Everything doesn’t always come up tulips around here. I intended to bake to my heart’s content yesterday — trying two new recipes. The bagel shop boys are now placing orders and wanted something lemon. I also wanted to try hot cross buns, a lenten staple, for my coworkers.
The lemon cake recipe I used called for placing the cake batter in a large cake pan, and then pouring an additional sauce over the batter before it went in the oven. I thought I could replicate this in cupcake and loaf pan form. The cupcakes were okay, while perhaps slightly undercooked. The yet the sauce bubbled up all over the pan and the oven. I shouldn’t have filled the cups so high. The loaf pan? Oy. Burnt on the top, gooey on the bottom, cooked in the middle. Now that takes some baking prowess, right?
Burnt.
Gooey.
Ha! Cooked in the middle. What in the world?
It isn’t often I have to throw out an entire project and start from scratch, but yesterday was the day. I returned to a lemon recipe I know well — lemontime cookies. They came out great and were enjoyed this morning by the gang.
The hot cross buns came out great and were very much worth the effort. I had to start the recipe again after I realized the yeast I was using was best used “before 2004.” Obviously I don’t bake bread very often. {And with my bagel shop routine, my jeans wouldn’t fit if I added another ounce of bread to my diet.}
What is it about warm bread that makes me so happy?
~K