I need to update more

Once again, I find myself so busy that despite all the time in the world to make delicious confections, I rarely find the time to sit down and blog about them.

1. The past few weeks I've been making up a few firsts mixed in with the tried-and-true. I've been making enormous batches of Reinhart's spent grain breads (detailed earlier) since Mr. Bread Maiden has been brewing up beer like a crazy person and we always have tons of spent grains left over.

However, I must've measured wrong because once I got to the fourth loaf, I was nearly out of grains! I decided to experiment and threw in flaxseeds, sesame seeds, dates, and raisins.



The dates were a challenge to keep in the loaf, but eventually they started to meld with the rest of the dough.



The bread turned out fantastic; almost like a cinnamon raisin bread but not as sweet.



2. I had a hankering for homemade pretzels after seeing so many people make them on the FreshLoaf. So I had to try for myself!



I didn't take many pictures of the process since it went so fast: we shaped them, boiled them in baking soda, and then baked them in the oven.



They were quite tasty, and continued to taste good even after a few days kept in the fridge.

3. Doughnuts were something else I wanted to try. There is nothing better than a cup of dark coffee with a lightly-sugared plain doughnut.



We used some kind of fat (will have to ask Mr. Bread Maiden which it was) to fry these.



Then we let them fry for about 30 seconds to a minute on each side until they were nice and brown, and let them cool on a paper towel.



Like biscuits, doughnut dough scraps don't do very well if you try to roll them back up after the first roll-out. So that's what the pointy pieces are next to the nice round doughnuts.



I even made doughnut holes! The best part about home baking is that you can adjust the amount of sugar to your liking. At the Bread Maiden household, our liking is "not very much, thanks."



That's about it for now on the baking front. I'll try to be more prompt on my entries. However, my big baking project, my fruitcakes, won't be ready for another month. You'll just have to be patient! Love, Bread Maiden.