PESTO PARMESAN PINE NUT RUSSIAN ROSE LOAF

WORLD BREAD DAY WITH THE BREAD BAKING BABES & BUDDIES

That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty... you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. 

– J.D Salinger 

Sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. You know what I mean? I am the kind of person who is often discombobulated, missing dates and deadlines, forgetting those teeny tiny obligations I have committed myself to. I am often flustered and flummoxed, running out of time, down to the last second as I attempt to reorganize my day and jump into something that I should have attacked and taken care of ages ago. My life, albeit like so many others’, is cluttered, confusing and complicated, a life spread out between two apartments as it is squashed between demands of family, career and renovation, leaving me unorganized at best, distracted at worst. * sigh *

I used to bake bread once a week, several times a month, bringing pleasure to my family while faithfully keeping up with the various bread baking events in the food blogosphere: Bread Baking Day, Yeastspotting, Bread Baking Babes and Buddies. And then life got in the way. (which I find a truly inexplicable aphorism.) And I allowed myself to be distracted. And I bake bread less often. How easy it is for me, living in France with a boulangerie on every corner filled to the gills with gorgeous bread, baguettes and boules, brioche and miches, seeded and plain, studded with lardons and dusted with cheese, straight, square, twisted or braided, to have a constant flow of bread at my fingertips with no more effort than it takes to slip on a coat and skip around the corner. I simply do not need to bake bread, whether savory or sweet. And how my French family is hooked on bread! A meal just isn’t a meal without that loaf, long and thin or round and plump. Bread and cheese rounds off every meal, often simply taking the place of dessert. Bread and cheese accompanied by a piece of fruit or two is, for every Frenchman, the perfect ending to any meal. Or a meal in itself. So each morning, we dash to our favorite bakery, breathe in the heavenly odor of just-baked bread, the tang of yeast biting into the soft, sweet air. And we make our choice, whichever strikes us, tempts us that particular day. And we break off the end, the bit of rounded crust, as we run home again, popping it into our mouth, fresh and warm, satisfied with a job well done, this ritual of French life.

Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; 

and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts. 

– James Beard 

But Monday, I popped into the Bread Baking Babes & Buddies Facebook group page to see what the girls were up to, to admire their work, and lo and behold, horror of horrors, I realized that it was World Bread Day. Bread, as I have before stated, is manna from heaven, a daily need, a necessary part of our life. Basic, simple, flour, yeast and water, maybe salt and sugar, and the most wonderful of textures, tastes, smells wraps around us and fills us with joy. From there, create a masterpiece on the tabula rasa that is dough: savory or sweet, filled, rolled or topped; sliced and spread, smeared, piled high with mountains of creamy, gooey, spicy, salty, fruity, smoky whatever you love; sandwich it, bagel or rye, Challah or biscuit, bread as plate, fork, spoon or knife to be enjoyed, marveled at, savored inside or out. Schoolyard treat, picnic mainstay, center of a meal, bread is the be all and end all, the nec plus ultra, both the anchor and the backbone of any meal, any cuisine.

So I brushed off my desk, folded up the laptop, pushed my work to one side and walked right into that kitchen to bake. How could I not pay homage to bread, to share the love and vaunt the importance of this necessary part of our daily lives?

For this special day, for World Bread Day, the BBB Kitchen of the Month, our hostess Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups has chosen the stunning Russian Rose bread, adapted from a recipe found on The Fresh Loaf. The dough is so quick and easy to put together, a one-bowl recipe with only a quick knead necessary. Allow to rise, roll very thin into a large rectangle, fill with almost any filling, savory or sweet, roll jellyroll style, slice into to pieces lengthwise and, with the two cut sides up, twist, roll and voilà a Russian Rose. It is as easy as that.

I chose to fill mine with pesto. I then grated on extra Parmesan cheese and sprinkled on a couple of handfuls of pine nuts before rolling, slicing, twisting and allowing a second rise. Glazed and topped with a bit more grated cheese and pine nuts, the baked bread was not only gorgeous but dense and flavorful with pesto and the light crunch of pine nuts. And the family loved it! A perfect bread to serve with a salad or a bowl of soup and then to nibble on throughout the day. Thank you, Tanna, for a marvelously easy, fast and stunningly delicious bread.

Happy World Bread Day. Enjoy!

Thanks to Zorra of Kochtopf for allowing the Babes and Buddies to participate in World Bread Day as a group.

I would like to share this bread with Susan of Wild Yeast for Yeastspotting.

