Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Armenian Nazook!

Tags

Armenian, baking, dough, lemon, nazook, pastry, yeast

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

So Jason said we could make the nazook and/or the nutmeg cake for this challenge, and when given the choice of yeasty vs. cakey, I will always go with yeast. The nazook also had a fun name, though it kept making me think of the Nazgûl from Lord of the Rings. These are the Ringwraiths, or the nine semi-dead/alive king servants of Sauron, also known as Dementors in Harry Potter. (For all of the hardcore LotR and HP fans, that was a joke.)

Making the nazook was much like making cinnamon rolls, only they’re baked on their sides aren’t topped with icing in the end. Mine also did not have cinnamon, but some of the other bakers included it in the filling.

Wordless Wednesday: Flower vs. Cactus

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cactus, flower

An epic battle in my parents’ backyard.

Banoffee Pie

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baking, bananas, banoffee, biscuits, British, crust, dulce de leche, easy, recipe, whipped cream

So here I go from posting about pizza made with local strawberries to a dessert made with biscuits from over 4000 miles away. I made this pie two weeks ago for Easter and for some reason have been struggling to write about it ever since. Was it gross? No, quite the opposite! Was it complicated to make? No way! Do I want to keep it all to myself? Well, it’s not like I made it up…

Basically, I wanted to address my Anglophilia along with this pie since it’s partly my preoccupation with the British that led me to the recipe. It’s just that I have so much to say about the subject (Doctor Who! castles! moors! Jane Austen! Radiohead! Benedict Cumberbatch! tea! Hot Fuzz! the BBC! Harry Potter! accents! humo(u)r! Irn Bru! Monty Python! etc.), but not in a very coherent way. Indecision and procrastination, I shake my fist at you!

Ironically, I’ve never been to the UK even though I have a small handful of friends scattered throughout, from London to Glasgow. Whenever I do go, I’m making a beeline to the Royal Albert Hall for a photo op. It’s a name thing that makes me feel like we’re related.

Wordless Wednesday: Bird on a wire?

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Austin, bike, dinosaur

This is the neighbor who lives across the street!

(and yes, there’s a spot on my lens.)

Wordless Wednesday: Backyard Beauties

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flowers

(our landlady cut and gave them to us!)

For more WW, click here.

Balsamic Strawberry Basil Pizza

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baking, balsamic, basil, dough, pistachios, pizza, ricotta, spring, strawberries, vegetarian

I was pretty stoked to find out that a farmer’s market now takes place at my Y every Tuesday morning. Produce and elliptical in one trip! Health made easy! And yeah, Tuesday morning maybe seems like an odd time, but I wasn’t the only person there. I guess there are other people here who keep odd hours and like fresh, local food.

I had been thinking of making a pizza with the swiss chard and zucchini because, heck, there is NO PIZZA on this 1.75 year-old baking blog. But then I started to worry about the strawberries and how ripe they were. I can throw strawberries on dough and call it pizza…right? How about letting them hang out with basil in some balsamic vinegar first? I like where this is going!

Wordless Wednesday: Berry Fun

Tags

basil, strawberries

For more WW, click here.

Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Dutch Crunch Bread!

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avocado, baking, bread, cream cheese, Dutch crunch, sandwich, Tijgerbrood, tomato, vegetarian, yeast

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

rice flour-based topping

Sara and Erica told us that they chose this challenge because they live in San Francisco where Dutch crunch bread (or Tijgerbrood/Tiger bread) is a popular item in bakeries and sandwich shops. For those of you like me  who hadn’t heard of this type of bread, it’s basically a soft loaf that is topped with a yeasty rice flour mixture right before going into the oven. While baking, the topping cracks and browns, giving it the tiger-like appearance. I think giraffe-like might be more precise.