Gingerbread Apple Crumb Topping Pie

When I think of fall, I think of the following things in the following order:
1. That weird fall smell that's very distinct but that you can't really describe, but I know you totally know what I'm talking about
2. Pies both apple and pumpkin
3. Time to bust out my scarves again, yay!
4. Leaf piles
5. It's finally seasonally appropriate to have hot soups again, yay!

Today's blog post will focus on the second thought, surprisingly enough. I know you're just having a heart attack with surprise right now that I'm going to talk about pie today, because I totally never ever talk about it.

This? Never.

C. Stout Cupcakes

My good friend Caiti's birthday came to pass, and I love when my vegan friends have birthdays. It's a great excuse to use them as guinea pigs for my vegan baked goods.
I asked Caiti what she wanted for her birthday, and she was infuriatingly vague. Whatever you want, she said. I know you'll figure something out, she said. No coconut, she said. So I figured I'd find something in my vegan cupcake book that I hadn't tried before. I absolutely knew it was fate when yesterday, flipping through my recipe book, I came across Chocolate Stout cupcakes. Caiti's last name is Stout. FATE. C. Stout cupcakes it was, and boy howdy it was a good choice.

Failure Loaf (days 4-9)

R.I.P. my first attempt at sourdough bread.

It's been a while since I've had a spectacular failure at baking bread. It's good for me, though; it keeps my baking ego from "rising" (see what I did there? Baking puns! Lolololo) too much. Experiments like this let me know that even I can fuck something up that even cavemen could do without even really trying. Apparently sourdough has always been the "old school" way of leavening bread without instant yeast and it's been done that way for thousands of years. And I failed. But that's okay! Because it means more baking eventually.

Days 1-3

For three days now, I've been "feeding" my "starter", as the people on the internet say. Which means, three days ago, I mixed a cup of water and a cup of flour (King Arthur unbleached bread flour, in case you were wondering, which I totally know you were) in a tupperware container:

Day one.

and let the gooey mixture sit until the next day. I don't have pictures of day two, because I didn't have access to a camera. The mixture had thickened a lot, and the top was bubbly and swollen-looking. It definitely smelled yeasty and sour...like sourdough. I stirred it up a bit and poured half out. The mix was kinda clumpy. I stirred in a half cup of water and a half cup of flour and stirred. The mixture didn't smell sour any more but it was definitely yeasty.
Today is day three, and the mixture looked like it did on day two:

Day three, before feeding.

Yeasty and sour-smelling, just like day two. Lots of little bubbles pockmarking the surface. I repeated what I did yesterday:

Day three, post-feeding

The mixture is now currently more watery than pre-feeding and clumpy, like day two. I'm figuring it's gonna go like this for the next four days. Stay tuned, folks.
Coming up: Vegan experiments in custard pie

The Sourdough Diaries

I've been doing this thing where I try to bake more often, and I'm finding that I enjoy breadmaking almost above baking of any kind. Bread baking is like a science experiment, and each time I make bread I understand the nuances of it more and more, tweaking things to get the perfect loaf. Bread baking often comes down to just knowing something about the dough that you can't measure -- you just have to figure out, through trial and error, things like exactly how warm the water for the yeast should be, or when the yeast has reacted to the water. You just figure it out as you go, and once you figure it out, it's like riding a bike -- you don't forget. The first time I had a loaf measurably rise, I pretty much threw myself a ticker-tape parade (I had many flat, unsatisfying loaves of bread prior to this). For me there's almost nothing more satisfying than lifting the dishcloth off of a bowl full of rising bread and taking in that yeasty, doughy smell and see how large the loaf has swelled.

Hey, Everyone!

If you're in doubt over what to get me for my birthday (less than two months away, just in case you were wondering), I am now in love:

Baking Bites featured this Upside-Down Cooking Guide Apron that needs to be in my life. In fact, the web site that sells it has craptons of adorbs stuff. It makes me want to have kids just so I can have an excuse to have, say, a Guitar Flipper Spatula or a Cake Pan Shaped like a PBJ (I'd make a faux Grilled Cheese one for my mom's birthday 'cause I know she loves 'em) or a Pac Man Oven Mitt or a Holy Toast Stamp. I WANT ALL OF IT. Hell, the web site is called Perpetual Kid. Who needs kids to have Drumstick Mixing Spoons?

Carb festing

-Baking Bites has this delicious Plum Custard Pie with Almond Crust that I have been dreaming about. Why are plums so underutilized in pie making? There need to be more plum pies out there. I am going to start a trend that takes the nation by storm! But first I need to convert that pie to a vegan version, which would be quite a challenge considering it has custard in it and all.
-Sticky buns are a task I have yet to tackle, but I would really love to ASAP. This recipe for Orange-Pecan Sticky Buns with Dates and Cranberries needs to be made immediately, because I need those all up in my life. The recipe even includes directions to make candied orange peels. LOVE.
-Sweet Portuguese Bread? Yes and please.