With the ground flaxseeds and pine nuts, this bread is perfect for October’s Twelve Loaves challenge Sometimes I feel like a nut… a seed or a grain! Twelve Loaves is a monthly baking challenge I run with Barb of Creative Culinary and Lora of Cake Duchess.

PESTO PARMESAN PINE NUT RUSSIAN ROSE LOAF
A magnificent bread under 4 hours!

For recipe details and extra tips, please visit Tanna’s post here. All changes and additions are my own.

For the dough:
600 g (21 oz) flour (I used 200 g/7 oz bread flour + 400 g/14 oz French all-purpose flour)
2-3 tablespoons ground flax seeds or wheat germ or a combo (I used 3 Tbs Linwood’s finely ground Flaxseed + Gogi Berries)
2 1/2 tsp dry yeast (Fresh Yeast 28g/1oz)
10 g (0.35oz) sugar
10g (0.35oz) salt
50 ml (1.7 fl oz/ ¼ cup) olive oil or vegetable oil considering replacing canola with olive oil & part butter
1 tablespoon white vinegar (I used cider vinegar)
300 ml (10 fl oz/1 ¼ cups) warm water + more as needed

Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tsp cold water)

For the filling:
190 g (6.7 oz) pesto, homemade or good quality jarred
Parmesan cheese
Pine nuts
Smoked paprika, optional

Place a 26cm (10-inch) springform (ring only, no bottom) onto a piece of parchment paper and place on top of a baking sheet. Set aside.

Place all of the dough ingredients except the water in a large mixing bowl. Add the tepid water gradually as you start mixing (I used a wooden spoon). Add as much water as needed until all of the dry ingredients are moistened and pull together into a dough. If in doubt, add a little too much water for a slightly wet dough; a dough too dry is much more difficult to correct once you begin kneading. Scrape the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead for about 5 or 6 minutes until the dough is supple and not sticky to the touch, kneading in more flour as necessary. When the dough is ready, spray or rub a bowl with oil and gently put the dough in the bowl, turning to coat the dough all over with oil; cover the bowl with plastic wrap and then a clean kitchen towel. Let rise for about 80%, for about 40 minutes to an hour.

Lightly flour your work surface. Flatten the dough gently with your hands and turn out onto the work surface. Roll the dough into a large triangle as thin as you can using a floured rolling pin. When rolling out the dough, try not to lift and move it too much. You can try and gently pull the dough to stretch it thin like a Strudel dough.

Apply a thin layer of the filling – here, pesto - evenly all over the dough but leaving a clean filling-free ¼-inch edge all around. Dust lightly with extra Parmesan if desired then sprinkle a handful or two of pine nuts evenly over the filling.

Brush a light coating of egg wash on the bottom edge closest to you for sealing. Slowly, tightly and very gently roll the dough from the top towards you into a roulade as for a jellyroll (watch the video for this). Once rolled, carefully press the seam to seal. You will now have a very long roulade or log. Roll the log back and forth to even out the thickness. Once you have your very long roulade even and well sealed, carefully roll the turn the roulade seam down.

Take a sharp chef's knife (not a serrated knife) and cut (not saw) off the two ends to even and then slice the roulade lengthwise from one end to the other, trying to keep the knife in the middle so you end up with two equal parts.

Turn the cut sides of the two halves face upwards then cross one length over the other in the center, forming an X. Starting from the center where the two lengths cross, gently but tightly twist the two pieces together. Going back to the center and working center out, twist the two loose ends together. You will now have one long twisted two-strand rope. Gently pinch the ends to seal.

Slowly and very gently, roll the braid into a snail, as tight as possible without squeezing or deforming the layers; the open roulade layers should remain facing up. Pinch the end delicately and tuck under. The end result should look like a giant snail shell or a very large cinnamon bun. Very carefully, lift the loaf and place in the center of the springform ring on the parchment paper.

Cover with plastic wrap and the clean kitchen towel. Let the loaf rise until the braid is not quite doubles, about 40 minutes to an hour.

Brush any dough not covered with pesto or filling lightly with egg wash. Dust the top of the loaf lightly with more Parmesan and more pine nuts and then dust lightly with the smoke paprika.

Preheat the oven to 410°F (210°C).

Once risen, bake in the preheated oven at 410°F (210°C) for 10 minutes, then decrease the oven temperature to 355°F (180°C) and bake for another 25 – 35 minutes. The dough should be slightly risen and golden brown. The crust should sound hollow when tapped and there should be some spring when pressed.

