So here's the story: When I was in grad school in Chicago I worked part time as a cashier at a bakery and got addicted. I didn't just get addicted to all the cookies, pasties, and amazing breads we had, but I got addicted to the smells, the waking up early to have artisan breads waiting for customers as they started their work day, the attention to detail, the living qualities of a great bread, and simply the process of creating something so capable of affecting all the senses. I have to make a disclaimer though - I never did any baking! I just observed our bakers every time I had the chance as I passed through the back of the bakery to get supplies or to clock in and out. Now being a couple years removed from that job, I still have this addiction and decided to do something about it. So here it goes. The plan is to make something for my coworkers every Monday morning. For starters I am going to use Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Everyday and see how the recipes work out for me. Eventually, I will branch out and work on some recipes of my own. All comments and suggestions are welcome - and feel free to point out any major mistakes.
Enjoy and Happy Monday!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

One in the Oven

So my sister went to a Baby Shower a few weeks ago and the party favor was a recipe and packaged mix for Honey Buns. They were called "Hunny Buns from the Oven" - get it? - like when you're preggers and they say you have "one in the oven." I thought it was a cute idea.

But they turned out to taste more like "Crappy Buns from the Oven!" Check out the recipe and then I will tell you why they turned out so poorly:
  • 1/2 Cup Butter
  • 1/2 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
  • Chopped Pecans or Walnuts
  • 2 Tablespoons Ground Cinnamon
  • 2 Cup Bisquick Mix
  • 1/3 Cup Applesauce
  • 1/3 Cup Milk
Spray a Muffin Pan with Cooking Spray and sprinkle some of the chopped nuts in each of the 12 cups. Then place 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 teaspoons of brown sugar in each muffin cup. (Two tablespoons of butter seemed like an awful lot so I cut it down to one or one and a half) In a mixing bowl, mix the Bisquick, applesauce, ground cinnamon, and milk together to form and concoction that is somewhere between a dough and batter. Not so wet that you could make pancakes with it, but not so doughy that you could make bread - basically it needs to be spoonable, not pourable. Then spoon the mix into the muffin pan and bake for about 10 minutes at 450 F.

So why did mine turn out so bad? Well, even though I knew this was going to happen, I was still too lazy to take the proper precautions - When the butter and brown sugar melted at the bottom of the muffin pans, it was pretty much the same as the slurry from the pecan rolls, which has the tendency to boil over and out of the pans. And if you don't put a cookie sheet underneath to catch the over boiling slurry, it has nowhere to go but the bottom of your oven. Where of course it turns into a smokey burning mess. So while that was happening I rushed to take the Hunny Buns out at their prescribed 10 minutes, which wasn't quite enough time to finish them. It seems that they could have used a little more time to firm up. And even though the slurry was boiling over on some, it seemed to still be strongly buttery on others. So that could have used a few more minutes. They were edible, but not the best.

Definitely a cool idea for a party favor though, it all came in a brown bag with a nice little card with the recipe on it. They even mixed the cinnamon and bisquick and put it in a little baggy. The chopped nuts and brown sugar were in little cups. And the applesauce was in one of those little single serve cups all ready to go. The only thing you had to provide was the butter and milk.

The Christmas Baking Extravaganza will be on Thursday so there should be material for like ten posts coming up soon.
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