Well I made a pound cake (bundt format) for the second time. The first time around I managed to get a bunch of eggshell in in. I’m happy to report that I managed to keep the eggshell out of it this time around. As requested, I am posting the recipe which I found here:
Grandma’s Sour Cream Pound Cake
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups butter, softened
3 cups white sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground mace
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon confectioners’
sugar for dusting
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan or 9 inch tube pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and mace; mix into the batter just until smooth. Stir in sour cream. Spoon batter into the prepared pan, and spread evenly.
3. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool for at least 10 minutes before inverting pan onto a plate, and tapping out the cake. Dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.
Originally published at Quiet Toad.
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A friend sent me this link. This guy is amazing!
OK, I figured out how to embed it...
...........................Originally published at Quiet Toad.
Since the kiwi and I just shoveled show, it’s decided to start snowing harder 
But I do like the snow.
Originally published at Quiet Toad.
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By the end of the batch they were starting to look good. Still not perfect, but I think I’m starting to get the idea.
I’ll post more about them, but you can compare the picture to the other one I posted.
...........................Originally published at Quiet Toad.
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Yesterday evening it started snowing. Then it promptly turned into rain. So, it rained last night and a lot of the snow is now gone. The temperature is about 37 degrees right now. This also left the driveway as one big sheet of ice. The kiwi went out this morning to get the paper and had to use a lot of deicer to get there. I’m sure the roads are really fun this morning.
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Now for the cooking. Yesterday the kiwi broke into a package of crumpets that he managed to obtain. So we got to thinking about what a pain it is to find any crumpets in this town and I hit the intarwebs to find out if it was something I could attempt to make at home. Well it seemed like it might be pretty simple but I didn’t have any crumpet rings. You see, crumpets are made from a yeast batter that you cook on a griddle using rings to contain the batter. In fact, crumpets are almost the same batter and preparation method as you use for English muffins. The difference is that the crumpets have a thinner batter. OK, so I need to find some crumpet rings. My favorite King Arthur Flour: Baker’s Catalog have them, but they are out of stock. Amazon, Sur la Table and Williams Sonoma have them too but they are all pretty pricey and the shipping costs were high. So off to the local stores to see what they have. I read that egg rings are the same diameter and will work fine for the job. Long story short, we found them at the third store we looked in. So I’m all set to go. After dinner I attempted to make the recipe I found here. I halved the recipe since this is experimental. After the batter rose, I heated up the skillet and the rings and then plopped the batter in. Bottom line, the holes did not form on the top very well and what I ended up with looked more like and English muffin. I think the batter was a bit too thick and I perhaps put too much in the ring. I tried to toast them this morning like an English muffin but the tasted very yeasty and not really like an English muffin. This morning I am attempting it again using the recipe I found on KAF. I hope this batter is a bit thinner. I will also not fill the rings quite as much. Again making a half recipe. We’ll see how this goes. And I just found this recipe which may confirm my question about the batter consistency. Hmmmm.
Originally published at Quiet Toad.
It’s been almost a week since I posted about all that snow. As it has been for a lot of places lately, it’s been bloody cold here! I got my bread baked on Friday and then on Saturday I made dinner rolls but I forgot about them and they did the second proof for about twice as long as they should have. They came out tasting good, but looking almost big enough to be hamburger buns.
On Sunday we went out for dinner at the only Indian food place between here and Spokane. They only recently added meat to their menu. I didn’t care much for it but the kiwi seemed to really enjoy his. I suspect he’s been deprived too long. The only meat available was chicken or fish. And the chicken in my dish seemed not to be cooked with the dish but added at the end. No lamb. They had no Vindaloo on the menu. No Tikka Masala, no Korma, no Tandoori. And the Naan seemed like it was done with whatever they make Papadum with only thicker and fried in a pan. The one good thing to me were the Samosas. Then we get home and find out that Green Bay lost Grrr.
I have been working part-time at an audiology office filing and such. On Sunday, I got a call to come in for a full day on Monday as the office manager was going to be out. So, I worked my first full day on Monday and one of the audiologists was out sick to boot. I survived and get to do it again this Monday and Tuesday. Then again for a full week in February when the office manager is on vacation.