Remove from the oven onto a cooling rack and lift off the ring around the loaf. Allow to cool before slicing and eating.

Take a bigger bite ...

CHOCOLATE COINTREAU FONDANT CAKE

DÉJÀ-VU ALL OVER AGAIN
- Yogi Berra

I would say to housewives, be not daunted by one failure, nor by twenty. Resolve that you will have good bread, and never cease striving after this result till you have effected it. 

If persons without brains can accomplish this, why cannot you? 

– Housekeeping in Old Virginia, 1878 

I can always sense when something has gone wrong. I can divine when my expectations will be dashed, my high hopes and excitement evaporating into thin air right before my very eyes. Dismay and disappointment wash over me, intermingled with confusion, a thousand little questions popping up like so many bright, blinking fireflies. I peer through the oven window, suffer the blast of damp heat that swallows me up as I tug open the door; I turn my head away and count one-two-three as the mist fades from my eyeglasses and turn back again to observe. I gently press my index and middle fingers down onto the cracked, sugary crust and hear that sssssssss of foamy, undercooked cake and feel the mousse-like quality of puffed yet wet batter. Will this cake, a creation that began as something so chocolaty, so orangey, so sexy, so promising, result in a calamitous failure?

Appearances can be deceiving. A failure, or what we imagine a failure, can sometimes be recuperated, or can actually be transformed into something more than worthwhile, something bordering on spectacular. A failure is merely a reflection of our expectations. We set the bar of perfection, we wring our hands in nervous anticipation, the suspense builds as we wait, each time we reset the timer, adding on just a few more minutes, as we carefully place that square of foil over the top of the browning cake, as we pray and beg that cake to puff and rise just as beautifully as the last time. Finally, we can take it no more. Afraid of an unmitigated disaster, assuming the worst, we switch off the heat and pull that pan out of the oven and drop it onto the rack. “It looks pretty good”, I firmly tell myself, trying to convince my better judgment, my worrywart alter ego. “It may actually be perfect! Moist but perfect!” And I wander off, better to let that cake cool in silence without my eyes boring into its very soul.

I didn’t fail the test, 

I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. 

– Benjamin Franklin 

I cross husband in the diningroom several minutes later where he announces “Your cake fell,” casually, almost as if it doesn’t matter. I dash in, heart stopped, stomach churning, disheartened, at the sight of that sunken crust. I twist the center tube up and out and place it on a rack unencumbered by the outer pan, almost expecting it to melt and collapse all over the table. But it holds. I wait until it is completely cool, afraid to move it, afraid to jinx what may otherwise be salvaged. And when I finally do, well, it doesn’t look so bad. I grab hold of the parchment paper and pull up, using my chin to press down on the tube until it falls away. I remove the parchment and flip the cake onto the serving platter, once again expecting it to fall into a thousand little pieces. Still holding. I make my ganache and carefully drizzle it all over the cake, as husband wanders in and comments about how it looks just like another one I did before and why make the same thing again? Ugh. I snap some photos, putting off the inevitable, avoiding direct confrontation of what could very well be something unworthy of my readers. I think back a couple of weeks when husband collapsed in fury, pulling at his hair and wailing over his failed attempt to waterproof the balcony of our future apartment which was a make-or-break necessity for installing the hot water heater. I calmed him down in my own sensible soothing way, as I always do, and told him nothing was a disaster; with patience, reasoning and thought everything could be recuperated and turned into a success. And here I was, berating myself for a failure. Silly.

There are no failures, 

just experiences and your reactions to them. 

– Tom Krause 

 The original Decadent Chocolate Cake with Christmas Spices

And so I took my knife and sliced. I took a few photos of that oddly shaped, dark, moist, dense sliver and then I did as I always do after a shoot… I tasted. A crucial part of food blogging that first taste, after all. And with that first forkful, as I wrapped my lips around the chunk of cake, felt the delicate mousse-like confection veritably melt onto my tongue, as my tastebuds were infused with a deep chocolate flavour quickly followed by a hint, a sweet surprising sensation of orange, unexpectedly ethereal, lingering long after I had swallowed, I realized that whatever had happened in that oven it was definitely not failure. Another bite, eyes closed, head filled with chocolate and orange as if breathed in from some bustling Willy Wonka warehouse of creation.

What had gone in the oven as cake had come out as fondant.

