Bodacious Bread

So, let's just say I've been having a troubled two weeks, and fully debated within myself to keep this blog or not. I finally decided to keep trucking along, and give a last apology for having such untimely posts on here. I say that because I plan on posting on a regular schedule now (excluding when things heat up in school/lab- priority is priority). Let's just say, once every two weeks. Now, my ultimate goal is once a week, but we'll see what happens.

BREAD!

http://www.foodgeeks.com/recipes/awesome-apple-bread-2901

The name says it all. It truly is awesome apple bread, especially with some [minor] additions.

Kathy Wetzel has made the perfect fruit bread. The best part? You don't have to use apples. You can use ANY fruit you want. I know. Because I've tried. The recipe, in pictures:

I've used two kinds of Apples: One that had a crumbly texture and was very dry, and a tarter one (Gala I think). Both came out excellent!

This is the mixture of oil, eggs, vanilla, and sugar. On my next go, I'm planning on experimenting by cutting out a cup of sugar and one egg. I'm thinking of trying out something a little less sweet.

Slowly add the flour mixture while mixing! You can also use an electric mixture if you want, but sometimes I find it just easier to do by hand. And there really is no heavy mixing for this recipe! The flour mixture should be sifted! ***I like to add a whole tbs of cinnamon, a tsp of nutmeg, and a 1/2 tsp of clover. It gives a nice spice to the bread. You may want to alter the spices depending on your fruit. If I was interested in making a chocolate bread, I'd keep the same and maybe add a tsp of mint extract. Oranges? I'd cut the cinnamon and add a tsp orange extract. Some you can keep the same. For my blueberry banana, I used the same spices as for the apple. 

All the flour's been added here, just gotta mix it all in.  

The apples! So I decided to leave the skin on. Personal choice for me, prepare them however you like. I'm sure you could food processor the apples into apple paste if you really wanted to. The fruit in this recipe is very easily manipulated as you want. I also prefer slightly larger chunks. And I added slightly more than 3 cups. I'm a fruit head, and I just prefer to use up all the apple I started cutting. Or eat it. But I wanted it all  in the bread!

Nice and mixed, ready for the bread pan

Adding the batter to the pan.

All in! So, the total recipe found at the link above actually fills two of these.

Here I went with a blueberry banana bread! So one banana chopped in large chunks. Bananas have a way of mushing if mixed too much, so I didn't want to cut them any smaller than this and risk having a bunch of mashed bananas.

And roughly 2 cups of blueberries. In all honesty, I just had a plastic bag of these guys in the fridge that I wanted to use before they went bag. So, all of them went in, and it was probably slightly more than 2 cups. 

Here is the finished mixed product, and me adding it to the pan. 

Sadly, I realized I forgot to take pictures of the finished product. :( Now, they have in their recipe 1 hour 30 minutes at 300 degrees F. And the Author states that she does 70 minutes at 325. What works for you still could be different so you should play around with the time and temp. Mine came out perfect at 320 for 80 minutes. You are looking for a nice brown top that is slightly firm when you poke it- ie. it doesn't mush in when you press, it just lets you press it and kind of rises back. This is hard for me to explain because a lot of people tell you "when it bounces back after pressing" but I like to tell more based on what it actually feels like when I press it.

Alternatively, you can also tell when it's done when the smell starts to spread to adjacent rooms- at that point it is very close to done or done.

More info on my apple trees, another recipe, and two amigurumi projects will be up soon. But don't expect the amigurumi right away because they are both presents and I doubt the people they are for read this, but just in case!

Cheers!
Sarah

First Day of School! Wait...again?!

Sorry that it's been awhile, I was contemplating the idea of getting my own web address/domain for a bit, among other things.

I successfully graduated from college!! And now I'm going back to school...

Haha, don't give me that face. I'm now officially a graduate student, whether I actually feel like one is another story. I'm going to school in Baltimore, Maryland. While I've lived in the awesome state of MD my whole life, I've never lived in a city, and now I do! I live smack in the middleish area of Baltimore. (In other words, look at "Baltimore" (the word) on a map, look a few centimeters left or so and thereabouts is where I live). 

