TWD - Raisin Swirl Bread

I get a lot of emails from friends and family. Jokes. Stories. Prayers. And questionnaires. You know the kind...what's your favorite season? What's your favorite color? What's your favorite smell? Whenever I am asked what's my favorite smell (and isn't smell a verb??) I always list two...fresh ground coffee and fresh baked bread. Guess the fresh ground coffee explains why I chose to work at Starbucks part-time. :)

As for the fresh baked bread...I don't think there is anything that smells as wonderful as the yeasty aroma of bread as it is baking. Unless you add cinnamon. Cinnamon smells fabulous coming from the oven. Think apple pie or cinnamon buns. So, when I saw that Susan of Food.Baby had chosen Raisin Swirl Bread for this week's TWD I was ecstatic! I love making home-made bread. For me it is an almost zen-like experience. The aromas, the kneading, the blending of flour and yeast resulting in something so wholesome and comforting as fresh bread. I am always much more relaxed after baking fresh bread. What a perfect recipe for me to get back into my baking with.

My only disappointment in this recipe was I didn't get to knead the bread! The kneading is done in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Or at least mine was. I suppose there are those who aren't lucky enough to have an electric mixer with a dough hook, but I am. And, I used it to make this bread.

It came together quite easily. In fact, each step turned out exactly as Dorie writes in the recipe. It rose beautifully and smelled divine even before I baked it. I didn't use the orange zest, as I had no oranges. I was going to add the nutmeg, but forgot. :} I did add the vanilla and the cocoa. I was intrigued by the addition of cocoa and couldn't wait to try it. I love raisins so not adding them was never an option. Well, in all honesty I did think about not adding them, because the hubby doesn't like raisins, but, decided this one was for me!

As the bread baked the house filled with the wonderful aroma of cinnamon and yeast and I found myself taking deep breaths as I puttered around. Within minutes of removing it from the oven I was cutting a slice from the end of the loaf. The swirl inside looked perfect. All along the swirl, like little travelers on a road, were the raisins. The steam rising from the slice was scented with a sugary cinnamon smell. I popped it into the toaster (I always toast raisin bread) and spread some butter over the freshly toasted slice and took my first bite.

Heavenly! The bread had a tender but tight crumb. The crust on the outside was chewy and crisp. The raisins were moist and chewy. The cinnamon swirl was delicious...I did not notice the cocoa, but felt that a bit more swirl would have been nice. In fact, the next time I make this I think I will double the amount of swirl. As easy as this was to put together (lengthy but easy) I can see making it again and again. I took two slices into work and shared it with my co-workers. They loved it! The rest is here, with me. In fact, I had two slices this morning for breakfast. And, I may have two slices for lunch!

So, thank you Susan for such a terrific choice. It was a wonderful way to come back to baking and blogging. If you would like to see who else tried this fabulous bread, look here.

Tuesdays with Dorie - Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

Lillian of Confectiona’s Realm picked Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars for this weeks recipe. Thanks, Lillian, for a great pick! I read the P&Q on TWD and saw that a lot of people dropped the raisins or skipped the peanuts, or left out both and put other things in instead. I made these just the way the recipe called for them to be made. But, then, I am boring like that. :) I usually make a recipe just the way it's written the first time around. I like to see how the author intended it to be before I change it to make it my own.

These were really a breeze to put together. Make a crust that is also a topping. Melt some chocolate chips with some butter and sweetened condensed milk, mix in some plumped raisins and some peanuts. Pour it over the crust. Crumble some of the crust over the chocolate mixture, bake it, cool it, eat it!! That is the best part!

There was nothing in this I don't like. Raisins...love em'. Peanuts...yum! Oatmeal...chewy goodness! Chocolate...oh yeah! Put all together in a bar you can just pick up and eat...delicious! Dangerous, but delicious! The hubby wasn't too happy with the raisins. I told him no one was forcing him to eat the bars. (For all his comments about not liking raisins, he ate one bar last night and another one today with his lunch!) Besides, he can eat the Black Bottom Brownies (a future post for SMS) and leave the bars to me. I won't mind!

I'm keeping my bars out on the counter. I missed the part about cooling them in the fridge before cutting them into bars. When I tried to cut them, they were a bit soft in the middle, but I got them cut. I took Dorie's suggestion and tried one before putting them in the fridge. Liked them so well at room temperature I decided to leave them out of the refrigerator.

I think it's funny that I would never add chocolate chips to my oatmeal raisin cookies, yet in these bars the combination of chocolate, oatmeal and raisins tastes wonderful. Maybe next time I make my cookies I will toss in a few chocolate chips. Oh the things TWD has opened my mind to!  See what the rest of the gang at TWD thought about this weeks choice.

Operation Baking Gals - Cookies for my soldiers!

If you came looking for my Sweet Melissa Sunday post, sorry to disappoint. I do not do fruitcake in any way, shape or form, not even for Sweet Melissa! :P But, be sure to check out Karin's blog, Sugar and Spice and everything nice. The Golden Almond Fruitcake was her choice this week, and her pictures make me wish I did like fruitcake!  Also, be sure to check out SMS's bakers page to see which bakers did join her in making the fruit cake.