Maybe it was the extra liquid in those couple of tablespoons of Cointreau that did it; maybe it was the uneven oven or maybe I measured out too little flour. But whatever it was that changed the texture of the cake, my doodling around just with the idea to create the dessert that I wanted to eat altered forever the results. A little experimentation, a little confidence to dare to do something new, a bit of wishful prayers, worry and agitation channeled into something positive, and, as I told my husband that day as we stood and watched rainwater trickle under the plasterboard, a failure is only a failure if you allow it to be.

And, now that I think about it, this could all just be a simple and clear analogy for a writing career. The lingering bitter taste of frustration washed away with something sweet, the desire to teach oneself to transform imminent failure into success. Patience, determination, belief in oneself, faith that you can put the right ingredients together, toss in a splash of something exotic, the heady kick of courage and action, and yes, maybe you will turn that kick in the pants into something utterly satisfying. A success, just like that cake.

I served a slice of this Chocolate Cointreau Cake, now officially dubbed Fondant, to husband. Expectant glances, nervous waiting were finally answered with his “mmmmmm” and his “this is fabulous!” Oh, yes, it was.

And on another note... and speaking of successes, prepare yourself for the impending announcement of our next From Plate to Page food writing, styling & photography workshop! Dublin, Ireland. May 2013. Intensive, hands-on, non-stop sessions in a glorious setting, infused with convivialty, good drink and food, all the while honing your food writing, styling and photography skills and boosting your creativity! I'll be there!

Photo courtesy of P2P Tuscany alum Elizabeth of Roast Duck and a Big Gooey Cake!

CHOCOLATE COINTREAU FONDANT (CAKE)
With Chocolate Orange Almond Ganache Drizzle

Find the original recipe for Decadent Chocolate Cake with Christmas Spices here.

1 cup boiling water *
3 oz (90 g) unsweetened, bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
8 Tbs (115 g) unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups (400 g) sugar
2 large eggs, separated
1 tsp baking soda
½ cup (125 ml) sour cream (I used creamy 0% fat fromage frais/quark)
2 cups less 2 Tbs (250 g) flour (increase flour by 1 Tbs/10 g for a drier cake)
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs Cointreau **
Chocolate Ganache (recipe follows)

* What I love about cakes that add water is that all or part of the water can be replaced with other liquids to change the flavor of the cake; you can replace part of the water with strong coffee, orange juice or even the juice from jarred fruit such as cherries or blueberries. Just taste before using more than half a cup of flavored liquid. And make sure if you choose to replace some of the water with another liquid it goes well with whatever spice you decide to add. Or leave out the spice completely. And replace the Cointreau with Grand Marnier, Kahlua, Amaretto or rum.

** If you want the orange flavour but don’t want to add liqueur (Cointreau or Grand Marnier), feel free to replace it with the finely grated zest of an orange and/or ½ tsp of orange extract.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease and flour a 10-inch (25-cm) tube pan. I lined mine with ovenproof parchment paper as I was afraid that the batter would leak out the bottom of the pan.

Chop the chocolate, cube the butter and place them both together in a large heat-safe (Pyrex) mixing bowl. Bring the one cup of water* to the boil then pour over the chocolate and the butter, allowing it to stand and stirring until completely melted and smooth. Allow to cool slightly. Stir in the vanilla and the sugar, then whisk in the egg yolks, one at a time, until well blended.

Stir the baking soda into the sour cream. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and the baking powder together (if adding spices such as cinnamon, add the dry ground spice to the flour and baking powder here). First whisk the sour cream into the chocolate batter, then the flour, whisking until smooth and homogenous. Whisk in the Cointreau.

Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks hold. Fold about a third of the whipped whites into the chocolate batter until most of the white has disappeared, then fold in the rest of the whites in one or two additions. Try not to overwork the batter as you will beat out the air incorporated with the egg whites, but don’t be afraid to really fold and make sure no white lumps of any size remain or your finished cake, gorgeously dark, will have white spots in it.

Carefully pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes (depending on your pan and your oven), until the cake is set and a tester stuck down into the cake comes out clean. When I touched and gently pressed the surface of my cake at 40 and then 45 minutes I felt liquid or unset batter under the surface. After another couple of minutes, I touched and gently pressed the surface again and felt some resistance and knew that it was time to stick a tester (I use a long metal brochette spear) in. Done! Watch the cake carefully at the end as you neither want this cake underdone nor overdone and dry.

