Just testing the picture-taking capability of my new BlackBerry Playbook… not bad; better resolution AND colour than my actual camera.  Even with no flash! Making my Auntie Sally’s Challah recipe… as you can see here, each week I print out a new recipe sheet.  Terrifically wasteful, but one doesn’t want to bring any kind of electronic device within splashing range.  I suppose a whiteboard would do the trick… but for now, I print it off from the spreadsheet, which automatically calculates what I need based on how many finished challahs I want. Another trick that will throw off my quantities a bit but greatly increase the yumminess of the finished product:  any bread dough left over from the week – in this case, a bit of a batch of no-knead dough from Tuesday’s boule – becomes an instant pre-ferment for the weekly challah.  I did use regular yeast as well, though since I’m leaving it overnight, I probably didn’t have to.     One of the most important tools for a food blogge

BONUS COOKING TIP OF THE DAY – scroll to the bottom of this post! Mmm… my favourite way to unwind on Friday afternoon, when there’s time, is to sample the yummies for Shabbos and blog about them! This week, it’s these scrummy chocolate cookies that start out really good but transform into utter decadence with the help of a caramel filling and chocolate coating .  They’re not TOO patckedik, either. (read on for how it’s done…) The actual chocolate cookies came from this recipe from Frugal Ima’s blog (I reduced the vanilla quite a bit), and I baked them last night, because I have had enough bad experiences of baked goods that were not sufficiently cool to ice.  This is Frugal Ima’s picture, because I forgot to take one myself.   The trick here is pressing down the middle of the cookies RIGHT AWAY when they come out of the oven.  Like her, I used the lid of the vanilla bottle to make the indentation. This recipe made a LOT of cookies. Then, this morning, I made this yummy

Tip o’ the Day: (recipe follows) Always preheat your oven to 25-50°F higher than the recipe calls for, then turn it down. You’ll lose 25-30 degrees of heat when you open it and patchke around getting the pan in and out. And most breads (and many pastries) do well with a strong burst of initial heat anyway. Wanted to get a picture of this before it was too late, but… well, it was almost too late.  That’s how good this was with our chili tonight! This really is one of the few recipes I’d say would be completely different without a cast-iron skillet. I have made cornbread in pans and it’s lovely… but there is something awesomely crispy about cornbread baked in butter on preheated cast-iron.  Given that my soul-food diet precludes bacon, I tell myself that this deep, hearty crunch and this corny cornbread’s crunchy sweet / savoury crust is the next best thing.  Or really quite special in its own right, depending on if you’re a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person. Spec

These are actually based on this yummy mall-pretzel copycat recipe , which I’ve made a lot, but I made a couple of changes to turn them into bagels.  First, I doubled it… that’s not really a change.  I mixed it in the food processor, which was great.  I also subbed malt syrup for the brown sugar to make it more bagel-y, and added a tsp of salt per recipe, because there’s none in the original. They had a nice long rise because I started them in the early afternoon before we went out to a 2-hour kids’ class.  I made the holes a bit differently from usual – started with 100g boules and, with a well-greased finger, poked a hole into them which I expanded over several iterations until there was more hole than bagel (I can’t stand cake-y bagels with skimpy holes!). Nice big holes… ready to boil! Added the last of the malt syrup (boo hoo) to the boiling water, along with a bit (2-4 tbsp?) of baking soda.  This is a terrible pot for boiling in, because it can only take 3-4 bagels at a

Oh my goodness… I have the most gifted, artistic husband in the whole entire universe. Here, for your delight and perusal, are his awesome Birthday in BreadLand Cartoons: Nothing more I can say.  Though I love how I’m sleeping bareheaded but modestly be-ticheled in the (full-colour!) dream sequence… To all my loyal readers, happy birthday from me!  Thank you for giving the gift of reading my blogs and (if you haven’t already) Liking my ever-expanding MamaLand Empire !!!