Homemade Heaven

Courtesy of Joy the Baker

Have you ever tasted Heaven? Even just a little slice? Each one of the slices of bread in this picture is a little slice of heaven. All of this is courtesy of Joy the Baker. With our her, this post would not exist. If you love baking (as I do), and you have an RSS or Feed reader (i.e. Google Reader) you need to follow her blog. Conveniently, I have included the link to follow her. It is...HERE! It is definitely worth it. Now, on to my adventures in making slices of heaven in my kitchen.

Although I don't have that many pictures of my process (something I need to work on), I'll show you what I've got. Let me put this out there first. There is a total of about 2 - 2 1/2 hours of down time when making this between risings and cooling down. The wait is so worth it though.



Nothing say good like butter!



I would also recommend that you pre-stage all of your ingredients first. To bring your eggs to room temperature, set them out 30 minutes prior to starting. Or if you forgot to take them out, you can put them in a bowl of warm (not hot!) water for 5 - 10 minutes. More information can be found here. Below is the recipe I used. As I mentioned before, this is courtesy of Joy the Baker. The actual page that I pulled this from can be found by clicking on the title of the recipe. 

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Makes: one 9×5x3-inch loaf

For the Dough:

2 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 ounces unsalted butter

1/3 cup whole milk

1/4 cup water

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Filling:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

2 ounces unsalted butter, melted until browned

In a large mixing bowl whisk together 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.  Set aside.

Whisk together eggs and set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt together milk and butter until butter has just melted.  Remove from the heat and add water and vanilla extract.  Let mixture stand for a minute or two, or until the mixture registers 115 to 125 degrees F.

Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula.  Add the eggs and stir the mixture until the eggs are incorporated into the batter.  The eggs will feel soupy and it’ll seem like the dough and the eggs are never going to come together.  Keep stirring.  

Add the remaining 3/4 cup of flour and stir with the spatula for about 2 minutes.  The mixture will be sticky.  That’s just right.

Dough is ready to rise!

Place the dough is a large,  greased bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel.  Place in a warm space and allow to rest until doubled in size, about 1 hour.  *The dough can be risen until doubled in size, then refrigerated overnight for use in the morning.  If you’re using this method, just let the dough rest on the counter for 30 minutes before following the roll-out directions below.*

While the dough rises, whisk together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for the filling.  Set aside.  Melt 2 ounces of butter until browned.  Set aside.  Grease and flour a 9×5x3-inch  loaf pan.  Set that aside too.

Deflate the risen dough and knead about 2 tablespoons of flour into the dough.  Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 5 minutes.  

On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out.  The dough should be 12-inches tall and about 20-inches long.  If you can’t get the dough to 20-inches long… that’s okay.  Just roll it as large as the dough will go.  Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter across all of the dough.  Sprinkle with all of the sugar and cinnamon mixture.  It might seem like a lot of sugar. 

Lots of sugar and a bit of cinnamon.

Seriously?  Just go for it.

Slice the dough vertically, into six equal-sized strips.  Stack the strips on top of one another and slice the stack into six equal slices once again.  You’ll have six stacks of six squares.  Layer the dough squares in the loaf pan like a flip-book.  Place a kitchen towel over the loaf pan and allow in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes or until almost doubled in size.

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.  Place loaf in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is very golden brown.  The top may be lightly browned, but the center may still be raw.  A nice, dark, golden brown will ensure that the center is cooked as well.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 20 to 30 minutes (I did not do this. Cait and I devoured about 1/2 fresh from the oven).   Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the bread and invert onto  a clean board.  Place a cake stand or cake plate on top of the  upside down loaf, and carefully invert so it’s right side up.  Serve warm with coffee or tea.

The deliciousness!

I think this bread is best served the day it’s made, but it can also we wrapped and kept at room temperature for up to 2 days (if it lasts that long...)

As I have mentioned, this bread is phenomenal! Some of you might think that this a monkey bread. And by definition it is. But I'm a fan of the term Pull-Apart Bread personally. Now go forth and bake!
While I want to leave you with a video, I didn't feel the one I wanted was appropriate for this post. So, you can watch the video here. But for my parting remark: Let's learn the alphabet with Star Wars!

 - Brent

Thank you to Joy the Baker for the use of her recipe. I would also like to thank Bowling for Soup for their album "Sorry for Partyin'" as it was the official music of this baking experience.

The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo

I recently made some Challah bread (which you would know if you follow my twitter @ForceBaker.) and felt that I needed to post about the experience. First off, this recipe comes from Baking Bites and the specific recipe I used can be found here. I use a 3 rope braid for all of my Challah (for now). You can use however many strands you want for your braid. You can even make it look like a continual braided circle. Here's a page on different types of braids.  On to the how-to. Let's talk ingredients.

