Tuesday's Tip

Haste makes messes.


P.S. Yes, I learned that by experience.

Learning and Growing: Cake Baking and Decorating

This post/re-post is a resource list designed to aid in the education of women in homemaking and womanhood lines, particularly in keeping with the purpose of The Hope Chest. You can always find all of my resource lists in the sidebar.

I don't necessarily endorse these sites in their entirety. In fact, some of them I may not endorse at all! They are here because I believe they are useful for educational purposes.

Teaching Good Things has a cake decorating DVD New!

Wilton ~ famous cake decorating book and supply company. New!

Learning and Growing: Cooking and Baking

This post/re-post is a resource list designed to aid in the education of women in homemaking and womanhood lines, particularly in keeping with the purpose of The Hope Chest. You can always find all of my resource lists in the sidebar.

I don't necessarily endorse these sites in their entirety. In fact, some of them I may not endorse at all! They are here because I believe they are useful for educational purposes.

Cooking.com~ Recipes

All Recipes

Recipe Archive

Local Harvest

Hillbilly Housewife  New!

Tammy's Recipes New!

Thoughts from Yesteryear: Practice, Practice!

Excellence in the art of cookery, as in all other things, is only attainable by practice and experience. In proportion, therefore, to the opportunities which a cook has had of these, so will be his excellence in the art.  ~ Chapter 4 (#78) of The Book of Household Management by Mrs. Isabella Beeton (1861).

Finding Recipes: More Recipe Links

Cooking Light
 

Vegetarian Times 

Better Homes and Gardens 

Vegan Cooking 

RecipeArchive

Have fun! :-) 

Finding Recipes: Recipe Links

Cooking.com

Taste of Home

Cooking for Two

Recipe Zaar

AllRecipes.com

Shaped Breads Step-by-step

I made my breads using my regular whole wheat bread recipe. Any yeast bread recipe should work. Actually the boxes for these pans say you can bake cakes in them too. So, probably just about anything would work!

Heart shaped baking pan.

 

Preparing the dough. I used half what I would have used for a loaf. I was just guessing because it had been a long time since I used these pans. Just experiment! If you put in too little you won't get a full loaf but it will still be usable. If you put in too much it will spill out one or both ends. The extras won't be pretty but they are still edible!

Roll the dough into a thin loaf. The roll needs to be smaller than the innermost points of the pan. This flower pan was easy but the star (see below) was a tighter fit. I had to roll it out to a much thinner roll. I sprayed the pans and both caps with cooking spray.

The bread in the pans!

Capped and ready to rise. Keep them upright. This is especially important if you underfill them. After rising, place them upright on a baking sheet. You may need to lower your oven rack so they will fit in the oven. The pans are easier to stand up on a baking sheet than on an oven rack. Also, if a pan falls over (which it may well do if it's too full and the dough pushes out the bottom), you won't have dough running out onto your oven rack.

Although, I don't suppose dough actually "runs" does it? What does it do? Well, anyway, you don't want it to come in direct contact with your oven rack.

Sometimes even if you don't overfill the pan it will ooze out the bottom a bit. A tight fitting cap on the bottom is helpful (I've found that some caps fit tighter than others ~ I'm not sure if that's the case with all such pans).

Also make sure the pan starts out standing perfectly upright in it's bottom cap. If it still overflows you might be able to prop the pan against the side of the oven. If that won't work, just bake it lying down. Bake slightly less than you would bake loaves, then check for doneness. Remember that the sides of the loaves will not be browned.

 

Above: this oozed out the bottom just a tiny bit!

Below: The bottom sliced off. 

When you remove loaves from the pans, place them upright on a cooling rack. If the bottom is uneven (like my star loaf) slice the end off so it will stand up. 

 

The finished product! Cute breads ready for spreads or sandwich fillings. 

Isn't That Cute: Shaped Breads

First of all, I'm not a food photographer nor do I have a food photographer so please bear with my less-than-perfect photos!

Did you know you can make bread in heart and other shapes? These are perfect for mini sandwiches. Or, spread them with your favorite spread for a tasty appetizer.  

 

Look for shaped loaves among baking equipment. You might have to go to a specialty store. Mine (which really belong to my aunt) look like this.

Little sandwiches. 

I don't know how I managed to cut off part of the heart (and it was part of the show) without even realizing I did so. Told you I'm not a food photographer!

More samples! 

 

I learned how to apply a filling neatly. Use a teaspoon to spoon the filling into the center of the bread, then gently spread, or flatten, it out to the edges. This technique helps to prevent dropping bits of filling on the plate or smearing it on the edges of the slice of bread. 

  

Garnish each slice to make them look more "festive". I used dried herbs (because I didn't have anything else!). Dried herbs make a very quick garnish.

If you're using a spread, rather than a filling, start with a generous portion on your knife or spoon. Don't ever let it come in contact with the bread and you won't pick up any crumbs.

 

 

Tomorrow, look for my shaped breads step-by-step post.

Enter to win The Art of Bread-Making DVD

Click over to A
Pondering Heart, read the review, and follow the instructions
to enter. What a great addition this could be to a learner's library!