Treats for appetites of every size
Ever look over at your fruit bowl and realize your bananas have turned almost completely brown before you even had a chance to eat one? Looking for a quick recipe when you don’t necessarily have all of the ingredients on hand for the best banana bread ever? Good news: if you bake (from scratch) ever, you definitely have everything to make these muffins and feel like you didn’t waste food after all.
I’m officially on summer vacation! With a month before I start my last year of school ever, I’m definitely trying to pack a lot in. In a couple of hours, my mom and I will leave for our annual Nantucket trip. Then, two days after we get back, I’ll head out to Montana and Wyoming for a couple weeks of hiking and generally not being in an office. With all of this traveling, baking will be a bit more challenging, but don’t worry – I’m committed.
This was quite the weekend. Yesterday, I baked sourdough bread from scratch for the first time (more on that later). More exciting, I finished knitting my first sock! One more and I’ll have a set! AND my family made an impromptu visit in to have dinner with me (but really for Father’s Day – love you Daddy-o!). This morning I ran a Spartan race. And all afternoon I got to hang out with my best friend from college (hi, Cate!).
Happy birthday week, Mom! Yesterday, we kicked off the festivities with a surprise party for her. I think, miraculously, we actually pulled it off, and it was great to see so many people come out to celebrate such an amazing woman. Today, we kept the party going with some coconut baking: Morning Glory Muffins.
I have been on a big yeasted bread kick this year, which is really quite a step forward in my baking life. I used to be terrified of recipes that included yeast. You invest so much time up front in making the dough, that the fear of it not rising often scared me off from starting at all.
Get ready for a marathon: croissants may be the most time-intensive (and exciting) thing I have made in a very long time. It’s not often I have a weekend where I can pull this off, but I am so glad that I did.
This is a cop out post. I know if I don’t say it up front, Jonathan Topaz is going to call me out in the comments. I freely admit I made this pita bread weeks ago and have been sitting on the recipe until I was too busy to bake some week – this week was that week.
Scones are an elusive breakfast baked good. I’ve tried to make them in the past, and, despite my extreme attention to detail in recipes, I could never get them to come out right. Either the dough was too crumbly and never held together, or too dense and didn’t have that lightness I associate with scones.
Super Bowl can be a tricky thing to bake for. It’s a day of gluttony, with more warm, cheesy appetizers, heavy sports food, and beer than you actually want to consume in one sitting, but you do anyways because it’s always placed directly in front of the TV you can’t walk away from.
This was one of those weeks where it was getting to be most of the way through Saturday and I was quickly coming to the conclusion that I did not have time to bake. I began to panic. How terrible would it be if I posted a review of that awesome magic bar I had? (Go to Petsi Pies in Somerville.) Did I have anyone in mind that could guest post? (Marj, it felt too last minute to ask you.) In short, I was in a tight spot.