Summer's First Fourth (+ Baking Blueberry Pie)

We had a nice 4th yesterday! We kept up our usual tradition of going to the Thompson's since their neighborhood is great and also (most) fireworks are legal. 

We started in the pool and with Summer in her trusty little loungey chair, she became absolutely enamored with some diving ring pool toy and was content the entire time to just hold it, eat it, put it up to her face. Sophie had a great time swimming around with Bryce and Jaxon, and I had a great time sittervising with my white wine while AJ was in the pool with them.

Once Ara and Nadine came over, it was really on, because Bryce and Penelope are great little friends, and Sophie and Scarlett just love each other so much and it was so sweet to watch them just do 3 year old things together - like show each other the leaves they found, find it hilarious to push a doll on a skateboard, and hold hands and jump around while the fireworks were going off.

I even got a delicious nap in with Summer upstairs which tided me over for the long evening.

We had sausages and different dipping sauces, tabbouli salad, fresh berries, cheese and cracker spreads, and I brought a homemade blueberry pie.

I probably should've consulted my own lessons in baking before attempting my blueberry pie again yesterday, because I wasn't too thrilled with it and I think it's the same things annoying me. None of the recipes that I ever come across call for mashing the blueberries in any capacity, and yet without doing that, they just... roll right out like beads when you cut it and then you're just eating blueberries and pie crust side by side. No one seemed to mind (I don't rule out the fact that they were probably just being nice) but it's something I plan to experiment with for next time.

Also - the latticing! It is so much harder than it looks (don't stare at mine too much or it will break your brain) and I did find that a big cause of that is my dough being a little too flimsy but... another way I'm learning I'm suppose.

Summer was mostly mesmerized by the fireworks at first, but they started to get louder and as night fell, the street was turning into an absolute warzone, and Summer, Sophie and Scarlett were all over them, so we went into the house and they watched Gabby's Dollhouse while AJ and I loaded up.

They both pretty much fell asleep immediately in the car, which was such a shame, because driving home was a beautiful display of fireworks everywhere, practically 360 while we drove home, seeing them go off from every which way was so pretty (and also, distracting). I'm surprised they were able to even fall asleep at home because the crackling and low rumblings of fireworks was a constant sound as we went to sleep.

Daycare is closed today which means extra long weekend for these kids!

Lessons in Baking: Sponge Cake

I got it in my head to re-read Anne of Green Gables (and I can't wait until I can introduce Sophie to this classic, and one of these days I'll make it to Prince Edward Island...) and man they ate a lot of cake at the turn of the century. (Also, fruit preserves which somehow I'm now feeling like I want to attempt) so I got it into my head to try making a sponge cake.

Well, a sort of a sponge cake, I should say.

As of January 2nd this year, AJ and I are on health journeys, so I thought I'd try out a sugar-free sponge cake, by replacing the sugar with applesauce. I've eaten cakes like this before and even though you may notice the difference, it's negligible and still delicious. But, maybe it affected my sponge cake.

One thing I learned is that the secret sauce of a sponge cake appears to be the whisking of the egg whites. That. Took. Forever. So long, I'm questioning if I actually did it right.

I may have messed up when I combined the ingredients with the egg whites. The recipe called for folding them in together, but when I poured them into the cake pans, there was such an obvious difference, I poured them back into the bowl and stirred them together with a whisk, which really muddled them together and I'm wondering if that didn't take away some of the sponginess.

They came out looking decent, although I sorta wish I had one deeper cake pan rather than the two shallow ones, and when I cut it, it looked kindaaaaa spongey.

Overall, it wasn't a total waste, but it was a bit of a fail. The interior was a bit damp and there wasn't too much flavor, it could have benefitted from either some actual sugar or maybe even more flavoring. If the texture was fine, eating it with more flavorful sides, like berries and cream or maple syrup would've made it more tolerable.

We made it through one of the cakes and AJ took the other to his lucky (or unlucky) coworkers.

Looking forward to trying again soon!

Lessons in Baking: Two More Rounds of Danishes

If I haven't said it before, Summer is an absolute dream baby, and now that I'm feeling much more myself, I've been trying to be a bit more productive during this maternity leave, so last week I decided I wanted to try making danishes again. I really wanted to get better at shaping them and also, the dough was kinda weird.

