Baking & Beer

Favorite Food Photos

Here's a few of my favorite pics I've taken of food I've made. I try to get attractive shots, but it doesn't always work out. Here's the ones that did.

Chocolate peanut butter squares - delish!

Homemade bagels

Sushi I made at Christmas

Sourdough Bread

Making sourdough loaves today so I can make myself bruschetta for dinner. I've been pretty hit and miss with my bread baking lately, but *fingers crossed* so far this loaf looks great.

My risen dough ball

I'm using the KAF Rustic Sourdough Bread recipe, and today for the first time, paid attention to how much water the dough needed instead of just pouring in the amount called for by the recipe. I needed a full 1/2 cup less because of the amount of moisture in the air. My new dough hook worked like a dream, and the bread is well on it's way to being part of a beautiful dinner.

Here are my shaped loaves of sourdough bread. They'll rise for one more hour, then I'll slash and bake them.

The final product

KAF Class: Lemon Desserts

Most recently I took a lemon desserts class. We made a tart crust, which we filled with the lemon curd we made next. Last we made lemon madeleines, which we sprinkled with powdered sugar. It all turned out delicious, I had the lemon tart for breakfast the next day, and shared most of my madeleines with my neighbor. Unfortunately I wasn't on top of my game that night, and only took one picture!

My tart crust

KAF Class: Cake Decorating

I took a cake decorating class to learn to use the cake decorating icing bags and tips to decorate a cake with buttercream frosting. We had cake layers pre-made for us so we could focus on the frosting and decorating. We made a vanilla buttercream frosting to use, then we started by cutting our cake in half, leveling each piece, then "gluing" them together with a layer of icing in between.

Next we put a very thin layer of frosting around the whole cake to seal in the crumbs and let it chill to set up.

After that, we put a thick layer of frosting all over, trying to make a smooth, uniform surface.

While the frosting chilled and hardened in the fridge, we practiced with the pastry bags, piping out shapes onto parchment paper

Finally, we decorated our cakes

I brought mine to a friend's house to share because I didn't need a whole vanilla cake in my fridge, too tempting

KAF Class: Pies and Rolls

For Thanksgiving, King Arthur Flour offered a Pies & Rolls class - which was exactly what it sounded, come in and make a pie and dinner rolls from scratch to take home for Thanksgiving dinner the next day. I was going to the Dean of Students house for my meal since it would be too expensive to fly home for the short break. I was thrilled to be able to bring a dessert and dinner rolls to share.

My pie crust

The crescent roll dough

Ready to hit the oven

My cranberry pear pie with almond strussel topping

My tender sour cream and chive crescent rolls

King Arthur Flour Class: Wood Fired Pizza

I took a wood-fired pizza class at KAF, we made dough for a pizza, a calzone, and a bread called fougasse. It was delicious, and so much fun to try my hand at using a wood fired oven, definitely something to add to my someday wish list.

Checking for doneness

My pizza was the one on the right

My fougasse with our recipes

Vermont Cooking

I've been living in a rural part of Vermont while I work towards my Masters degree. Since there's not a whole lot to do here, when I get downtime, I cook and bake.

Here's a bunch of photos of things I've made while living here...
Fiddleheads and baked sweet potato