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.
breakfast
Three things went into the making of these Swedish Sourdough Cardamom Buns: 1. despite the fact that I am baking like crazy with Cookie Madness, I have to still feed Alice in Wondoughland, 2. I was having not such a great day and needed to cheer myself up; baking usually does that and 3. I love — no, I mean love-love Cardamom. If you aren’t a sourdough person, there is a yeasted version of these Kardemummabullar on this site as well. In the meantime, I am going to try not to eat all of these in one sitting. Yummy.
In between all the other things that I am baking — whoo hoo Cookie Madness! — I need to keep my sourdough starter in tip top shape, so I made a new variation on the weekly sourdough experiment: Sourdough Maple Pecan Harvest Bread. A little nutty, a little maple-y and definitely a good choice for breakfast and bread pudding. Very New England autumn inspired.
This week in Sourdough experiments, I went with a Honey Porter Miche, aka Honig Dunkel Bier Mischbrot, aka a Honey Porter Rye and Whole Wheat Loaf. It’s a little darker, thicker and heavier than some of my other breads, but intentionally so. And it has a great flavor. The porter is a little bitter, the honey sweet and the combination is just right for a hearty slice with raclette cheese or with a warm soup as autumn rolls in. This will have to stay on the rotation, I think.
Here’s another apple recipe! This one to keep those apples “long term” (depends on how quickly you go through the jar of jam!) and still as delicious! Apple cider, warm mulling spices and chunks of Crispin apples all mixed together. This jam tastes sort of like a really intense apple pie filling. Delicious on toast or even mixed into yogurt. A spoonful of autumn!