Note: as I mentioned in my story, the cake tester did come out clean yet this cake – with a bit more liquid and a tad less flour than the original cake did come out extremely moist, almost damp when cooled, sliced and eaten, yet it was light and ethereal, almost mousse-like.

To see photos of the cake as it comes out of the oven, look here.

Remove the cake from the oven and onto a cooling rack. Allow the cake to cool completely before loosening the cake from the sides of the pan (and the inner tube) with a sharp knife and carefully lifting it out of the pan. If you have lined the pan with parchment, you can grip the edges of the paper and lift it off of the tube. Then place a rack on the top of the cake, flip it over, peel off the parchment from the bottom of the cake, place your serving platter onto the upturned bottom of the cake then flip upright.

Prepare the Chocolate Orange Almond Ganache :

The orange flavor comes simply from using Lindt Excellence Orange Intense Chocolate with Almond bits in it; this is fabulous on this cake, adding just an extra zing of orange flavor.

Chop ¾ cup (100 g) dark chocolate and place in a medium-sized pyrex bowl.

Bring ½ cup (125 ml) heavy cream to a boil. Pour it over the chopped chocolate and allow to sit, stirring, until the chocolate is completely melted and the ganache is perfectly smooth.

Allow to sit at room temperature until it the desired consistency: to drizzle over the cake, it should retain its pouring consistency yet be just thick enough that it doesn’t all run off of and puddle around the cake on the plate.

Take a bigger bite ...

BETTER-THAN-INSTANT VANILLA CUPCAKES

MINI TREATS & HAND-HELD SWEETS (a review)

A bottle of half-drunk wine sits on a rumpled, faded tablecloth on the coffee table in front of the darkened television set, silent remnants of a meal eaten late in the evening by a family too tired to carry everything into the kitchen when it was done. Old, scruffed and battered moving cartons, decades-old packing tape, yanked off and pressed back into place too many times to count hanging loosely off the sides, are piled willy-nilly in the foyer, bags of paperback novels are lined up like soldiers down the long shelf-lined corridor. A move is imminent, the house groans under the weight of too many belongings, the pressure of time tilting in the wrong direction, coming perilously close. Neither focus nor energy to cook or shop, just barely enough time to dash to the other apartment and back again, stopping off on the way to pick up prepared foods and that necessary bottle of red or white, depending upon our mood.

So when the craving hits – whether that uncontrollable urge to measure, blend, stir, whisk or that crazy need to eat something sweet and homemade (all the time, as my husband never fails to remind me) – I turn to something simple, fast and easy. I love my one-bowl cake recipes, whether my brother’s Spicy Carrot Snack Cake or one of my amazing, please-everybody Chocolate Cakes, my Chocolate Chip Banana Bread or my latest discovery, Lemon Pecan Quick Bread with a swirl of jam down the center. Nothing fancy, no imaginative masterpiece, just simple and sweet, comforting and good. Staple ingredients that I have on hand at all times, measure the dry, measure the wet, whisk and in the oven and do some ironing or writing while it bakes. The hardest part of each of these recipes is the waiting until it is done and cooled enough to slice and enjoy.

And this is where Abby Dodge comes in. I love Abby. Call it friendship, call it admiration and respect, call it a girl crush, call it what you will, I love Abby. Yes, she and I are friends and I’ve had the great good pleasure to spend face time with her in both Paris and New York, the time in between punctuated by the occasional phone call. She is warm and funny, so kind and generous. Friend and mentor. But don’t think that I promote her cookbooks because she is a friend. I would never offer empty praise nor would I make promises to my readers and fellow baking aficionados about something that I myself didn’t absolutely love. Abby is an astonishingly talented baker and creates desserts and cake and treats that are often incredibly simple to make yet hit the spot every time – delicious, perfect, satisfying and homey.

 With Abby and Gail of One Tough Cookie

I am the happy owner of three of Abby’s cookbooks – The Weekend Baker, Desserts 4 Today and Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets and I love baking from them. Her Espresso Chocolate Cake with Mocha Mascarpone is a stunner and more than worthy of any celebration! Her Creamy Espresso Pudding soothes the coffee lover in me every time. Her Raspberry Blueberry Coffee Cake is tender and delicate with the sweet tang of fresh berries, a family favorite for breakfast. And her Nutella Fudge Brownie Bites? Do I even need to explain? I have come to have complete faith in Abby’s recipes; I know each will work and each will make my very hard-to-please family smile. And eat.

