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General Reference/Tutorial

Breads, General Reference/Tutorial

Pumpkin-shaped Sourdough Boule

This is a trend that I’ve been seeing recently on some of the bread-baking sites that I follow: shaping a regular loaf of bread (a standard boule) into a pumpkin loaf. There is nothing pumpkin or pumpkin-spice flavored about this bread: it is just a regular loaf of my standard artisan sourdough bread. But to make it a little festive, you can imprint the loaf by loosely tying cooking twine around it before baking. I used a cinnamon stick as the “stem” just to complete the look. Makes a nice presentation for a harvest / autumn / Thanksgiving meal.

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30. October 2022
Breakfast/Brunch, General Reference/Tutorial

Honey Crisp Apple Jam

Honey Crisp Apples are my favorite apples. Pink Ladies are a close second, but I do like Honey Crisps the best. The dilemma with that is that often Honey Crisp Apples are HUGE — I’ve seen them the size of grapefruit and that is not so much fun. My solution is that I go apple picking, like I did this past weekend, and seek out the really small ones. IMO opinion, they are better for pies and in this case, jam. The jam is partially made of unpasteurized, from-the-farm cider, which was also mostly honey crisps, so double the goodness!

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19. September 2022
Appetizers/Starters, Dinner, General Reference/Tutorial, Lunch, Salads, Savory Snacks

Spicy Tomato Ranch Seasoning Mix

If there is a “flavor profile” that I think of as “very American”, it is “Ranch” — every culture has one or a few signature flavors, and this one I think is pretty American. The packets that you can buy (like the Hidden Valley ones) are also a popular request item when I go to Germany. It’s actually not all that hard to make yourself — just got to get those ratios right — and this time, I decided to take my spice mixture to another level by adding tomato and chili powders. I know there may be some “Ranch Purists” out there that might not agree, but I think it is pretty darn good.

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3. July 2022
Breakfast/Brunch, General Reference/Tutorial

Breakfast Bacon, in the Oven

Yup, a stack of bacon! It’s breakfast, right? Well this is more about technique than a recipe per se. Everyone has their own way of cooking bacon. In the pan, in the oven, even in the microwave. My method involves the oven, covering the pan with aluminum foil, and by placing the bacon on a wire rack placed on the prepared baking sheet. This increases the airflow so the bacon cooks evenly and makes it crispier, and reduces clean up and splatters in the oven. Very much a “set it and forget it” for at least 45 minutes (and then I usually check until it is the crispiness of my liking). It might not completely count as a full breakfast, but it IS bacon, so I’ll eat it! 🙂

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18. January 2022
General Reference/Tutorial

How to make your own Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate Mix

As many of you know, I try to make many of my Christmas pressies myself (including of course, cookie madness!), so trying to get a head start on some, I made Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate Mix. Quite easy to make, though bashing the hard caramels to bits first with a meat mallet and then the food processor was loud! I put ratios in the recipe instead of exact measurements, in case you wanted to make a lot or a little.
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21. November 2021