When did life get so busy anyway?? I made this claim that I was going to bake my way through Anna Olson's Back to Basics this summer and I literally haven't even made one thing since that post. I'd been feeling too busy to bake lately when random grocery shop at Walmart of all places found me buying two bags of key limes that were calling my name. Have you ever seen key limes? I hadn't and it turns out they're teeny-tiny. Naive, I set out to bake some delicious key lime bars which required the juice of twenty four key limes (actual=35). Key limes are so hard to juice! Pro-tip: don't juice key limes :) ... I mean, focus on the key limes that are more brown in colour, as they tend to juice easier than pretty bright green ones. In the end, these bars actually turned out quite well. If I were to make them again, I would add a touch of brown sugar to the crust, and bake for slightly longer than indicated. Always bake to the touch/smell/sight though as most ovens are not created equal (ours runs hot). Enjoy!
http://www.marthastewart.com/354984/key-lime-bars
http://www.marthastewart.com/354984/key-lime-bars
After baking the key lime bars, I had the itch to bake again and woke up early to make some strawberry muffins for Rick's work and chocolate chip muffins for mine. The chocolate chip muffin recipe comes from a family favourite recipe book called Muffin Mania that I remember my mom using when I was little and the strawberry muffin recipe came from the good ol' Internet. I'm excited to report that at this point I no longer need to measure most ingredients! I know what a tablespoon of baking soda looks like, a cup of milk, 1/4 cup of butter, 2 eggs ;) etc. It's kind of thrilling for me! Anyway, both muffins worked out pretty well, but I would add a hit of fresh basil and a sprinkling of rock sugar to the top of the strawberry muffins if I made them again.
Lastly, baking at the cottage is a snap thanks to a clever idea from my mom. We recently took a week long holiday at a cottage and knowing how much I needed and wanted to relax, she sent us on our way with pre-measured and pre-packaged ingredients with which to bake anything from pancakes to scones to cookies. On each bag she wrote any ingredients (ie. eggs) that needed to be added as well as the recipes. Good one, mom! (more on the cottage in a later post.)
Oops, okay now I'm on 'lastly'. Rick's dad is celebrating his birthday next weekend and I have decided to do something special that also just happens to be in Anna Olson's Back to Basics. It's called Dobos Torte and it's an Hungarian classic. It's also notoriously tedious... stay tuned!
♥
Hayley Sara
♥
Hayley Sara