Monday, June 18, 2012

TWD: French Strawberry Cake



Starts out all innocent.  This cake lures me in.  If you follow the directions, it will not go wrong it says. 



Melted butter. Check. Sifted flour. Check.




Apron time.  Sarah helped cut the strawberries with her kid's knife.



She did an excellent job.  She's a real chef so she tries the strawberries as she works. Checking the quality of course. These were native strawberries from Dzen's in Ellington, CT. Peak of season.




Loves to crack eggs, my Sarah.  Not too many shells this time.



I probably beat for about 7 minutes in all for the egg to get to the ribbon stage.



Poured in the pan.  At this point, I'm getting nervous.  My cake appears deflated and I did have a considerable amount of trouble incorporating the flour with the beaten eggs. 



Out of the oven and cooling.  My nervous has given away to deepening disappointment.  The time has come when I've not successfully pulled off a TWD recipe.  My cake is dense. Dense to the touch and then when I cut in half it reveals much of what I expected.  I did not incorporate the flour mixture and possible the butter properly.  I did not take a picture of the gory details.



I whipped up the cream which is incredible.  My husband said that this was the best whipped cream he's ever tasted.  He does not care for sour cream and could not believe that this was the secret ingredient.  He wants this to be our go-to whipped cream for berries recipe.


Just because I messed up the cake does not mean that I can't make it look good.  I cut off the very top of the cake and cut it with a biscuit cutter.  This part of the cake was light and fluffy, so I made four individual desserts.



Nathan had four helpings of just the strawberries and cream.  He made a whipped cream goatee. 



Had to show off the raised beds Jason built this year.


The mint leaf was straight from our garden. The mint is called Mojito Beverage Mint.  Nathan used the mint as a spoon for the cream. The taste of mint with the cream was great.


Until next month.




Wednesday, June 6, 2012

TWD: Oasis Naan

TWD: Oasis Naan


We made this recipe on June 2, Sarah's 6th birthday!  It was a family affair because Sarah's great-grandmother, Polly  was here, also great-uncle Mike, Gramma Ginny, Uncle Chris, Nathan, Dad and me, Mom.




The dough was really easy to put together.  The simple ingredients reminded me of the Irish Soda Bread. 



And so did the stirring.  Sarah liked counting to 100.  Always a fun math game to be found!



I used a lot of flour during the kneading.  The dough was so soft and a pleasure to work with. Wonderful yeasty smell.



Our dough rose more than double in less than an hour and a half.  It must have been that perfect temperature and humidity in the house.




I divided the dough into eight pieces and we all took at least one to prepare how we wanted.  A few were made using the exact recipe.  We harvested fresh red onion from our garden.   Polly added poppy seeds to the mix.  Grandma Ginny and Uncle Chris enjoyed theirs dipped in olive oil and hummus.


I made a cinnamon and sugar naan.  I had some left over cinnamon and sugar from the Rugelach recipe!  The sweet naan was a treat.  Out of the oven it had that sweet fried dough from-a-county-fair kind of taste.


Jason and I favorite was one topped with olive oil, thinly sliced onion with fresh thyme.




Fresh red onion, cumin, salt.



Nathan and Sarah made a pizza with their naan. 

The Broad Brook Bakers are particularly excited about June's next recipe because it includes strawberries.  Strawberries are Sarah's all time favorite food.


Until next time.