I recently went scrambling desperately through The Weekend Baker for something chocolate. My son was complaining that there was nothing to eat for breakfast, no snack waiting when he got home from class. He is as persnickety and fussy as they come, and for him I needed something that he calls “plain”, which translates as: nothing fancy, no creamy additions, no odd bits and strange flavors. Something that is familiar, that he recognizes. You see what I am up against? He’s lucky, because I just happened to be craving, for some inexplicable reason, chocolate cupcakes. Sometimes, those odd cravings just hit, don’t they? Happily, I discovered something called Emergency Blender Chocolate Cupcakes in the index and saw that, indeed, they were super easy and fast to make. Since simplicity and plain are the keywords around here and I knew that I would be topping those cupcakes with no frosting or whipped cream, I would definitely not be pushing a single red cherry down into the batter or hiding a rounded teaspoon of homemade Salted Butter Caramel Sauce (something I always seem to have hanging around these days) inside the center of each cupcake, I had to think in another direction, find something to make them special. So I made them into mini Bundts. And they were perfect.

And Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets (100 Delicious Desserts to Pick Up and Eat) arrived on my doorstep just as the last Chocolate Cinnamon Bundtlet disappeared (I do believe he ate the last four all at once). I had just made Abby’s Brown Butter Apple Hand Tarts from her most recent #BakeTogether – a recipe based on one from Mini Treats. I wanted to make something son, husband and I would love and I selected Almost-Instant Yellow Cupcakes. Which I refer to as Better-Than-Mix Yellow Cupcakes! Again, these were together in a flash. Abby suggests frosting these cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Frosting but I topped mine with our favorite Easy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. The cupcakes, like the Chocolate Cinnamon Bundt Cakes, are perfect! Dense and moist without being gooey or sticky, tender and so full of flavor that no frosting will hide the vanilla tastiness. I don’t often make cupcakes and rarely make vanilla cupcakes, but I cannot get enough of these. I haven’t eaten anything so delicious for ages! Yes, yes, I should write something much more poetic, descriptive, evocative, but how can I think anything other than “ooooooh mmmmmmm” as I am pushing one fabulous cupcake into my mouth after another they are that good?!

“Serving up dessert from this Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets means no plates, no forks, no spoons – no kidding.” explains Abby. “Easy-to-make and even easier-to-serve desserts that will dazzle” is the aim of Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets and Abby, as usual, hits it on the nose. The cookbook is filled with great recipes: Double-Trouble Chocolate Cupcakes, Streusel-Topped Double Cherry Slab Pie (the next on my own list), Lemon Meringue Pie Poppers, Mini Mocha Roll Cakes, Blood Orange and Creamy Tangerine Pops, White Chocolate-Cherry Popcorn to name a very few. And Abby, as she does in all of her cookbooks, gives extremely precise instructions that will give even the beginning baker confidence and great results, fun suggestions for twists to change up and personalize each treat, and her own Kitchen Wisdom oozing with her long experience.

Abby’s Emergency Chocolate Cupcakes and these Almost-Instant Yellow Cupcakes should be at the top of your baking repertoire, both perfect when you need a fast, easy, versatile and extraordinarily delicious treat, snack, breakfast or dessert. For more of Abby's great recipes visit her blog.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy as a gift from The Taunton Press but the decision to post a review and all opinions are my own. The decision to bake as much as I do from Abby's cookbooks is my own as well.

BETTER-THAN-INSTANT VANILLA CUPCAKES
From Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets by Abigail Johnson Dodge

1 ¼ cups (lightly spooned in the measuring cup and levelled with a knife) flour
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 tsps baking powder
½ tsp salt
6 Tbs (3 oz) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
½ cup water
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 yolk from a large egg, at room temperature
1 Tbs vanilla extract

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 375°F (190°C) – I have an unusually hot oven so I set mine to 180°C). Line 12 regular-sized (2 ¾-inch diameter) muffin cups with paper or foil liners (I used silicone cupcake cups).

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium or large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

Put the melted butter, water, egg and yolk and vanilla in a small bowl and whisk until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and whisk until well blended and smooth, about 1 minute.

Portion the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. (I poured the batter into a large measuring cup with a spout, which makes pouring easier and neater.) Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 14 to 16 minutes. Move to a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the cupcakes from the pan, set them on a wire rack and let cool completely.

Frost as you please. Eat as many as you like, in thoughtful moderation and saving some to share.

Take a bigger bite ...