On Monday I also took Shasta to the vet to be spayed. She was so happy to see me on Tuesday morning when I picked her up. She probably thought we had abandoned her. She’s back to running around all over the place but wants to chew on her stitches now and again. She’ll get them out maybe by the 1st.
And last night I made (New England) Clam Chowder for the first time ever. I decided I wanted to put corn in it too because I had this great crab and corn chowder somewhere that was really scrumptious. The kiwi didn’t like the corn in it and we both thought it needed to be a bit thicker but I think it came out pretty well. We pulled one of my breads from Friday out of the freezer and had that with the soup. I had way too much soup 
The recipe below is what I adapted from a recipe I found online:
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Originally published at Quiet Toad.
The raisin bread I made on Saturday really didn’t come out as well as I would have liked. It was a bit dry and took forever to rise. I’m not sure what causes that although I didn’t have the instant yeast open so I had to proof the active dry that I used. The other half of the dough went in the freezer so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that. On Monday, I made another bundt cake (Rum Cranberry Applesauce Bundt Cake). which is delicious although rather crumbly. I finally got the pizza stone on Monday. I made the preferment for the bread using the instant yeast, so we’ll see how that goes. I have to wait until I have enough time to do the bread and bake it so that probably won’t be until Friday (my day off). I also made some biscuits yesterday because I wanted to try out this Bakewell Cream that I had. I have to say it works pretty well.
Yesterday, I got more of the wine like the one my brother gave me for Christmas. Oh and last night I made Macaroni and Cheese for dinner :D.
...........................Originally published at Quiet Toad.
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I managed to upload a few photos from the ski trip today. I think I’m too tired to post anything meaningful about the trip but I believe we all had a great time. Mark and I stopped and picked up Kit and then headed toward the Idaho border where the Lookout Pass resort is located.
You can find all the photos here. There is also video that I need to deal with but that isn’t happening tonight. I’m tired.
UPDATE: Kit has posted a much better description of the trip with links to photos.
...........................Originally published at Quiet Toad.
All the presents are wrapped. Now we just have to finish the Christmas cards.
...........................Originally published at Quiet Toad.
Well, I finally got the photos from the Christmas party put up. It was at a restaurant attached to the Hilton Garden Inn called Blue Canyon.
The menu and the rest of the pictures are on Flickr.
...........................Originally published at Quiet Toad.
I realize I’m late to the party here but…
What the heck is congress doing, banning incandescents???
I get really annoyed and upset when people try to decide my business for me. Apparently I’m too stupid to make my own decisions. On one hand, I’m dumbfounded that congress would do something like this. On the other hand, I guess it’s just me not wanting to believe the country is already socialist.
EDIT: OK… according to visgoth, it’s not as bad as I thought:
...........................“And by the way… At least some of the media are over-simplifying again. Some sources might be getting it right, but others seem to not be. The bill does not ban incandescent light bulbs. It doesn’t specify any technologies. It sets standards for how much illumination has to be produced for a given energy consumption. Those standards are not met by current incandescents. It may be possible to improve incandescent technology to meet the standards.
I’m actually curious to see what happens in the High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) and Metal Halide (MH) arena. HPS are used extensively in indoor plant growing operations[1], and MH are the most effective existing technology[2] for growing corals in captivity. And my interest in where MH lighting is going isn’t only regarding my fish tanks, BTW. Captive grown corals are also being used in a lot of research.
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[1] I’m thinking tomatoes, getting spring plants ready for market, that sort of thing. Not secret rooms in the basement.[2] Aside from the fusion reactor which could be shut off for eight minutes before anybody realized it.”
Originally published at Quiet Toad.
One more time.
EDIT: Got to thank Mark and missbabyblue for pointing out this plugin. I’m still figuring out what I can do with WordPress.
...........................Originally published at Quiet Toad.
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bandicoot has a good one here and kamicosmos has a cool picture of his grandparents bicentennial flag here.Profile
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