My cat chilling, but I do not have cats or pets where I live now... :( 

I moved in on the 26th of June, and to be honest, it wasn't bad. I met a roommate, unpacked and got settled. Let's say, for a first night in a new place, I slept well. The next day, I had orientation and got my first taste of walking to UMB and walking around campus. It was easy, it took me a short 12 minutes to get to the building I needed to, and I felt relatively safe- other people were walking around and it's not like the campus is a ghetto, it's just close to some sketchy areas. All in all, it really wasn't bad, until this past Monday. Both my roommates moved out, and I was on my own, awaiting news of more roommates from my landlord (a really nice guy!). 

My "study area"

Let me clear up somethings. When I'm in a new place, I don't sleep well for at least a week. When I'm alone in a house I have trouble sleeping. And if you add these onto the fact that I am now living in a city and that city happens to be Baltimore...Well, you can imagine. I stressed out and was so anxious that I would loose my appetite and food would make me nauseous just by looking at it. I took forever to fall asleep, and let's just say I was tired of being tired.

Old School

Then suddenly, it all changed. What changed? why? when? Well, I took out the trash at 5:30 am and suddenly realized that being afraid, stressed out, and anxious wasn't helping, and wasn't doing me  anything. (You might argue that anxiety/fear allow you to be more aware, but I have no problem being aware/not getting complacent when it comes to safety). So I stopped. I accepted my new home as my home and figured I'd treat it the same way as everywhere else I've lived (except that I keep everything locked up tight and only unlock it to move inside or outside the house). I lock doors before. I just would keep doors unlocked when I'm home until I went to bed. Now I just lock doors all the time no matter what :)

My Craft Corner (But now there is even more stuff there!)

So, I'm done with my first week of school. I'm taking a summer bridge course and rotating in a lab. The class is straightforward and not graded, fairly basic, and shouldn't be a lot of work. The lab is pretty cool. It is exciting for me to be starting anew in a lab. It's especially interesting for me to start analyzing the differences between this lab and my lab from undergrad (especially since technically I might be able to go back to working in my undergrad lab). Like, in my last lab I was being taught directly from the PI for the first ~6 months since it was a new lab and here, I am being taught by a grad student. So far I am interested in the lab I am in, but we'll see if I can or want to join the lab in a month and a half or so.

Well, have a nice summer- I'll be reporting on somethings I've been doing in the kitchen, the apple trees, and even an amigurumi or two over the next week or two.

Cute book I had to buy from Amazon

~Sarah

Update: May 07, 2013

It's been awhile...I know. Not too long, I hope. However, I still don't have much to say today. I haven't posted because I haven't made anything lately, and it'll be the same till the end of the month or so. I am completing my last month at college, and finishing up my work in lab as well.

Additionally, I have to move out at the end of May, and find a place to move into by June 30th (in June I'll be back home with my parents). So, it's rather hectic with classes and finals, finishing up grades for the lab I'm TAing, finishing up projects and handing off projects for lab, following the exit procedure for lab, starting to move out, finding a place to move to, and cleaning up my apartment.

I've been taking care of the apple trees, but I haven't taken recent pictures. They are about 8 inches tall now. I also plan to do at least one knitting project by the end of May, but may not make anything cool with regards to food. I have to try to finish using up the random foods I have around after all.

Ciao,

Sarah

Getting up to Speed on the Apple Trees

Hi Everyone,

A lot has happened this week, and I guess it's shaken me a bit. Boston Marathon tragedy, and a personal loss that happened just before that.

So, to just write a little, and to maybe bring a little sunshine into my life, I figured I'd write a bit more about the thing (outside of lab and knitting) that I'm really excited about. I decided I'd fully update you on my apple trees. Now, I meant to water and take photos of them yesterday but I kind of sat down and didn't get back up until I went to bed. So, I'll take care of them today, and get those pictures to you the next time I post about them.

The one in the middle dies, the one on the right is my "eldest"

The one on the left is my "youngest"

These pictures above were taken about 10 days after planting. They are growing so fast!!
Below, these were taken at about 17 days after planting.

The one on the right continues to be the tallest. The one in the middle has died at this point.

My little guy on the left is starting to grow well!

And, here are some pictures of them when they were about a month old (on April 10th):

Eldest on the right: Unamed
Middle child on the left: Mary

Shorty on the left: Unnamed
Middle child on the right: Herbert

Herbert, one of my "middle" sized ones, was moved to my sister's lab, and will be hers to keep and raise, so you will no longer see pictures of him (unless I go over to her lab to take them). Mary, I brought home with me a week ago (some of her leaves actually wilted from too much heat in the car, but she is recuperating), and she will be returned to me today, so the next pictures will only include the other two (shorty & tall one. Thinking about naming shorty shorty).