1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup warm (110F) water
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
3 3/4 cups flour (and up to 1/4 cup extra for kneading)

1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 tsp water
2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Now that we have that out of the way, onto the making of the bread.

Dissolve sugar and yeast in 1/2 cup warm water in a large mixing bowl. Let stand 10 minutes.

Add oil, water sugar, salt , eggs and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture.

Mix until smooth, then gradually add remaining flour until dough comes together into a ball and no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.

Let dough rest for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle reserved flour onto a smooth surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, incorporating any of the reserved flour as needed.
Place dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, 1-1 1/2 hours.

Oil a baking sheet and sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired. (I strongly recommend this. Not only does the bread have a slight cinnamon taste, your house will smell delicious!)

When doubled, flour your hands and gently remove dough from bowl onto a lightly floured countertop.

Cut dough into three even sections and gently stretch them out.

Starting in the middle, braid them together.

Tuck the ends underneath the dough.

Set loaf on baking sheet.

Brush very lightly with egg wash, you won’t need all of it.

Preheat oven to 400F and let dough rise, covered loosely, for an additional hour, until almost doubled.
Bake at 400F for 30 minutes, until deep golden brown.

I like to transfer it to the wire cooling rack. It tastes best fresh from the over with some butter and jam or butter an honey. I'm working on a cinnamon sugar version (because I'm a sucker for cinnamon sugar) and will post the recipe here if I ever get it made. There is a lot of rest time in this recipe, but it is worth it. Some things I've learned are that you shouldn't make the braids too tight. If you do, it no longer pulls apart quite as nicely or easily. The biggest tip I can give you is to try to make sure your yeast is fresh. Plus if your water is too hot, it will kill the yeast. Too cold and the yeast won't activate. I know it's a pain to get the water just right, but if you can, it is so worth it.

Once again, I would like to thank Baking Bites for this delicious Challah recipe. And now, I leave you with the video for which this post is named after.


 - Brent

There's a Party in My Bedroom!

That's right! Nothing say's a good time like a party in the bedroom. Or...redecorating the bathroom. Which is what this blog is about. I mean, nothing says "sad" like this bathroom from the 80s. If you could see the light fixture, I'm pretty sure the tears would be flowin'. But rest assured! The Wonder Woman who is Cait has saved us from outdated this outdated bathroom! In order for such a transformation to be completed, 1 vital thing had to occur. I had to get underway. I know! It was difficult, but I was able to do it. When I left, the bathroom looked like this. And when I got back...

The bathroom looked like this ---> Cait is a miracle worker. All I had to do was take care of electrical. Easier said than done. Not to long ago, I replaced the dimmer switch with a new fancy $23 one from Lowes. Works great. Except with CFL bulbs. Of course. However, that wasn't the biggest problem. The major electrical problem that I had was the fact that the wonderfully intelligent builders of my house put a stud right behind the middle of the sink. Exactly where the new electrical box was supposed to go. Imagine my surprise when I saw that.

Time to MacGyver it! I took a fairly thick piece of trim and matched up where the screws were on the mount for the light. After drilling out all of the holes, I screwed the trim onto the 2X6 with 2 long wood screws. That thing isn't going anywhere for a while. After that, It was fairly straight forward. Connect Hot to Hot, Neutral to Neutral and Ground to Ground (which then attached to the bracket). After all of the wiring was done just simply attach the light fixture to the bracket, turn power back on and voilà! Easy as pie. But a fairly easy update. Just add new curtains, paint, shelving and light fixture and you have a whole new bathroom. That's it for this update. And now I leave you with the song that's been running through my head this entire post:




 - Brent

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Well, as mentioned in my post here, we re-decorated our kitchen. In this post, we will discuss what was done. Mainly, I will discuss and you will listen. Of course, if you leave a comment, then you will be part of the discussion...but I digress. On to...Green! Or...Cavern Moss in Semi-Gloss from Olympic. We went from white / wall paper to green. I think it turned out pretty well. Green walls were only a small part of the overall plan. As you can also see, all of our cabinet doors (and the drawers that you can't see) were removed.

And here is Savannah helping Grandma paint the cabinet doors. It took a lot of white paint to cover those doors and drawers. But in the end, they look great. Especially when we added the brushed nickle fixtures. I'm glad that Cait is able to see all of this in her head prior to the start of these projects. There is no way that I could have done this the way she did. But let's move onto the part that I'm most excited about. Tile.

