Breakfast bread: English muffins

Okay, I missed both September and October. We were out of town way too much. There was just no way. No way at all! Anyway...on to November.

I love breakfast for dinner. Since I work, I usually cram a yogurt and a bar for breakfast during the week and then weekends get crazy with the kids' activities. This leaves little time for a real breakfast. You know. Real.

So one weekend night I made English muffins. I know it says "muffins" which is not what you think of when someone says they are making bread, but it uses yeast. So it's bread enough for this quest. I got the recipe from Alton Brown.

It was interesting to pan fry the dough before putting them in the oven for the rest of the baking process. You have to be careful and watch them when frying. The cornmeal can burn quickly.

After we made the muffins, we made eggs and built sandwiches. So awesome I realized I hadn't taken a picture of the sandwich. They were gobbled up so fast!

Now Bake That!

Sweet July Cherry Pie

Cherries are my favorite summer fruit. I mean all time favorite. I cringe when I pay $4 a pound for it, but I think it's worth it. Worth it enough to dedicate a pie to it in Sweet July.

Pitting the cherries was the adventure. I can't remember where I learned this tip, but if you don't have a cherry pitter (an undesirable uni-tasker according to Alton Brown) you can go MacGyver! I used a water bottle (a wine bottle would be good too) and a chop stick. I wore gloves too because squirting cherry juice everywhere was unavoidable. You stab the cherry firmly and the pit pops out the bottom. It worked...okay. I think a cherry pitter would have been faster.

I loved the sunshine cut out so much from June's pie, I did it again with this month. 
The new thing I tried was a new crust recipe. When I was visiting my sister we were watching Cook's Illustrated Test Kitchen together and they demonstrated their Foolproof Pie Dough recipe. I have two Cook's Illustrated cookbooks and a pile of their magazines, so I hunted for the recipe when I got home. 

The pie turned out great! 

Bad news: this crust recipe was annoying. There are tons of steps. The dough was in and out of the fridge so many times. I am tired just writing about it. Also, the dough is extremely wet so you have to use tons of flour to get it to the correct consistency. They say it's foolproof. Maybe it is. It certainly tasted and looked good. However, it was not anxiety proof. I am going back to the Barefoot Contessa next month.

Now Bake That!

Magical Brownies

I know what you are thinking. I'm not Colorado or California. There is nothing "herbal" in these brownies. Really, they're just brownies. 

I cut it off the picture, but if you look closely you can tell that the corner piece is gone. I couldn't help but have one before snapping the picture. So that's why they are magical. They are magical disappearing brownies.

They are the best brownies EVER. Now I wish I could take credit for them, but it's Mrs. Goldfarb's brownie recipe. It took years of begging my sister-law's friend who brought them to many gatherings for the recipe. Currently my rule is I only share the recipe with friends who share a coveted recipe with me. 

So I will share some general brownie information/tricks I do:

• This recipe has only 1/4 cup of flour.
• The brownie recipes I used in the past you would add sugar to melted chocolate and butter. This recipe I melt the chocolate and the butter. Then temper beaten eggs and stir them in. THEN you add the sugar. The consistency of the batter at this point looks very different than other recipes.
• After baking, the tops of the brownies crackle and when you try to remove the brownies, they like to fall apart. I do Alton Brown's technique: spray the bottom of the glass square pan with butter PAM. Then line the pan with parchment paper so it hangs over the edge of the pan. Then spray butter PAM on the paper. When the brownies are cool, I pull the paper out and use a pizza cutter to cut them.

Don't know how to temper eggs? First know that it takes time, but it's worth it.

• Poke the whisk into the hot liquid and then stir it in the eggs. 
• Repeat until it looks like the mixture is half chocolate and half eggs. 
• Then you slowly add the chocolatey egg mixture into the rest of the chocolate, whisking the whole time.