Anyway, their stalks have turned a reddish color, and they are poking well above the tops of their cups now. I can't wait till I deem them ready to be moved to their larger pots!

Have a nice day. It's raining outside here, and I particularly like it. So, sorry for the rain haters who don't.

~Sarah

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Hey,

I've done quite a bit of cooking, knitting, planting, and growing since when I was last posting (February), and I'm going to try to cover most of it. Which is good because my life is about to get as crazy as my laundry pile (which is pretty crazy, but I'll do laundry tomorrow...I promise).

Anyway, I hadn't gotten around to making something tasty for my friend's birthday, so I wanted to make her carrot cake (which she previously told me she liked). I wanted an excuse to make her carrot cake cupcakes, OK?

She had her lit review (like a test to show that you paid attention in classes/research and that you are competent to apply for candidacy as a chem graduate student). And I wanted to make her something to celebrating her passing! Obviously I knew she was going to pass, she works really hard and she is smart!

OK, onto the carrot! Note: If you go to the link in the sentence below, she has a video demonstrating how to make these if you want! I just made my own few changes.

Joy of Baking is a website I am particularly fond of. And that is where I got THIS recipe from. I used the cupcake and frosting recipe- and both are delicious!

Firstly, I had some carrots that were getting a little old (they were still fine, but I wanted to use all of them because I was afraid they wouldn't get used if I left any and would rot away...)

So by the time I finished grating them, well, I had about 3 cups.

I know my grater is cool, say what!! ;)

So much carrot! So what did I do? Actually it's simple! I added an extra egg, and a scosh more applesauce. If you've made cakes/cupcakes before, you know the kind of consistency you want, if not. Let's see, you want a good proportion of dry to wet ingredients so that the consistency is not to runny or two thick.

Really thick gets you cookies (which you can mold in your hands) or bread (very thick and sticky- depends on the type of bread your making if you can mold it or not).

Really thin is like the Hershey's chocolate cake or pudding. Ah, well, I'm sure there are other examples, but I can't think of any. Hershey's chocolate cake and similar recipes are almost unusually runny for a cake batter (makes a baker nervous!).

So you want something that is easy to run a spoon through, but not so runny that it slops all over the place, more like it steadily flows from a spoon instead of quickly running off a spoon if you turn it over.

Folding carrots into "wet" ingredients

OK, I also added extra vanilla (1 tsp total), and 1tsp of some orange extract I had (I've found that some like to bake pineapple into their carrot cake, so I wanted some extra tang- figured the flavors would all match). The last changes, my applesauce was just regular applesauce you feed your kids or whatever (so, not unsweetened, but had sweetness), and no walnuts. My sister doesn't like nuts so I removed them because she always eats some of what I make.

I made only two changes to the frosting. I added 1 tsp of the orange extract. Additionally, for appearance purposes, I added a bit yellow and red food coloring to give a hint of orangeyness!

Mixing together to frosting- It's a really sticky one!

My sister also came up with an idea to use some leftover white chocolate we had in the cupboard.

Color and pipe out carrot shapes on wax paper and freeze!

I stuck the frosting I made into a bag and cut off the corner (fairly large hole- mind, it's better to cut a smaller hole than you'll think you want, you can always make it larger). I piped it in a spiral pattern onto the cupcakes, and then topped them with the above-mentioned chocolate carrots.

Yay! Note: I probably won't be able to keep posting every day, but I will try 2x a week! And should have more on the apple trees for you tomorrow! I'm excited to catch you up so that you can see where they are at currently!

Have a nice weekend!

~Sarah

Grow Your Own Apple Trees!!

Hey Everyone,

So, I want to let you in on a project I started in February this year (2013). I was eating an apple, and I thought, "I should grow an apple tree!"

No, really! That's how it all started....

The basics I was able to garner from Google searching (everyone can do it, even YOU!).

Humor aside, you set the apple seeds in a paper towel, moisten the paper towel, place in a plastic bag (which I zipped up halfway to allow for fresh air- well, fresh fridge air), and stick it in the fridge. I kept checking about every 3 days and was rather dismayed to see no change (Ha! it takes 4-6 weeks to see a change!)

What can I say? I was excited. So then I forgot about them, and pulled them out of the fridge about 5 weeks after I initially put them in to check on them (it had been 2-3 weeks since I last looked at them). They had sprouted!! Pictures!

