Hot Cross Buns

My granny made these at Easter every year. Now my mom does, and I guess now I do too. 

Warming up

While our heat was broken we stayed warm by preparing meals that required long baking times. I made this spanakopita using the recipe in Amy Sedaris's book I Like You. 

Here it is with some leftover wedding wine. That's one thing that wedding books and blogs don't tell you--agonizing over all those wedding decisions really does pay off because you get to have leftover wedding stuff when you're broke and unemployed in New York City. 

I also made some pizza dough and used it to make a pizza roll with ham, cheddar, and pineapple. I used this recipe, but ignored the instructions for the filling and made up my own. This is the second time I've made a pizza roll, but I don't think I'll make it again. The outside of the crust gets over done while the inside is still doughy and undercooked. Next time I make homemade dough I'll do a calzone or just a pizza. 

photo by Chris 

The undercook/overcook problem may be caused by our oven. I think it may run hot. Also, the knob is slightly askew, so really I've just been guessing while setting the temperature. I probably need to get an oven thermometer before I start baking Christmas cookies. Amy Sedaris was on The Splendid Table yesterday and said that her favorite Christmas cookies were butter cookies with frosting made from the recipe on the back of the Domino's powdered sugar box. Guess who wants me to make those? 

Our heat is now working. The boiler is fixed, and Chris and Andy fixed the radiator in the living room. It hadn't worked since we moved in, and they were stumped...until this bit of inspiration came along. It turns out that when the radiator was painted (in a glossy chrome), paint was slopped right over the pressure relief valve, and air wasn't able to get out to make room for the steam bubbling up from the boiler. 

The Day after Labor Day

Ahhhh, September. Chris and I celebrated the end of the summertime tourist season by taking a dip in the ocean and then taking a long bike ride, now that we are much less likely to be run off the road by a tourist looking for the Dairy Queen. 

The wedding is just over two months away and we are making great progress, people. The wedding invitations are being printed. I'm hard at work on addressing the invitations in calligraphy (5 down, 95 to go). We chose a cottage to rent for the honeymoon in Ocracoke. I hope it works out, because I must have looked at every cottage on this website twice already. My sister Kate came to visit this weekend and she did a cupcake run--chocolate--and they were awesome.

We now have all of the fabric for the table runners cut, several are pinned, and some are already sewn. My mom and Kate got them started, but Chris did the most measuring and cutting. He took this picture of me cutting the fabric for the last tablecloth, but it's misleading because seriously this is the only one I cut. I did do some ironing, however. 

A few major and minor wedding-related hissy fits out of the way, a couple of freelance articles and photos sent off to the editor, and I feel just like Bahgheerah did this afternoon: 

Bread Baking and other Disasters

James Beard would not be proud of the Brioche Bread I made this weekend. The dough rose nicely the first time, but then something went awry. I don't know if I let them rise too long after I shaped them into loaves, or if I used the wrong size pan (well, I know I used the wrong size pan, I just didn't think it would make a huge difference). 

Everything was going well at this stage:

and at this one:

But here I can see that maybe I've let it rise a little too long. There were some pockets of air on top of each loaf. They deflated a little when I brushed the tops with egg wash. 

 

So the bread browned up nicely, but you can see the loaves are a little stumpy. 

But they tasted great. So maybe "disaster" is too strong a word. Overall, this is a fun recipe. There is no kneading required. The dough is soft and after you mix the ingredients together it's ready to rise. It's very hands-off, which I like. You can get all kinds of things done while simultaneously making bread. 

Next time I make a Brioche loaf I'm going to use less butter (this bread is so buttery that when I make toast I worry the toaster is going to catch fire).  I'll also let the dough rise longer on the first rising, but keep my eye on the clock for the second rising. I'll use smaller pans, too. Turns out an extra inch or so does make a difference. Sorry, James.

You can find James Beard's recipe for Brioche Bread from Beard on Bread here.