Thursday, September 17, 2009

A little bread and a little honesty

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Today I'm actually honored to be featured on A Year In Bread's Friday Favorites. I found this blog, full of bread baking information, a couple of years ago and spent at least two late nights catching up on their posts as well as subscribing. I was so excited to see Susan and Beth post that they were continuing their efforts on the blog.


And these last two pictures are for Denise who asked if I level my cakes before frosting. Looks pretty level huh?

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Tada! Not. I actually do tend to level my cakes except the cakes I put on this specific red plate. It's our special plate that I use for birthday cakes and sometimes to serve a special someone their meal in celebration. It also has a slight incline along the edges that sort of make 9" cakes cup up slightly. Usually if a cake has a high dome the cupping of the plate will level things out, but in this case the cakes were pretty level right out of the oven. I just used the frosting to get a straight top surface. Also had a good bit of help from the boys in decorating which was a lesson in shall we say, letting go? Obviously I'm not so good at letting go just yet and had a bit of smoothing party at the end. This is the Restaurant Eve yellow cake recipe and it was pretty scrumptious filled with strawberry jam and a strawberry buttercream.

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5 comments:

Denise said...

LOL Marielle. It looked great - plate or extra frosting- or whatever. And fantastic about the boys helping. I TOTALLY know about the 'letting go' and sometimes adding a bit of help after they have left! LOL

Nice job - hope she had a great day! a Year already!

Anonymous said...

the cake look jummy. next year i'm be there.

love
abuela

MommaMari said...

Thanks Denise and mami! Yeah letting go and type A personality go in opposite directions. But I signed up for it and it makes for great comedy relief, later on in reflection.

Anonymous said...

I made your recipie for bread over the weekend. It took all day to raise, and still did not raise much. My kitchen was cold 68 degrees, the bread is dense and very sour. I will try it again to see how it works out. Hopefully I was doing everything right, just cold in the house.

I am new to your blog....love it lots of interesting items. Thanks for taking the time to share.

Bev

MommaMari said...

Bev, I'm sorry the bread didn't turn out on the first try. I can help you trouble shoot though if you're up for it?

1. Did you use a scale for weighing out your flour and starter?

2. Is your yeast still good (not expired)?

3. The temperature definitely could have played a role in the rising. My house is typically on the warm side but I also rise my bread in the oven (off) with the light on for a slight warmth similar to a proofing oven/box.

Also, I do tend to err on the side of minimal bench flour for kneading so that the dough is still slightly sticky. I find that kneading in a lot of flour for a firm dough makes for a dense bread.

I'd love to help make the recipe work for you!