First, I would like to give my dad a huge "Thank You" for all of the work that he did in helping me with the tile. He presented some ideas that worked out for the best. However, none of us took into consideration the fact that when we offset the smaller tiles into the medallion, it wouldn't be center when we put the stove back. Oh well, I like it. But due to this experience, I feel confident enough to do more tile work around the house. Mainly in the bathroom. But after all was said and done, the kitchen looked like a brand new kitchen! We're looking to possibly paint the counter tops to look like granite. Of course, it won't be real granite, but it will look like it. Well, that's it for this post. And now, I leave you with this, How to brush your teeth like a Spartan!

 - Brent

The Force is strong with this one...

First and foremost, I wanted the the banner of the Florida Garrison of the 501st Legion on the top of this blog. Alas, I believe that my lack of timing led to no response from the 501st. But, you can find out more about them at their webpage: http://www.fl501st.com/.

On to business then. The reason that I wanted to  have this banner at the top of this post is because the 501st is  making an appearance at MegaCon! That is pretty exciting for me because, Cait and I are looking to attend this year! I can already see Cait rolling her eyes. For those who are wondering, MegaCon is going to be held between March 24 - 27 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. While being primarily sponsored for comics (artists, enthusiasts, etc.) it caters to all of us who enjoy Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Anime and more! It's like a geek's heaven!

I'm even more excited to attend now! Of course, with my recent obsession with Star Wars, I'm always looking for others who share that obsession. And what better place than a convention? Of course, I really want to attend Star Wars Celebration (held in the same location), but that's later in the year. So, for now, MegaCon will have to do. Although, if I do attend Star Wars Celebration, I will make a costume and go all geek. Once again, I can see Cait rolling her eyes at me. It should be fun though. I'll be blogging from MegaCon this year. Please bear in mind that I might not be attending for all of the days. It should be a blast though. I know that this isn't one of my longest blogs and the next few will be longer. And with that, I leave you with this:

Burning The Ground, I Break From The Crowd

I'm a nerd and a geek. I'll be the first to admit that. And as you can see, I'm getting Savannah started early! Either that or I'm setting her up for an awesome career in music... If you haven't noticed, almost all of blog titles are pulled from songs. Go ahead. I'll be here as you go back and check.

Welcome back. You were missed. I promise. On to business then. What business is that you ask? Why the business of....business... Yeah. Now that the awkwardness is over let's talk about all things geek!

First, get a Nook. Seriously it's great! Each one can hold something like 3500 book. Plus there is a slot for a 2GB MicroSD Card capable of holding an addition 3500 books. Cait got me one for Christmas and I love it! I've got 9 pages of books that were given to me, and that's not even all of them! When I'm done, I'll have 13 pages! I'm thinking that 13 pages is a bit insane and I'm know Cait thinks so as well. If the nook is not your flavor, I have also heard really good things about the Amazon Kindle. But moving on. On to video games! Let's look at my current favorite games.

Some of you might recognize this gentleman. Some of you wont. It's okay of you don't, I'll still like you. I promise. But, if you haven't already, you need to pick up a copy of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. It is an amazing game, and features a very unique multiplayer mode. In this mode, you are given a target to assassinate, while you yourself are a target for another assassin. It can get pretty nerve racking, especially when you don't know who is hunting you or where they are.  The solo campaign is amazing as well. Ubisoft added an amazing level of detail and gameplay into this installment of the Assassin's Creed line. And for those of you who don't know, the gentle man pictures is Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

 Let's move onto Cait's latest obsession. For those of you who don't know what the logo on the right is, it is the logo for a website called StumbleUpon. Based on the preferences that you set, it will show you unique and random we sites across the Internet. It's pretty good. Both Cait and I have signed up. She has a lot more liked pages than I do. You can follow her here: Cait's StumbleUpon and you can follow me here: Brent's StumbleUpon. I'll work on my stumbles. By following StumbleUpon, Cait discovered another amazing site.
Instructables. This is an amazing site for DIY projects, How-to instructions and all sorts of things. I'm pretty sure Cait spends an equal amount of time between StumbleUpon and Instructables. I know that there are a lot of different and unique projects on there. How would you like to learn how to make a Keyboard Circuit Sheet Lampshade? Or how about a Voice Controlled Robot? Those are only a couple of examples. You really need to check this site out. For my final portion of this blog, I am proud to report that since the beginning of 2010, this blog has been viewed in 13 countries around the world and in 25 states in the US. Thank you for your support as I work through this blog! And with that, I leave you with this: 




 - Brent