Happy Yule Everyone!

Yule is a celebration of the Winter Solstice. It marks the longest night of the year and celebrates the re-birth of the sun and longer days to come after the darkness of winter. Christmas was transplanted onto winter solstice some 1,600 years ago, centuries before the English language emerged from its Germanic roots. The tradition of burning a Yule log is to celebrate light itself and the lightening of the days thereafter. Personal faults, mistakes and bad choices are burned in the flame so everyone’s New Year can start with a clean slate. You never burn the entire log, you save a piece for next year to start the next Yule Log. Traditionally on the eve of the Winter Solstice, at midnight, you turn off all your lights or candle lights and everyone takes a moment to sit in the dark and reflect on the darkness, then at 12:01 everyone lights their own candles, turns on all the lights and gives thanks to the sun and its life sustaining power.
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If you thought I hadn’t enough to post about this week, step in Daring Bakers Challenge!
This month the Daring Bakers Challenge had good company at my Thanksgiving table. I figured, while I was in the kitchen slaving away at the Thanksgiving meal, what was one more thing to make?
Plus I figured my family would really enjoy this month’s challenge: Tender Potato Bread.
I “unleashed the Daring Baker within” as encouraged by this month’s hostess: Tanna by adding roasted garlic and rosemary to my dough and forming the bread into rolls – which turned out to be the size of mini loaves. I also had enough leftover dough to make a small foccaccia. So it makes a lot of dough! The recipe was very straightforward and easy to follow. It just takes a long time to proof at various stages, like most other yeast breads.

The addition of mashed potatoes gave the dough a bit more body and a lot of softness – this dough is VERY soft. I have mentioned before my aversion to kneading bread and this was my worst nightmare – sticky dough ALL OVER MY HANDS – YUCK! But I was happy that it turned out so well. This recipe made 18 HUGE rolls and a small foccacia. The only problem occured when I went to bake the rolls and baked a few sheets on the bottom rack – the combination of the buttered sheets and the high temperatures, burned the butter and scorched the bottoms of some of my buns!
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My Daring Bakers Challenge post this month….I am so sad that I was not able to participate this month. Too much going on to spend much time in my own kitchen! Next month I am back on track! Great job to all the DBS who did participate this month!

This Daring Bakers challenge proves that I am still a New Englander at heart. With this Daring Bakers challenge and fall here (I can feel it even if I can’t see it here in Florida), my mind was brought back to those wonderful autumn days in New England. Days filled eating products made with sweet, local, maple goodness, pastries enjoyed with Maple Lattes or very often a warming cup of steaming hot Chai Tea. I have been yearning for the tastes of fall and I guess I am feeling inspired since it is only a few weeks until Roberto and I head to New England to visit family and friends during our most favorite season of the year. So this pastry is an ode to Autumn in New England.

In this challenge: Cinnamon Buns and or Sticky Buns we were allowed certain modifications, like changing around the spices. I have always enjoyed cinnamon buns over the years, but it is not a treat I often allow myself to indulge. Therefore, I decided since I am being forced to make them for this challenge, I might as well do them up in total Jenn fashion.

I love Cardamom, so I knew that I wanted this to be the focal spice in my cinnamon buns. See anything wrong with that statement: Cardamom as the focal point for Cinnamon buns? So clearly I needed to add cinnamon to the spice mix – it is afterall in the NAME of the pastry! Anyway, this being fall and with me already in the Chai Tea/ New England mindset I thought if I add a bit of ginger then I am really doing all the spices that go into Chai. What goes so well with Chai in my mind? Maple. So a plan came together straight from my New England Soul: adding pure VT maple syrup to my fondant glaze and topping the buns with toasted almond slices. I hope you enjoy these!
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I think I am now officially a Daring Baker. I have to admit I was rather smug during my first two challenges – Bagels and Strawberry Mirror Cake, completing them with no real difficulty and having a great time while doing so…a kind of baking bliss. Before becoming a Daring Baker, as many of you know, I did not bake at all and was very intimidated to bake. So with two challenges under my belt, I was feeling pretty good about this whole baking thing – it wasn’t such a big deal. I was actually amused by the stories other Daring Bakers shared about their experiences, people who actually BAKE, about frustrating moments and culinary crisis, imagining that if it were I who were in those situations I would have kept my calm and remained cool. This baking thing wasn’t gonna get me, it was fun, and dare I say EASY. Well I was about to experience the mother load of baking karma!
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*UPDATED WITH HOW-TO PICTURES*

I must admit, I had a lot of fun with this one. I have always loved light creamy desserts ones which the dessert’s beauty matches its taste! But as I am a novice baker, this is something I would have never attempted on my own – I always thought it was too hard, too time consuming and just plain too annoying. So, in order to no longer have this excuse, I joined the Daring Bakers in June. I wanted to make sure that I learned how to bake, to really learn so I would know once and for all if my feelings about baking were actually based in truth, or if it was something I was just assuming. Now that I have joined and completed two challenges, I must say that baking is not really as god-awful as I thought! I have realized that I am not a big fan of baking breads as I do not enjoy the sensation of kneading. However, whipping eggs and cream and sifting flour – that is not so bad at all. I must say I get a real satisfaction out of seeing these creations come together and I am really looking forward to the next challenge! This month’s challenge was hosted by Peabody.

This is a very time consuming recipe.. However, I do believe it is worth making. This weekend Roberto and I celebrated our engagement with my family and so in honor of this momentous occasion, I decided to prepare this beautiful pastry. It is a labor of love to a day dedicated to love, all decked out in the color of love – PINK.

I garnished each of my slices with a dollop of Irish Cream whipped cream and a whole strawberry. They were big slices, but everyone at the table finished theirs! So I think that was a good sign! We were surprised at how light the cake was for its size!

I will be posting all the “how-to” pictures later on today. I just wanted to make sure to get his up this morning before I head off to the cooking school for another week of kids’ camp! This week they will be learning about ethnic cuisines!
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This is the leftovers from the last Daring Baker’s Challenge – Bagels! I love bread pudding and I made several sweet versions of the bagel in addition to the ones I showcased for the challenge and stuck them in the freezer, so I figured what better way to use them up than by making some bread pudding! Happy Friday everyone and enjoy your weekend!
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Well everyone, I did it!
I got through my first Daring Bakers Challenge and I am thrilled with the results. I am not sure bagels are something I would make from scratch again – they are time consuming and so easy to buy, that I am not sure it is time efficient! But I am thrilled with the fact that I was up to the challenge and met it with creativity and fun! This month’s challenge, REAL HONEST JEWISH PURIST’S BAGELS was chosen by Freya and Jenny.

Well my first challenge was not without its tragedies as baking for me generally is, but I was able to overcome them! The first hurdle was when I started the recipe and was proofing my yeast and realized that I did not have enough yeast. So I had to run out to the store for yeast and start all over again. Not much lost – just 6 TBS of honey and some poor little yeast whose dream of being baked into bagels were crushed as they were un-ceremoniously dumped down the drain. Next tragedy was when I started boiling the bagels and the beautiful smooth crust on them began to break down, and they really looked like blobs of cellulite floating in my pot. Not very pretty.

Thankfully through the baking process they smoothed out and became the beautiful little baked goods they were meant to be!

The rules of the challenge were simple – follow the recipe, do not add anything to the dough and be creative only with the toppings or the spread inside. We were reminded that this is intended to be a savory baked good – so keep the sweets out of it! So here is my version…
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