{twd} oasis naan or we’re married

I wavered in my decision to make this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie selection–Oasis Naan. In the end I chose to bake a half a recipe. I love naan, the flat bread served in Indian restaurants, and have baked it before. Of course, I didn’t bake it in the traditional tandoor oven. It was still tasty and overall simple to bake. This recipe differed from others in that it is sprinkled with coarse salt, cumin seeds, and chopped scallion. We ate them with scrambled eggs for lunch.

No good pictures, though. The charger for Paul’s camera was left behind at his parent’s house after our wedding. Oh, yes. We’re married. 🙂 It was a perfect day. Gorgeous weather and great guests. We departed quickly for our beach honeymoon, hence the forgotten charger. I’ll share a few wedding pictures instead. I’m sure you won’t mind.

The ceremony. Barefoot!:

Nani #17, our dog, took the proceedings very seriously:

We had a doughnut cake instead of cake:

With my “sisters”:

We’re married 🙂 :

Back to the reason for this post…I took horrible pictures of the naan with my phone. So horrible, I’m embarrassed to share.  Please visit Maggie of Always Add More Butter and Phyl of Of Cabbages & King Cakes for the recipe and for great pictures. You can also find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia on page 149.

No Nut Sticky Buns

While I wouldn’t mind a pecan or two, Paul is not a fan of most nuts in baked goods. And I have a wedding dress to fit into in 4 days (!). Speaking of which, with last minute RSVPs, multiple calls to catering and the party rental people, and figuring out seating arrangements–I am very ready for our mini-moon to the beach. Until then, we have massages and facials on the calendar today and I’ve started physical therapy.

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is for Pecan Sticky Buns. Instead of pecans, I used white chocolate chunks and dried cherries. I made a full recipe of brioche (in my food processor–first time! as my stand mixer is dead and no way was I going to make brioche by hand with my bum knee) but only half recipe of the buns. I baked the buns in a cupcake tin which made them more like morning buns.

My gosh, these things were good. A flaky and tender, sweet breakfast treat worthy of a full batch when I’m back to cycling and running and training and working and moving. You can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Juila or you can visit the blogs of this week’s hosts:  Lynn of Eat Drink Man Woman Dogs Cat and Nicole of Cookies on Friday.

And this marks my 400th post! Cheers!

photo by paulrus

Cupcakes!

Our wedding is in 10 days and I have good news on the knee front. X-ray shows I’m on track and am perfectly healing. I’m cleared for physical therapy to work on improving my strength and  range of motion (ROM). I’m at 70º right now and 135º or so is normal. Now I just need to practice walking down the aisle.

The amount of television I’ve watched in the last few weeks rivals the amount I’ve watched my whole life prior to my injury. I’m exaggerating a tiny bit. Just a bit. Streaming Netflix has been a lifesaver while I’ve been stuck at home. TV Shows I’ve watched their complete available libraries include: United States of Tara, Raising Hope, The League, Better of Ted, Parks & Recreation, The Killing, Damages, Downtown Abbey, Portlandia, Cake Boss. I’m currently watching: Bones, Samantha Who, Sports Night, White Collar, How I Met Your Mother, Lie to me. See? Lots of TV.

What does all this have to do with cupcakes? Well. While watching Cake Boss, I decided I need to give this decorating thing a try. I’m what you call a rustic decorating. A sprinkle of powdered sugar does wonders. I decided to start small. Cupcake small. I ordered a couple of cupcake books from Amazon (not really able to go to bookstores now).

One of those cookbooks is Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes and these cupcakes are the first recipe in the book: Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Frosting. Yum. As you can see, not a lot of fancy decorating here. I’m starting slow. You can find the recipe for the cupcake base HERE and for the dark chocolate frosting HERE.

Cream Cheese Swirl Blondies

There is the endless debate between fans of fudge-like brownies and cake-like brownies. This is the first time I’ve baked cake-like blondies, which make them pretty much cake. A delicious snack cake with a tight crumb, but nonetheless, still cake.

The recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Cookie of the Day email (another one!) for April 22. I baked as directed and after tasting it (again and again and again) I decided it is the perfect vehicle for other flavors. Maybe add some cinnamon to the batter or use a flavored cream cheese or make it boozy and add Frangelico or Kahlúa to the swirl. Since the blondies use simple ingredients that we tend to have on-hand and Paul thought they were great, I’ll make them again as to not break his heart. 😉

Cream Cheese Swirl Blondies Recipe

(For the record, I prefer fudge-like brownies but I have no problem eating cake-like brownies.)

photo by paulrus

{twd} hungarian shortbread

Hungarian Shortbread? What the heck is Hungarian Shortbread? I had visions of a smoky, spicy version of the buttery, sandy cookie. As it turns out, this week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is a shortbread sandwich cookie filled with jam.

I made a quarter of the dough recipe and only used half of what I made. Once made, the dough is formed into balls and frozen. Then it’s grated directly into the pan (in my version I used round cookie cutters to bake the cookies), spread with jam (I didn’t attempt the rhubarb jam recipe instead used mango butter from Trader Joe’s as the filling), and then topped with more grated dough.

This created a light airy buttery cookie (or my case 4 cookies total) that was a winner here and enjoyed by all (okay, only Paul and I because there wasn’t enough cookies to share.)

You can find the recipe for Hungarian Shortbread in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia or with these week’s hosts:  Lynette of 1smallkitchen and Cher of The Not So Exciting Adventures of a Dabbler…