6 Years

Is anyone else finding this year going by way too quickly? How are we into the last few weeks of August, with back-to-school looming over students and fall weather creeping in? Stores are displaying Halloween decorations and in just another few weeks, the winter holidays will be upon us. Does time go faster when you're older? It sure feels like it.

Well, our blog has reached six years today, not a pretty milestone like last year's five or the next four year's ten. But we celebrated by defrosting some puff pastry, brushing egg, sprinkling cinnamon sugar, and then folding the puff pastry in half to repeat the process again. Baked at 375°F (190°C) for thirty minutes. The result? Layers of flaky goodness that resembles another popular donut on the market.

Enjoy the rest of summer, which reminds us . . . we have some Las Vegas posts (from our trip in June/July!) to upload.

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

"I can't even deal."
That line pretty much sums up this recipe. I first bookmarked and saved this recipe from Joy the Baker and could not let it go this past week. Maybe it's because I was on the verge of getting sick and looking at her post and dreaming about this bread provided comfort. Or maybe because I'm a sucker for cinnamon sugar. And bread.
My bread doesn't look as tidy and neat as Joy's loaf, but I'm sure that it tasted just as good. Seriously, I was going ballistic when this came out of the oven. It was warm and gooey and sticky and had lovely little crunchy bites to it.

I did this part the night before: In a small saucepan, melt together 1/3 cup of milk and half a stick of unsalted butter until the butter has melted. Remove from the heat and add 1/4 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Let the mixture stand for a minute or two.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Then, use your dough hook on the stand mixer and pour in the milk mixture with the dry ingredients. Crack 2 large eggs in a small bowl and whisk it together. Add the eggs into the batter and mix until combined. Add an additional 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour and stir until combined.

Place the dough is a large, greased bowl and cover it with plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel. Set it near a warm spot and let it rest for about an hour. It should double in size. After the dough has doubled in size, refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, let the dough rest on the counter for 30 minutes. In the meantime, whisk together 1 cup of granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Using a small saucepan, melt half a stick of unsalted butter until it is brown. Be careful here, once you see the butter colour change, you can remove it from the heat because it'll keep cooking and you don't want the butter to turn dark brown or burn.

Deflate the dough and knead 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour into it. I found that 1 tablespoon was enough before the dough became too dry. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, take out your rolling pin and lightly flour your work surface. This was the part I realized that I didn't pack a rolling pin during our move. There were three sitting in the drawer of my parent's house and I had to resort to using a wine bottle. But it worked! Roll the dough as flat as it will go. Use a pastry brush to slather on the brown butter. Then sprinkle the cinnamon/nutmeg sugar on it. The brown butter will melt some of the sugar, but not to worry, keep sprinkling until the sugar doesn't disappear.

Cut the dough into squares, peel them off your work surface and stack them into your greased loaf pan or muffin tin.

Let the dough rest again for half an hour and it will poof up in size.

Look at how poofy the dough is!

Did you notice that in the after photo, the top left corner in the muffin tin is missing a slice? It popped out. Seriously. There was one lone piece of bread in my oven beside the pan. I have no idea how it flew out leaving three behind. If it was trying to escape, it's plan backfired because I ate that piece first.

Bake at 350°F (176°C) for 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the bread cool and rest. Eat immediately. Because you've already did so much work, kick up your feet and enjoy. You don't have to do anything else that day.

If there happen to be leftovers the next day, microwave the loaf for 20-25 seconds to get that fresh out of the oven feeling again. Trust us on that. It will taste better!

Festive Macarons

More macarons Sylvia? Really?

Yes, I know. I'm going crazy over macarons this year. I made some more to bring to a holiday party and I'm loving how I can customize and decorate these delicate cookies.

French Meringue Macarons
Recipe from Macarons
(Makes about 40-50 macarons)

2 3/4 cups of almond flour
2 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
1 cup of egg whites (from 6-7 eggs)
A pinch of salt
3/4 cups of granulated sugar

1. The first step in making successful macarons is to age your egg whites. Separate your egg whites 2-3 days before baking. Cover and store them in the refrigerator. Two hours before you start making your macarons, take the egg whites out of the refrigerator, uncover them, and let them come to room temperature.
2. Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar together. If you have a food processor, put both ingredients in to create as fine as a texture as possible. This helps create smooth macaron shells.
3. Using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whisk the egg whites with the salt. Pour the granulated sugar in three stages. Dumping it all in can deflate the egg whites, so you want to add a little bit at a time. When the egg whites reach stiff peaks, turn the mixer off.
4. Fold the sifted almond flour and sugar with the egg whites. You want to end up with a smooth batter that creates a ribbon when you lift it up from your spatula.
5. When the batter is ready, fill your piping bag and pipe circles on the parchment paper.
6. Carefully tap your tray against the table or counter to eliminate air bubbles.
7. After piping, add the sprinkles on top. Let the macarons rest in room temperature for 15-30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 300°F (325°F for non-convection oven, although convection oven are preferred for macarons).
9. Bake your first tray of macarons for 14 minutes. After the first five minutes, open the oven doors to let out some of the steam.
10. When they're done, let them cool for 5 minutes and then gently peel the macarons off the parchment paper.

If you need some  macaron tutorials or visuals, check out the three videos that Mardi of eat. live. travel. write. made. She shows the three main stages of making macarons: whipping the egg whites, folding the batter, and piping the macarons. Chances are, one of those sections are where most people get stuck!

Vanilla Pastry Cream
Recipe from Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(Makes enough to fill each macaron, with leftovers)

2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

1. Flatten the vanilla bean and slice it open with a sharp knife. Peel the bean open and scrape the seeds out with the knife.
2. In a small pot, bring the milk with the vanilla bean with scrapings to a boil, set it aside to cool for 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean.
3. Fill a large bowl with cold water (or ice).
4. In a medium sized pan or small pot, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. Gradually whisk in the hot milk.
5. Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Set the bowl in the ice bath or cold water and stir until the temperature reaches 140°F (60°C) on an instant-read thermometer.
6. Stir in the butter. Cool, cover, and refrigerate.
7. Fill a piping bag with the pastry cream to pipe.

Top tier: I made holly using three red confetti sprinkles. For the holly leaves, I used two tree sprinkles.
Bottom tier: I simply placed red, green, and white confetti sprinkles on the macarons - this one is the easiest as they'll look festive no matter what.

You can go an even simpler route and place one festive icon in the middle of the macaron, here I chose the Christmas tree.

Something even easier, add some coloured sugar sprinkles in a line or waves. I did a few in red, green, and white which creates a nice shimmer and adds a crunchy texture to your macaron.

A tip, do not use jimmies or nonpareils, the colour on these will bleed off and smudge the look or design you're going for. Probably any kind of sprinkle that looks glossy will not work, stick to the matte ones! Happy macaron designing!