What I did do this weekend was bake cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. About 47 dozen to be exact!

Operation Baking Gals, or Baking Gals as it is now known,  is a group I have been involved with for over a year now. I joined up in Round 2. The first round was when Susan of She's becoming DoughMessTic asked some fellow bloggers to join her in baking for a cousin who was stationed overseas. The outpouring was overwhelming. The rest as they say is history. I have baked in 13 of the 15 rounds since it's beginnings. I missed the first round because I didn't know about it at the time, and I missed a round this October because I was in Germany. I know, lame excuse, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :D

This round was a bit more special than most as I was baking for the nephews of two ladies I clean house for. I have been cleaning for them for a long time now and I had told both women about the organization when they mentioned having family members that were serving overseas. I asked them for the names and addresses of the boys (though it is just as often a girl we bake for) and I passed the info onto Lyndsay, who is our fearless (and tireless) leader now. She got both boys assigned to teams for this round and I joined both teams so I could bake for these two boys.

Did I mentioned I baked a lot of cookies. Here's a breakdown on what I baked...

6 Dozen Oatmeal Raisin (would have baked more but ran out of oatmeal!)
13 Dozen Walnut Chocolate Chip
15 Dozen Peanut Butter with Peanut Butter chips
13 Dozen Molasses cookies (the same molasses cookies we baked with TWD this month!)

I started Saturday morning by making the dough for all the cookies. I made double batches of every kind except the Oatmeal Raisin and that is because I didn't realize I only had enough oatmeal on hand for one batch. Once I had all the doughs made I cleaned up the kitchen and began baking. I started baking the first batch of cookies around 11 Saturday morning and finished the last batch about 9:30 that evening. I took a break long enough to heat up leftover Thanksgiving for dinner, eat it, and then get back to baking cookies. It's a labor of love people. :) When I was done I had about 564 cookies all waiting to be packaged for their trip overseas.

I divided the cookies between the two soldiers and vacuum sealed them for travel. I also enclosed boxes and boxes of Starbucks new VIA instant coffee. It's really good for instant; I drink it and took it to Germany with me so I could have coffee whenever I wanted, no coffee pot needed! I think I had 13 boxes of the 12 packs and about 26 packs of the three packs for each soldier. So, what's that, about 234 "cups" of coffee I am sending.  Much easier than sending pounds of ground coffee and worrying about whether or not the guys or girls have a coffeepot handy to brew it in. And, my local Starbucks collects the packages of VIA from customers and gives it to me to send to "my" soldiers! They are the best!

I packed all the cookies and coffee into 4 separate boxes. Couldn't get it all to fit in just one box per soldier. Thank goodness for flat rate shipping as the boxes are heavy. I also enclosed a letter from me and a few pictures of my family, pets and the local wildlife (deer). The guys who get the boxes like knowing a little about who shipped them. 

Tomorrow I will head to the local post office and mail these boxes out. Official shipping dates are December 1-16, but I am shipping tomorrow. One of the reasons is I already have the addresses of the boys since I know the aunts and I figure one day early won't be a bad thing.

If you ever want to do something to let a soldier know that what they do is appreciated, please stop by BakingGals and join a team. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you do. :)

Tuesdays with Dorie - Cran-Apple Crisps

This week's recipe is actually the All in One Holiday Bundt cake, chosen by Britin of The Nitty Britty. I made this recipe last week and it was fabulous! So rich and hearty and full of wonderful fall ingredients.

This week I baked the Cran-Apple Crisps, which was the recipe for the week of November 10. It was chosen by Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef.  Be sure to check out both of their blogs to see what they thought of their choices, and to get the recipes to try for yourself.

So, back to the crisps. So easy and so delicious. Not much more to say. I didn't have any dried cranberries so I added raisins to mine. I love apples and raisins anyway so it was a good switch. I also used two different kinds of apples...Granny Smith and Gala. Figured the Gala would offset the tartness of the Granny Smiths and the tartness of the cranberries.

I made the topping just as Dorie wrote the recipe. I like coconut and wanted to see what it added to the topping. I honestly can't say I even noticed it. Something added a nice crunch to the final product and I guess it could have been the coconut, but I really didn't taste coconut. And, I was almost disappointed by that. Almost.

The finished dish was amazing. Tart and sweet. Soft and crunchy. I didn't add anything else to mine, though I did put a dollop of whipped cream on the hubby's. (He eats whipped cream on just about everything!) As with any dish with cranberries, he commented on the tartness. But, he finished the bowl. (He left all the wonderful raisins in the dish though...can't get him to eat those!)  I did have one complaint and that was that the apples cooked down, so that heaping ramekins I put in the oven came out slightly over half full. :(  Next time (Oh yes, I will make this again!) I will pack the fruit in the bowl, rather than just spoon it in as I did.

So, thumbs up to Em for picking this one. It was a big winner with me. Please stop by TWD to see what everyone else baked this week.