 I had initially placed 6 apple seeds in, 5 sprouted! ^^

So, I prepared their "pots"

 Yes...those are paper cups... I filled them between 1/2 and 3/4 with some soil I bought previously (I'll edit in the name here later, I'm not home right now).

 Following that, I decided that I wanted them to still be definitely reached by sunlight, and lots of it. There is only one good spot in my place right now for sun (which is also why I chose paper cups for now, because they can fit on the window sill). So, I cut out a rectangle of cup, and you can see below!

 Ready for planting!

 I dug small holes in each cup, threw a seed in, and covered it with some dirt. I buried them all about 1 inch deep and watered each with 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of fresh tap water. And then, I waited! Approximately four days later, I watered each cup again with 2 tbsp water (and have subsequently watered each this much every 3-4 days for a month now).

And this is what I saw:

This one was the most proactive of the five!

These show the slowest grower (left) and one of the ones in the middle (right)

Overall, I did start with five, however, one will die (you'll see in the next post), so I'll still say some about that one, but focus on the other four that are prospering.


I planted these guys on March 10th, and these last couple pictures were taken March 14th, so I've got a lot to update you on! You'll be amazed to see the pictures I post tomorrow! Once I've caught up, I'll post every week (I check on them every 3-4 days, but it's easier to see the changes over a week right now!), and as they get larger and grow more slowly, I'll probably post less often.

Have a nice day!

Sarah 

Easter Bunny Cake

Hey!

Sorry it's been awhile by the way. On another note, I made a second page that let's you know more about me on the right ------>

Not a whole lot, just some things, and what I post about for new people. I think I may make a few more pages to help sort out the different things I post about (food, crafts, apples), but I don't know. What do you think? Is that just wasting time that I could use to write another post or do my homework and grading? :)

OK! Today I want to tell you about the cake I made for this past Easter! My family celebrates Easter every year together (and that's why I love holidays the most- they're like free time to spend with family!)

It's completely original, too! But I honestly don't mind if you make it and sell it or whatever. :) Here is what I did:

Easter= eggs- which are given out by the Easter Bunny, so I decided I'd make a cake that represents the head of the Easter bunny! (I've never actually seen her, but I tried my best). I have a soon-to-be-sister-in-law who is not big on chocolate cake, so my sister and I decided that the ears would be yellow cake and the head would be chocolate. It would be two layers, too.


Aww, I just realized I don't think I have pictures of the cake making- just the final product! Oh, well, it's not hard. Originally I was going to bake two round yellow cakes (in a 9" round pan), and then cut two ears out of each. However, at the grocery store we saw these foil pans that would be perfect for bunny ears, so we bought a few. I made up a generic yellow cake from scratch (just search around the internet, and you can find one you like!). The only thing was, it came out more like pound cake than good, soft, fluffy yellow cake! So it wasn't a tremendous hit :(, well, the ears at least.

I found a chocolate cake recipe that was very similar to the Hershey's Chocolate cake recipe, so I made that. (If you have never tried the Hershey chocolate cake recipe, you are kind of crazy to me.) The batter is very thin (after the addition of the hot water, and the cake comes out so moist and rich. It's amazing! The recipe made two 9" round cakes!

I placed the chocolate down, and positioned the ears as I pleased. Then I smeared on some delicious butter cream frosting, added the second layer, and did a crumb coat (smear on frosting as you please, despite crumbs coming off the cake and mixing with the frosting. I...don't have the butter cream frosting. I know....I absolutely fail as a food blogger. But if you really must have the recipe, I can get it for you, I made it with my mom, so she has the recipe. Anyway, it came out really sugary sweet, but you could cut down the sugar possibly. (Oh, yeah. And I played around piping the frosting!) Without further ado, the final product!!

Ooops! That's not it! :) So, I've never microwaved a peep before, and I kept hearing/seeing (the wonders of social media) how others have often done this. I don't know if I microwaved it too long or what because it didn't taste that good to me. But maybe I will try roasting one next...

Ah, I forgot to mention two things. I cut out some of the white cake in the middle of the ear so that it looked like it was going in a little bit. With what I cut out, I piled it to make the nose! And, the eyes were Reece's peanut butter eggs - something that I always see around Easter at the local grocer. 

Maybe this will give you inspiration for next Easter, or the next holiday or celebration you have! 

PS. I'll be posting about apples soon! Today or tomorrow, I hope!

Sarah