TWD: Kugelhopf (and a Kold)

For your consideration: Rugelach from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 61 – 63 featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorrie.

This will be a short and sweet post – I have a head cold (or who the heck knows, it might be wicked allergies) and a major deadline for work – not the most conducive situation for pithy, entertaining blogging. I hope you will please also forgive me for not visiting your fab blogs of late – again, crazy busy, super congested and foggy headed, but I’ll be pouring over every loving detail soon, I promise. For now, let’s just say that Nyquil, Afrin and Kleenex (with Aloe) are my three BFF’s for now. (The way I’m going thru them, here’s an insider tip – buy stock in Kleenex.) Last night I DID manage to take a break and went someplace fun and totally foodie. I’ll share all the juicy details with you soon!

Back to TWD: this Kugelhopf was fairly straight forward, although the prep time was quite long. This is an all day affair or a 2 day-er if you pop it in the fridge overnight. I used a Bundt pan and my Kitchenaid stand mixer. It took forever (forever!) to rise to the top of the pan – I think I gave up at 4 or 5 hours and threw it in the oven and it all turned out swell. I sent it to work with my DH – they gave it rave reviews. Personally, I'm saving my calorie allotment for each day for chocolate, plus raisins in stuff isn’t my favorite.

Thanks to Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with this recipe, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Dorie’s version of Kugelhopf for yourself, you can find the recipe on our hostess’s blog, or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Class Feast!

My son’s kindergarten class had a Feast on Monday, sort of a warm-up to Thanksgiving if you will. Everyone brought something: I was carb girl. (and then some.)

My instructions were to bring authentic, traditional-like-the-pilgrims-had dishes, but for some reason this kept echoing through my head…..

Lightning McQueen: "Alright, Luigi, give me the best set of blackwalls you've got."
Luigi: "No! No, no, no. You don't know what you want. Luigi know what you want. Blackwall tires. They blend into the pavement. But a this... whitewall tires! They say, 'Look at me! Here I am! Love me.'"
Lightning: "Alright, you're the expert."

from the Disney/Pixar Film "Cars"

My slightly off the white-wall offerings were (and forgive the photos, I barely remembered to take any at all!):

Buttery Rice with Vermicelli

(topped with buttery toasted pine nuts, mmmmmm....)

yes, I did scrub it and then soak it for 3 hours...
Apple Sage Cranberry Dressing
with fresh sage from my herb garden and apples from last weekend

Corn Pudding
(They totally snarfed this one up!)
and 10 Minute (homemade) Applesauce
(again, with fresh apples from the orchards - feel free to omit the brandy like I did here, but I've made it before with, and oooh, it's gooooooooood!)

Better than a Ferrari, eh? ;)

Quick and Easy Cinnamon Bun Bread

I’ve been visiting a lot of blogs lately and have been inspired. Here’s the latest baking inspiration from Nicole of Baking Bites: Quick and Easy Cinnamon Bun Bread.

These morsels of delight were oh so good and easier than I thought. Next time I won’t use ALL the icing – it was a little too sweet for me (yeah, it can happen occasionally) but they got rave reviews from the kids, DH and the neighbors. And me too of course. You can find the original recipe on Nicole’s fabulous site here.