Nazook

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

Making the nazook was a lot easier than expected. I made the dough the night before, so all I had to do was roll it out and add the crumble. I loved how the egg yolk wash gave the nazook a beautiful golden glaze.

I made a slight error in my nazook making process. I realized after taking a bite that I forgot to put the vanilla extract into the crumble! As a result, I think they ended up tasting not as sweet as I thought they should be. However, they were still very tasty and I couldn't help eating a few, before they were even finished cooling.

Dutch Crunch Rolls

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

Dutch Crunch Roll

A generous amount of "crunch" mixture

What are those strange looking rolls?

I was so excited to bake these. The first time I had a dutch crunch bread was in Cupertino. My bf took us to a sandwich shop right across from the Apple campus. I have been meaning to find a recipe for it, but luckily it was our March DB challenge! Just my luck that he was in town for this challenge. My bf and I had to try some right when they came out the oven. Tomorrow we're having it for lunch as a caprese sandwich with pesto. Yum.

You can find the recipe HERE. The only change I made was using a mixture of bread flour and all purpose flour.

Weekend Trip to Apple Country

I went on a weekend trip to Julian, CA with a friend and my little dog, Romeo. It isn't apple picking season yet, but they're also known for their pies. We walked around Main Street and stopped by all the little shops.

I had the Bumbleberry pie at Mom's, which they warmed up for me. The crust was nice and flaky. We also got ourselves some flavored cider at the Cider Mill. The highlight of our trip, however, was the Julian Book House across the street from the Julian Pie Company. 

Breakfast for One

I'm back in blogging business! I got exactly what I needed to kick start another year of blogging. A new camera lens. I want to give a shout out to my lovely boyfriend, who got me the best present ever!

I was so excited to try out my new camera that I had to take pictures of what I whipped up for breakfast. French toast!

Homemade Guacamole

Guacamole is such an easy thing to make. I have to admit, I wasn't really a fan of guacamole, or avocado for that matter, but then I made homemade guacamole for my b/f and now I love it. I have to say that the simpleness of it makes it even more appealing. I don't really want to call it a recipe, since it is so simple and requires little instructions, but I have included the recipe to make my version of guacamole. Now I just need a blender, so I can make my own strawberry margaritas and it would be a perfect start to my weekend.
(Recipe after the break)

Focaccia Bread

I've been M.I.A. lately because of my summer internship. I also just moved into a new apartment. I'm finally getting settled in, so I thought I'd finally update my poor, neglected blog.

So there is this amazing Italian restaurant in La Jolla called Piatti and they serve perfectly warm slices of focaccia with this amazing oil, vinegar, herb, and garlic dipping sauce. I could just go there just for the bread. It's that good. Being the person that I am, I decided to try to replicate the same delicious bread at home. I can never be happy with just eating good food, I need to know how to make it myself, too.

I used Peter Reinhart's recipe. I definitely recommend getting the book. It's like a textbook and a cookbook got married and had a baby. The book has a couple chapters that educate the reader, but there are also lots of great recipes and pictures of BREAD. I haven't baked the perfect bread yet, but Reinhart's book has definitely helped me become more comfortable with bread baking.

For the bread baking process, the first day was the easy part and it doesn't take too long. The second day is long because you have to proof the bread a couple times and also prepare the herb oil if you haven't already. I made the mistake of starting at 7:00 P.M. This lead me to extend the bread making into a third day. Regardless, the smell of bread baking early in the morning was a-m-a-z-i-n-g and totally worth it. I also ended up making croutons with the leftover bread. YUM.

(Recipe after the jump)

Fraisier

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Fraisiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

 

Sorry for the low quality photo. I made this when I was in Seattle, so I didn't have my mixer or any of my baking stuff. I had to bum off of my friend and use what little baking supplies she had. On top of that, I forgot to bring my camera and that is how we ended up with this low quality camera photo. The recipe can be downloaded here.