bread and jam kind of weekend

Bagel breakfast on Sunday morning. I feel that every Sunday should start like this.

daily food

Sunday we had a random fit of culinary creativity. Since then we've been consuming fresh bread and apple butter at an amazing rate. I think more bread baking will need to happen today.

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Things have been keeping me away from blogging lately. Things like these last warm days and painting the living room (finally!) and canning lots of jam. And baking. But baking is one of those things that always makes me want to post here, so it's bagels that bring me here today. After all, homemade bagels are entirely worthy of a post all to themselves.

I got the recipe from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice (also our source for amazing pizza dough) and followed it closely. I think the bagel recipe was actually what prompted me to buy the book ages ago, but it's kind of a lengthy process and I got intimidated. But, as I discovered, it's really not terribly difficult once you find the time to get going. And the reward is hot, chewy, golden bagels with your choice of toppings.

The recipe makes a dozen so I thought we'd set aside a weeks worth and freeze the rest. HA. The first half dozen were gone in two days. We ate them with jam, with eggs, with butter, and with afternoon tea. And of course I took pictures.

care for a scone?

I have a bit of a history with scones. At the Co-op where I work, freshly baked scones are delivered twice a week... and I work both those days. There was once a time when I hovered near the baked goods aisle, hungrily awaiting their arrival. I have been known to eat not just one, but two scones in the same day. It is probably important to note that the scones I'm talking about are not particularly small or dainty. These are hearty scones of the stick to your ribs variety. You really don't need two. Eventually my stomach protested and I was forced to impose a no scone rule upon myself.

But lately I've started thinking, doesn't it really makes more sense to have a no buying scones rule? Surely baking them every now and then couldn't do any harm.

Definitely not harmful.

I spotted this recipe over on Orangette earlier this week and decided today was the day for a little baking. As you may notice I did a bit of tinkering with the recipe because I wasn't really in the mood for dried fruit. Instead of apricots I added in a cup of frozen blueberries after the dough had been mixed together a bit. Messy, but worth it.

The berries on top have a tendency to just balance there rather than sinking into the dough, but I'm really not complaining. And since these are made partially with whole wheat flour and don't have an outrageous amount of sugar in them, I don't even feel guilty about breaking my own rule.