I love when one of my weekend baking extravaganzas turns up all new recipes with a one hundred percent success rate. Usually when I try several new recipes, at least one is a dud, but this weekend everything turned out fantastic (as evidence I present the fact that it is only Monday evening and the only thing left from all this baking is a single loaf of bread). The brownies above are just the Baker's one-bowl recipe, which is a favorite in our family, but I added 3/4 cup chopped pistachios and 2 Tbs orange zest, drizzled melted semi-sweet chocolate across the top, and sprinkled them with another 1/4 cup of pistachios. They looked lovely and tasted
wonderful.
These cookies were also delicious, and they have the added distinction of being historically significant. They're called Orange-Cardamom Walnut Vienna Crescents (from the Williams-Sonoma Baking cookbook), and as all you fans of the Austro-Hungarian Empire know, most of the crescent-shaped baked goods coming from Vienna date back to the Austrians' victory over the Turks in 1683. Since the symbol of the Ottoman Empire was the crescent, eating crescent-shaped things symbolized their defeat. Wunderbar, nein?
The last new recipe from this weekend was this lovely whole-wheat bread. My mum used to make bread all the time, but as our family grew and she (understandably) had other things taking up her time, we got used to eating store-bought bread. I'm attempting to revert to making all or most of our bread at home, and this recipe may make that possible- it was quick and easy, and has that unmistakable yeasty, hearty, slightly-sweet taste that home-made bread
should have. Also, it has character- no bread bought at the store looks this good.
As a bonus, here's a picture of a blackberry-tea bag on an antique plate- I love the rich pink color of the tea against the creamy pottery. ei
I love when one of my weekend baking extravaganzas turns up all new recipes with a one hundred percent success rate. Usually when I try several new recipes, at least one is a dud, but this weekend everything turned out fantastic (as evidence I present the fact that it is only Monday evening and the only thing left from all this baking is a single loaf of bread). The brownies above are just the Baker's one-bowl recipe, which is a favorite in our family, but I added 3/4 cup chopped pistachios and 2 Tbs orange zest, drizzled melted semi-sweet chocolate across the top, and sprinkled them with another 1/4 cup of pistachios. They looked lovely and tasted wonderful.
These cookies were also delicious, and they have the added distinction of being historically significant. They're called Orange-Cardamom Walnut Vienna Crescents (from the Williams-Sonoma Baking cookbook), and as all you fans of the Austro-Hungarian Empire know, most of the crescent-shaped baked goods coming from Vienna date back to the Austrians' victory over the Turks in 1683. Since the symbol of the Ottoman Empire was the crescent, eating crescent-shaped things symbolized their defeat. Wunderbar, nein?
The last new recipe from this weekend was this lovely whole-wheat bread. My mum used to make bread all the time, but as our family grew and she (understandably) had other things taking up her time, we got used to eating store-bought bread. I'm attempting to revert to making all or most of our bread at home, and this recipe may make that possible- it was quick and easy, and has that unmistakable yeasty, hearty, slightly-sweet taste that home-made bread should have. Also, it has character- no bread bought at the store looks this good.
As a bonus, here's a picture of a blackberry-tea bag on an antique plate- I love the rich pink color of the tea against the creamy pottery. ei
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