You are SO good lookin...

I knew nothing about Babka until Seinfeld enlightened me.

I am a Utahn. My understanding is that those of you who live in the East know all about Babka...so I turned to you for guidance. I searched many food blogs and recipe sights to find what people considered the ultimate Babka. The verdict??? Neither cinnamon, nor chocolate, but a marriage of the two. Apparently, the streusel topping is as important as properly acting yeast. Marry and streusify I did.

Yeast doin' its' thing...

Dough with dough hook

Streusel topping made while dough rises

Inards, also made while dough rises

Large loaf, all rolled up and generously twisted

Preparing mini-loaves. The recipe was supposed to make three large loaves, I did two large and made four small out of the last large. I thought the tiny ones turned out better!!

Tiny loaves before baking

Large loaves before baking

Large loaves straight outta the oven.
Y.U.M.

I have serious intentions of proper experimentation with all kinds of Babka in the near future. If you live in Utah and you'd like to reap the benefits of the gargantuan recipe yield, all you gotta do is give me the word!!

Yeah, I bake my own Birthday cake...

This cake is a ridiculous height. There are two yellow layers and two chocolate layers inside. I contem plated freezing a layer, but I simply couldn't have two of one and one of the other, so tall cake it was.

The layers were chiffon. I used Mark Bittman's basic chiffon cake recipe. It was yellow. In the chocolate batter, I reduced the flour and added that much cocoa powder. I felt this was a good method.

The frosting is vanilla seven minute, with chocolate seven minute marbled in. It was really just going to be vanilla, but I am a frosting girl, and felt as though there wasn't enough. When I decided to make more, I figured the outside might as well match the inside.


Here it is all dressed up.

Blogging Hiatus, New Post, Old Food

I am certain there must be some statistic regarding the amount of time a food blogger blogs. For example, 1 in 5 food bloggers post three times then forget all about their endeavor.
So...
the last time I posted was in November. November!!! That's a third of a year that's gone by! Time flies. F.L.I.E.S.
My lack of posting was not for the lack of things to post. Other things have simply found my time. Here, this lovely Saturday
afternoon, I will play a little bit of catch up.

This is a whole wheat german chocolate cake I made for my mom's birthday in December. It was disappointing, honestly. The wheatiness overshadowed the other flavors.
Sorry Mom.

Looks good though, right?
Note to self: play around with recipes in spare time...not for people's birthdays.

Rainy Saturday Concocting

There are many things I am grateful for. Among them?? Rain. Saturday afternoons. Sales on Baking Ingredients. Coffee. Cooking shows. All five at the same time. The sale is the critical point here. Normally, I would not buy marshmallows unless I needed them for something specific. For some reason, though, they called out to me among the chocolate chips, coconut flakes, bags o' nuts, et cetera. GOOD THING! What came of these gelatinous little confections?? Why, s'mores, of course. Afterall, no one likes "raw" marshmallows.

So I began by creating a cookie base. There were no eggs in the house, and I realized this a little too late in the game. Having no intentions of going to the store, I decided to make do. I wanted it to be graham crackery (duh), and not too sweet. Here's what I came up with...

Graham Cracker Cookies

1 c. salted almonds, pretty finely ground (I used my magic bullet)

2 graham cracker sheets, finely ground (again, the magic bullet, bless it)

1 c. dark brown sugar

3/4 c. white whole wheat flour

1 t. baking powder

1/2 c. softened butter (one stick)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray (PAM) a mini-muffin pan (mine has 32 spots). Whisk together everything but the butter. Add the butter and incorporate with your hands. The dough will come together into one nice ball. Set out some parchment paper, and roll the dough into two foot long logs. Slice the logs into 16 pieces each. Place the slices into your greased muffin pan. Bake for 12 minutes. Let the cookies cool for a good ten-ish minutes before you take them out.

After the cookies were cool, I couldn't decide if I wanted sandwich cookies, open-facers, or something resembling a moonpie. I decided to go the sandwich route. I melted a couple cups of mini marshmallows over medium high heat, stirring constantly. I wanted the toasty flavor of a campfire s'more, so I waited until the marshmallow began to brown slightly. When this happened, I began spooning the marshmallow onto some of the graham cookie bases. AHHH! Worst idea ever. So I did that to fifteen of them before I gave up. I topped six of those fifteen with six un-marshmallowed cookies. Six sandwiches was all I was up for this afternoon.

So with the nine remaining marshmallowed, and seventeen remaining unmarshmallowed cookie bases, I decided to take the broiler route. I topped all of the cookies with 4 marshmallows, and put them under a broiler on medium heat. I stood there and watched cause I knew those suckers would brown up quick, I'm no stranger to marshmallow roasting!

Then I simply set all my marshmallowed cookies back on the parchment paper, melted a cup of milk chocolate chips, and drizzled away.

They are devilish little things. I simply could not help myself from snagging another...and another...and...you get the picture.

Peabody's Glorious Bailey's Cake

Last Tuesday was my father's 50th birthday. I wanted to concoct something faaabulous for him. Unfortunately, many of his loved ones had this plan, too. People were assigning themselves courses right and left. As quick as I could, I assigned myself cake duty. Mistake??? Well, not exactly. Considering how indecisive I can be at times, and the infinite number of recipes entitled "The Best Birthday Cake Ever", this could have been trouble. I had been, however, trolling CulinaryConcoctionsByPeabody regularly. THANK YOU PEABODY! I still had a hard time making up my mind to actually stick with one recipe (as opposed to cramming 4 or 5 into one). Peabody's Bailey’s Caramel Irish Cream Cake (http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2007/09/19/totally-awesome-fer-sure-dude/) seemed decadent, and extravagant enough to celebrate a 50th birthday.

If you go to Peabody's website, you will see that I left off the store bought caramel topping, and opted to top the cake with leftover ganache and frosting bits. I just piped them into little mounds.

Oh! Speaking of leftover frosting and ganache...boy was there plenty! Peabody often makes "small batch" baked goods. This recipe was for a "regular" (9 inch rounds) sized cake. I literally could have frosted 24 cupcakes in addition to the cake. And by no means am I a stingy froster.

Also, as the name of my blog would suggest, I am in fact, in Utah. See: High Altitude. This being said, I would absolutely use Peabody's recipe as a base again in the future, albeit a loose base. I loved the frosting. I would be happy with a regular ol' ganache...no caramel candies necessary (as they didn't add much flavor IMHO). The cake layers were too dense and crumby for Salt City elevation. Don't get me wrong, the cake got rave reviews, there are just a few things I could tweak to guild the lily in the future.