Bad blogger

So I haven't updated in months, not that anyone is reading this.
This is not to say I haven't been cooking, because I have.
I made cake #3, which tasted great but looked awful and convinced me that my buttercream piping skills are sorely lacking. My sister the bride relented and decided to do only 5 cakes instead of 9, but now we're covering top and bottom in fondant. I made a ton of fondant flowers using a plunger cutter and dusted them with pink pearl dust.



I attempted to bake loaves of bread, starting with the no-knead baguettes from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book. They tasted okay, but looked like mutants.


A second attempt at bread baking resulted in very flat oatmeal bread. Attempt number three was The Pioneer Woman's Dinner Rolls. Mine were oddly flat, took forever to rise, and had dark spots in them. They tasted fabulous. This last experiment led me to conclude that my kitchen is too cold for bread to rise properly. So at Christmas I made the rolls again, this time placing the bowl (and then the pans) on my oven, which was set at 250 degrees. The bread rose admirably, though it did still take longer than the recipe indicated.

Since it was Christmas, I also did some baking and candy making. I made some Chex Mix from Dealing in Subterfuge's recipe (not pictured), fudge (not pictured), cookie chip chocolates (link to come) and the standard secret recipe Christmas cookie I always make. It's amazing how much more vivid Wilton colors turn out than standard food coloring.