Well I tried again, also a raspberry cream cheese filling, but the dough turned out the same as last time - thick and almost impossible to shape. I had the exact same experience this time around as well (at least I'm consistent).

I ended up having a lot of the cream cheese filling left over, and it seemed a shame to just throw it away - and it had raw egg in it so it was going to need to be baked in some capacity. So the next day, I decided to try again.

This time, I decided to ditch the generic "sweet dough" I used before, and really looked up how to make danish-specific dough.

This made all the difference. It was still a little difficult to shape and work with, but I also was doing this inbetween cooking a homemade lentil soup and it had been a long day and I was exhausted. They turned out... interesting:

Pre-oven

Post-oven

...but really, I actually was quite happy with them because for one, I could see that if I rolled the dough out thinner, it would be a lot better, and also, the dough was a great success for a first try. It was light and flakey and I felt like it was great progress and I'm looking forward to perfecting it further.

Lessons in Baking: Turkish Yogurt Cake

I don't know where I come up with these inklings for what I try, but I saw a recipe for a Turkish yogurt cake and decided to try it over the weekend. I think I was intrigued to work on a cake that wasn't flour based.

I noticed too late that I didn't have whole milk Greek yogurt and only non-fat but at that point, whatever.

It came out fully rounded but sunk to
a bit of a bevel shape after a few minutes
but from the recipe photo, I guess that's
sorta how it's supposed to finish

It was really interesting to see the texture and how it came together, especially with the bubbly egg whites.

In the end I'm not sure if I didn't let it cook enough, because I think it was supposed to be browned on the entire top surface and when we finally cut into it, it was harder to cut cleanly the lighter it was.

In the end though, it was really good! It actually had a texture like cheesecake and it's been a nice, light snack, and a great way to use up a lot of Greek yogurt if it's going to go bad soon. This also had lemon zest which gave it a great citrus flavor, but I would love to try with some other flavors next time (vanilla? almond? raspberry?) I'll keep you posted!

Christmas and Lessons in Baking: Nutella Christmas Tree and Sugar Cookies

We had a really fun Christmas this year because we knew Sophie wouldn't "get" it yet, and she didn't, so we were very happy with our decision to not go hard on presents for her and instead wrapped some of her favorite things, like vegetable pouches from Costco and Goldfish crackers. And she was delighted! It was fun to have her be a little more interactive on Christmas morning though.

We had family over on Christmas Day to decorate sugar cookies and boy did we decorate sugar cookies. I still can't look at the small stash that I still have3 because I ate way too many of them on the day.

Christmas morning Sophie

New Cocomelon blanket!

One of my crown jewels

My other crown jewel

I had also decided to try this Nutella pull-about Christmas tree. It wasn't until after I made the dough (challah) that I realize - wtf was I doing? I should have made a pastry sheet. I was in a bit of a bad mood after that because I knew that it wouldn't turn out the way it was supposed to. I expected it to be a total disaster but instead it was just a minor one. I'm probably lucky because the taste of Nutella covers a multitude of errors!

I'll try again someday with the right kind of dough and try to critique it then.

This week has been a bit of a struggle since AJ is working, I'm off and Sophie's daycare is closed, so a lot of trying to find things to do during the day, which is challenging in the winter when not only is it colder, but it's been raining?? What?? We don't know how to operate in the rain out here! We did have a day at the zoo, which was great cause we hadn't been there in awhile and she really seemed more attentive to it and what was going on, and then my mom and Jim got us in to Knott's with them and that was fun (especially after AJ showed up and could help with Sophie, especially in the lines ughhhh) but she had a great time!

The ultimate hit was the carousel - she was wary of it until she saw the giraffe and then that was all she could talk about. She had to have the giraffe, and she had to keep riding it. She went on it 3 times I think, once with AJ, once with me and once with my mom, and she also got the hang of waving as she passed by us which was the most darling part ever!

 

 

 

It's New Year's Eve today which is a bit secondary for us, because we have the somewhat misfortune of having a very close friend (and one of Sophie's 2 godmothers) having a birthday on December 30, which means that we tend to go hard on December 30 and then we feel like December 31 is actually New Year's Day because we're so dead. It's not so bad today, but we'll probably have (yet another) lowkey New Year's Eve.

Happy New Year's!