- First order of business
I got another armload of chocolates! I spotted the Vosges Marzipan bar in the sale bin so that was an instant grab. I was interested to know what the world renowned Leonidas Feuilletine chocolate was like. It was a milk chocolate with tiny crushed up biscuit pieces for a little crunch–done very well! I loved the Coco Chocopod so much I had to get another one, plus the panko flavor. The panko flavor is dark chocolate with panko breadcrumbs and sea salt. I’ve been wanting to get back to dark chocolate and sea salt. I think that’s my tried and true variation. That’s where the 72% dark chocolate with sea salt and caramel comes in. I haven’t tried it yet, but the trusted guy at the store told me he loves it. We’ll see!
- This week I met up with my lovely friend for a baking date!
- She had lots of carrots, so we wanted to make something using them.
Any guesses? We were going to make carrot cupcakes, but then I saw a picture of cinnamon rolls. So I exclaimed, “why don’t we make carrot cake cinnamon rolls?!” Carrot cake cinnamon rolls it was.
We loosely followed that recipe since it was in metrics and conversions can be quite tricky when it comes to baking. Baking can be tricky in itself.
- Making dough with our hands.
- And now the funnest part!
Kneading dough is one of my favorite things to do.
- Matilda trying to be sneaky.
- She made smoothies while we waited for the dough to rise.
- So delicious! This is what the gods drink when the weather gets hot.
- The dough was done rising, and then it was time to get rolling.
- So cool! I’d never done anything like this before.
I loved this part of the recipe “use a serrated bread knife to cut the dough into 12-18 sections – depending on how long your roll is or how fat you like your buns.” We didn’t want them to be too squished, since we wanted them to have room to get nice and fat! That is indeed how we like our buns.
- They had to proof for 15 more minutes, and then into the oven they went.
- And 15 minutes later, out of the oven they came!
- Spread on some homemade cream cheese frosting…
- Hats off to carrot cake cinnamon rolls aka the best cinnamon rolls ever.
- Then later that day I had plans to cook dinner for some friends of the family.
I was whisked away to their house, and got to prepping, cooking, spilling water and wine, and dancing! A lot can happen in a kitchen.
- So colorful!
- And we finally had dinner close to 10 pm–not too tired to eat yet.
I made Coconut Rice with Black Beans and Fried Plantains. I didn’t use the bacon though, a common ingredient in latin recipes for flavoring. Anyway, they loved this dish and even asked for the recipe! The recipe says that it serves 8, but the only thing there were barely leftovers of was the rice. I think that speaks for itself.
- In good company
This goes back to the question in my last post: if you consider yourself a baker or a cook… or both! This time around it was nice to cook for my family’s friends, and it was a way for me to show I care. I picked out a recipe that would share a side of my heritage, something everyone could enjoy, and not too fussy. Afterall, I wasn’t trying to impress anyone, just have a nice time hanging out with my friends.
When was the last time food brought you together with people you love? Or perhaps it’s a quirky eating habit you and someone you know share.