LEMON PECAN ALMOND QUICK BREAD

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL LIKE A NUT…. OR A SEED OR A GRAIN 

The entire population of Nantes must spend Saturdays at Ikea. We show up at 9:30 a.m. sharp as the doors open, and already we are pushing through a babbling, excited throng of young couples, pregnant women, retirees and families. They stroll through the aisles as they would an art museum, simply admiring and casually enjoying their day out, or so it seems; they gawk and point as if at the local zoo. We, on the other hand, are there for one reason, and one reason only: to buy a kitchen. And we mean business. Husband sprints ahead and I trail in his wake, jogging to keep up, weaving in and out of bins piled high with sheets and pillows, rows of beds and sofas just beckoning my shins, hoping to make contact, dangerous mountains of glassware and dishes. I skirt around screaming children who have dropped to the ground in a call for attention, bored and tired, as angry, insistent mothers grab them briskly by the arm and pull them up and along. Fathers and husbands push huge, unwieldy trolleys as wives pause to study potted plants, cutting boards and price tags. Couples discuss, debate, compromise, stopped dead in their tracks, oblivious to the rolling waves of humanity clogging the aisles, attempting to push past them, myself included. I spot my husband somewhere up ahead, his head bobbing up and down in a determined trot. What has brought this mass of mortals to leave their warm beds, their comfortable homes to come to this cold, harsh, crowded spot at this ungodly hour on a Saturday morning?

This will be the nième time, six or eight? that we have visited, perusing the demonstration kitchens, discussing, debating, deciding. We would arrive as a blitzkrieg, route mapped out, artillery at the ready to meet any challenge, face any confrontation as we barreled through the store, on the offensive and prepared for the onslaught of fellow clients and rubberneckers. We had no time or patience for sightseers; no, my husband’s credo, when it comes to Ikea, the supermarket or any other place of mass consumption where the hurly burly of society crowd together in droves, is in and out as quickly and efficiently as possible. Sadly, no schmoozing for me. So the kitchen was selected – under duress – in a minimum of time and number of visits. Then came the all-important working with the kitchen counselor. One stands in line, is given a number and is given an indication of the time one must wait for said appointment with counselor. They say one hour and in about two and a half as the store lights are dimmed, the crowd dramatically thins out and the other counselors begin bidding each other good night, we finally sit down at a computer to go over our design.

 Designs C. Dagneaux

The kitchen space in the new apartment is, to say the least, unusual, in that it doubles as the entry and foyer; one walks into the kitchen when entering the apartment. So son and husband put their very clever brains together and came up with the ideal design. Happily, husband and I agreed immediately on the color scheme and countertop. Then the flooring – the type and color – were debated and decided upon – and this took about four visits to Leroy Merlin, that incredible mecca of home improvement. Which, I will add, fills my husband with more joy than any visit to Ikea can inspire. We are rarely in a rush at Leroy Merlin unless, of course, I want to peruse the wallpaper or lighting fixtures. All deco-visiting is briskly nixed. Then paint is selected and we are pretty well on our way, at that humbling point of no return: the official purchase of a kitchen.

And this is what we did this weekend. List securely in hand, we tumbled into Ikea with the rest of Nantes and scurried directly to elbow our place in line to await the prized visit with the kitchen counselor. Of course, this would all be so much easier and less stressful if we had conferred the design, delivery and installation to a professional cuisinista, but no, architect son would have none of it. He had to design it, he had to select the elements and he had to build it. And he certainly created and executed a smashing design! He took care of the problem of kitchen/entryway with flying colors. He accompanied us repeatedly to oversee the choice of elements, arguing over our “taste” only occasionally. He sat with the counselor and went over the minutia of the design and the measurements until it was perfect. And he even found a charming muscleman with a truck to help us pick up, deliver and carry up four flights of stairs 800 kilos (1800 lbs) of boxes containing our precious kitchen!

And we went through all of that with only a few fights, a fistful of bruises, dozens of pizzas and take-away kabobs, and our marriage still intact.

And this morning, sun streaming into the chilly kitchen, we began….

I have actually found a few afternoons to bake. And as the first Monday of each and every month is the Twelve Loaves announcement, I had to slip out early, leaving the two men happily ensconced in construction. Happily, Simon ate the last four of the tiny Chocolate Cinnamon Bundts this afternoon, leaving me the freedom to create another homebaked goodie in its place. A Lemon Pecan Quick Bread with a Blueberry Swirl and topped with Almonds.

