending apartment and hockey shenanigans.

And tattoo shenanigans! I'm getting some new inks on Saturday! I don't think this will hinder my baking. I can just make Matt do all the stirring again. He only maybe minded. It's hard to tell. But I'm gonna go with he didn't mind at all.

I miss you gurl! I want to bake together! But we usually just end up petting that there lazy potato. Which is fine, but lazy potatoes aren't delicious baked goods.