X-Mas for Bakers

Introduction short and sweet (pun intended): I need to share the delicious things I made this christmas for Peter and I!

We skipped the whole bring-a-tree-inside thing and went for an xmas flower instead.

I made a recipe from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book I talked about last time; Honey-Butter Oatmeal bread. Whole-wheat flour, rolled oats, yogurt, honey, milk, and deliciousness.

Rising bread on my "bread board"

Lil baby loaves! Yeah...covered in hot oatmeal, baked on oats. AH.

My other xmas creation was a Chai Apple Pie:

I put Chai in the pie crust, plus a little cinnamon and brown sugar.

Oh yeah...and rolled it out on cinnamon and flour!

Cookin' the apples in Chai and brown sugar-- I reduced the chai so it made a coating syrup.

Finished pie!

I think this was the best pie crust I have made, and not just cause it had Chai in it; It was the first time I did the entire process by hand. Ususally I'll stick my cold butter and flour in the food processor to crumble it, but my problem wasn't the temperature of the ingredients (lots of people complain about their crust being too warm after working it in a food processor), but rather the size of the chunks of butter. They were way too small, so my crust wasn't as flaky as I wanted.

So, this time I did everything by hand, and because I don't have a pastry blender, I used two forks to blend the butter into the flour. Although I had some bigger butter chunks than usual (which freaked me out), I went for it-- and seriously, guys. This crust? Light, flaky deliciousness-- no electrical equipment, and definitely NO shortening (that stuff gives me the willies).

So, the pie didn't last long...

Yeah...that was just Peter and I....woops. Ah well, that's what xmas is for!

I am working out a recipe to put up and share with y'all-- but I have a bit of a problem with baking by feel-- ya know, adding stuff until it looks/tastes/smells right. Using the "baker heart". So, unless you guys are cool with ingredient increments of "like, a little bit of cinnamon. Not, like, a TON, but, ya know-- some." -- then maybe I'll have a recipe up sooner than expected!

For now it's just experimenting time!