For our third Twelve Loaves challenge, Lora of Cake Duchess, Barb of Creative Culinary and I have decided that your homebaked bread – whether yeast bread, quick bread, pizza, scone or muffin or anything that can qualify as bread – must contain NUTS, SEEDS and GRAINS! That’s right, your bread must have either nuts, seeds or grains or a combination of 2 or all 3 involved in some form or another, one way or another.

I absolutely feel like a nut. My days, long and tiring, are spent renovating, building, painting and the little time I have left is usually dedicated to laundry, shopping, ironing and feeding my family. And walking my dog. Most days, my eyes are crossed from fatigue, my head is spinning, words tumble out of my mouth in a mishmash of nonsense and I can’t think straight. I have visions of hammers, paint cans and countertops dancing before my very eyes. So no yeast bread for me this month. Instead, I took a recipe from my Taste of Home Baking, a cookbook received as a Plate to Page workshop goodie bag treat from our wonderful sponsor Taste of Home, and twisted and turned it into what I have been craving, a luscious, lightly flavored Lemon Bread crunchy with chopped pecans, a swirl of wonderful Blueberry di Saronno jam from another fantastic Plate to Page sponsor, Sunchowder’s Emporia, and topped with slivered almonds. Dense, moist, lusciously lemon, the perfect little snack to get me going in the morning.

And as we wait for our new kitchen to be finished, as we watch it rise from the dust and cartons like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, I scratch and scrape together what I can, when I can and I simply hope that someone will eat it and enjoy it. But baking is in my soul, what soothes me and focuses me. And it is what I love offering my family. A little bit of myself.

So join Lora, Barb and I and make a bread from scratch for Twelve Loaves. This month’s theme is Nuts, Seeds and Grains!

All you have to do is follow the rules. It’s as easy as pie:

1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your post and mention and link back to Lora, Barb and Jamie’s blogs (this post). Please make sure that your Bread is inspired by the theme NUTS, SEEDS AND GRAINS! This is obligatory if you would like your link to be included!

2. Please link your post to the linky tool at the bottom of Lora, Barb or Jamie’s blog. It must be a bread baked to the Twelve Loaves theme.

3. Feel free to promote the Twelve Loaves by proudly displaying the Twelve Loaves badge in your Twelve Loaves post as well as in your sidebar! It isn't mandatory but is a nice way to get the word out!

4. Have your Twelve Loaves bread posted on your blog and linked to ours by October 31, 2012.

Follow @TwelveLoaves on Twitter and #TwelveLoaves
Chat with your hostesses on Twitter: Jamie @lifesafeast Barb @CreativCulinary Lora @cakeduchess

LEMON PECAN BREAD with Blueberry Jam and Almonds
Adapted from Taste of Home Baking

½ cup (115 g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup (200 g) sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups (about 280 g) flour, spooned lightly in the cup and leveled with a knife
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup sour cream (I used 0% fat fromage blanc)
1 tsp vanilla
1 lemon, zested and juiced
½ - 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans, as desired
2 Tbs blueberry jam (cherry would also be fabulous)
2 Tbs slivered blanched almonds

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Butter a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan generously. Line the bottom with parchment paper (this isn’t necessary but I find it makes turning out the bread much easier).

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding the vanilla with the second egg. Finely grate the lemon zest and add the zest to the batter. Squeeze or add 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice to the batter.

Blend the flour, baking powder and salt together. Beat into the batter alternately with the sour cream, the flour in 3 additions and the sour cream in 2, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Using a spatula, fold the pecans into the batter, scraping down the sides as needed, making sure the batter is well blended and smooth.

Pour/scrape the batter into the prepared pan and lightly spread to smooth. Spoon and dollop the jam or jelly in teaspoonfuls down the center of the cake batter. Gently swirl a long, thin knife blade back and forth through the jam, swirling it ever so slightly into the batter. Sprinkle the slivered almonds evenly over the top of the batter.

Bake the Lemon Pecan cake for 50 – 60 minutes or until puffed, golden brown and set in the center. A tester inserted in the center should come out clean. Remove the pan from the oven onto a cooling rack and allow to cool for 10 or 15 minutes before running a knife around the edges to loosen and turning out of the pan. Flip upright and allow to cool completely before slicing.

Nota bene: if you would like a sweeter, tangier bread, closer to a cake, simply stir ¼ cup (about 85 ml) lemon juice in a saucepan with ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar and cook over medium-low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Spoon the lemon syrup over the cake while it is still in the loaf pan and allow to cool.

Take a bigger bite ...