Whole Wheat Pecan Bread

After my last experiment, I set out to try another whole wheat recipe. This Whole Wheat Walnut Bread (I substituted pecans) was delicious, if a bit on the dense side of hearty:

The dough, thankfully, was smoother than the last whole wheat bread. I took it as an encouraging sign:

Soon, the warmth of the dough had clouded over my plastic wrap:

I used a slightly smaller bread pan and hoped that this would rise well:

And once the dough crested the top, into the oven it went!
This loaf is particularly nice for peanut butter and jelly.

Bread Fail: Whole Wheat Bread

I've made breads I didn't love, and cookies that weren't quite right. Nothing compares, though, to this seemingly innocent piece of dough that looks a little shy of ready to go into the oven:

Part of it was a time crunch - I just didn't give the poor dough long enough to rise, and gambled that it would all turn out ok. I mean, looking above, it rose quite a bit from this:

And it had all started out so well, with a starter, soaker and plenty of hard to work with whole wheat flour:

Here's the pathetic finished product. It was...dense:

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

My fridge is slowly filling with logs and packages of dough like this, ready to be baked into Christmas cookies:
The dough log above is from this recipe - a friend sent it to me a few weeks back thinking that it would be a perfect elegant and quick treat for unexpected guests. After all the Christmas cookie baking is done, I'll need to keep a log of this dough in my freezer!

The recipe is quick - first the butter is creamed:

Sugar is added, and then you add flour, leavening and ground tea - I used a green tea with mango instead of the Earl Grey called for in the recipe.

Slice the chilled log of dough, bake and eat!
You may have noted that I didn't follow the recipe directions here - I don't keep a food processor on my counter, and although that makes this recipe easier, this is a recipe that is easily adapted to a hand mixer - or even just a sturdy spoon.

Welcome to My Kitchen: December Baking

December.

Eight pounds of butter, fresh from Costco.

A fresh bottle of molasses.

Cinnamon.
It can only mean one thing, really. The Christmas cookie baking has begun!

College Cookies

I like magazines, and I also like cookies. I'll at least glance through a free magazine for things that might be useful, like cookie recipes, and as luck would have it, MORE Magazine came through with a free issue distributed at the MORE Magazine Marathon and Half Marathon Expo. And it involved butterscotch, which I never use, so I pulled it out for the start of cookie season!

The recipe is a fairly basic creaming of butter, sugar and milk at the start, followed by adding eggs, then spices, flour and leavening:

Then a few treats: oats, raisins, nuts and then butterscotch chips:

The resulting complex and sweet cookie is a keeper for my recipe box: