Picnic Wraps

Yesterday, while contemplating what kind of bread to bake for Shabbat and flipping through the Baker's Companion, inspiration hit. Why not make wraps for lunch? I had a can of tuna waiting to be used and it seemed like the perfect afternoon meal. Quite a while back, when I was still in Bar Ilan, I made some flour tortillas and remembered being quite impressed with how they turned out. Making these Picnic Wraps, then, from the Crackers and Flatbreads chapter, was a go. With just four basic ingredients, these wraps were really simple and easy to make. You start with some flour and oil, add some salt and water and knead to make a smooth dough. There is a bit of resting involved but you can use that time to do other things. My biggest issue is figuring out how to get them to stay in a circle while rolling. As you can see from the picture above, I got something resembling a circle, but not quite a circle. And there's more where that came from. Fortunately, the both looked and acted like the real thing so really not complaining. Looking forward to breaking my fast on these tomorrow night.

Super Easy Chocolate Bars

One measly post in June? I know. I will do better, starting with these Super Easy Chocolate Bars that I made for my soldiers two weeks ago. The recipe comes from Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies and they didn't disappoint. This recipe was made in celebration of my finding mehadrin sweetened condensed milk in the supermarket. Woohoo! Words can not express my excitement at finding it and although expensive, it is worth every shekel. No longer will I have to skip over key lime pie recipes or any other drool inducing recipe that calls for this item. A new chapter of baking is opened, starting with these. True to their name, these bars begin with a shortbread like bottom, topped with a milk and chocolate mixture and topped with some reserved shortbread mixture. Yum.

Sour Cream Sandwich Bread

Wow am I exhausted! Another course down, 23 more soldiers behind me. As usual, feeling sad but fulfilled. In another news, I'm celebrating my 25th birthday and I must say it's been an amazing year, so I hope the one ahead is just as good. It's been a while since I posted and even longer since I posted a bread recipe, so I'm happy to be making up for lost time. A couple of weekends back, I found myself with some extra sour cream hanging around my fridge and so I did a quick search for a sour cream bread. Apparently Dan Lepard's Sour Cream Sandwich Bread is pretty popular so I decided to give it a try. What's unique about this bread is its kneading technique. You knead the dough for about ten seconds and then give it a rest for about ten minutes. This is repeated about three times. It's amazing the transformation the dough undergoes with so little kneading . The dough turned out beautifully satiny and smooth and was a pleasure to work with. How did it turn out? Well, the sour cream did give it a noticeable tang, sort of like having bread smeared with cream cheese but inside the bread already. I didn't have a chance to toast it, but I hear it makes wonderful toast. After seeing some controversy about posting his original recipes, I decided to just link the recipe to Dan Lepard's site. Do give it a try, though.

Serendipity Deluxe Bars

I'll admit the name of this recipe is quite vague and doesn't give any indication as to what it actually is. In fact, when my soldiers asked me what I was feeding them, all I could say was..... some combination of shortbready, chocolatey, oaty goodness. Enough of a description? This recipe comes from Marcy Goldman's Passion for Baking and surprise, surprise it is a winner of a recipe. Sure there are three different layers to this bar cookie and it leaves ALOT of dishes in its wake, but so what? These rich, decadent bars made alot of people happy. The first layer up is shortbread. On top of that goes a chocolate truffle layer. After that is baked, a caramelly oat mixture seals the deal. According to Marcy, the chocolate and oat layers are supposed to magically switch places (hence the name serendipity) but that never happened to these (must be something in the Israeli air). Not complaining though because, well, no one knows the difference and the final product was far from ruined. These are kind of messy to eat and, as I said, decadent, so cut them on the small side. Set aside a nice chunk of time to make these, because while all the steps are easy, they are on the more time-intense side of things. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Bars

As is my usual, when I have a course going, I bake for my soldiers. The course ended yesterday, but for the last two weeks I have been bringing them treats. One of the things I brought them the first time was these simple, easy but delicious Peanut Butter Oat Bars.This recipe comes from Sunset Cookies, a book I came across in a used book shop some time ago. The classic topping of peanut butter and chocolate gets poured over an oat crust. The combination may seem odd at first, but it works. This really comes together in no time at all and if cut small, feeds a crowd. Or at least a few hungry soldiers. Feel free to garnish with peanuts.