16 Oct
World Bread Day: Challah
Posted by Chelle as Yeast Breads & Baked Goods | 15 Comments
Once again the wonderful Zorra has coordinated a celebration of the World Bread Day, asking bloggers from all over the globe to bake, buy, or photograph bread and blog about it today. World Bread Day is an event created by the UIB (International Union of Bakers and Bakers-Confectioners) in an effort to provide an opportunity to talk about bread and bakers, to find out about their history, their importance, as well as their future.
In the spirit of what World Bread Day is all about, I decided to bake a bread that symbolizes a history and heritage that I am unfamiliar with, in an effort to learn more about it. Challah is a special braided bread eaten by some groups of Jews on the Sabbath and holidays. According to Jewish tradition, Sabbath and holiday meals begin with a blessing over two loaves of bread. This “double loaf” commemorates the manna that fell from the heavens when the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. The manna did not fall on the Sabbath or on holidays; instead a double portion fell before the Sabbath and holidays. See, I learned something new! 
15 Oct
Apple Hand Pies
Posted by Chelle as Pastries, Pies/Tarts | 20 Comments
Apple Pie: rustic, flaky, tart, and spicy. The most iconic of American traditions.
These marvelous little pies package up the best parts of apple pie, eliminate a lot of the work, and deliver scrumptious, addictive fruit-wrapped-in-crust that can be stowed away in your pocket for safe keeping. Hand pies have been making their way around the blog universe since the beginning of summer, it seems, and I’ve been meaning to make them but never quite got around to it. So when Annie asked if I was interested in making the Bourbon Peach Hand Pies that were featured on smitten kitchen, I was intrigued. While I’m not much of a peach fan, I figured I could use Deb’s dough recipe and sub in my own apple filling, which is what I did.
These hand pies are a fantastic option for changing up the traditional slice of pie and ice cream and would be especially welcome as a dessert at an outdoor gathering or one that included small children. And really, for the kid in all of us - what’s much better than a slice of apple pie that you can pick up and carry around with you?
13 Oct
Housekeeping - Some New Features
Posted by Chelle as Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Hey everyone, I have done a tiny bit of housekeeping here on Brown Eyed Baker and wanted to share some of the new features with you. Nothing earth shattering, but a few changes that I hope will improve your experience when you come to visit!
If you check out my category listings to the right you’ll see some changes, which are most notably around all of the bread here on the blog. I now have separate categories for Quick Breads, which includes muffins and scones, and Yeast Breads, which also includes other baked goods that use yeast such as bagels, cinnamon rolls, and the like. While yeast rolls will still be cross referenced in Yeast Breads, I also have a separate category broken out for rolls and biscuits. I hope that this new break out of categories makes browsing easier and you all have an easier time finding what you’re looking for!
At the end of each post is now a button that will enable you to share and bookmark the content found in the blog. The button looks like this:
When you click it a menu will come up that will give you a whole host of choices - you can bookmark that post, email it to a friend, or share it on a variety of social networking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, MySpace, and others.
If you are a member of Facebook, you can now join the Brown Eyed Baker page and receive updates, view photos, and take part in discussions about what you like and don’t like about the blog, how I can make improvements, and connect with other readers. Click Here to go to the Brown Eyed Baker page and click “Become a Fan”.
Finally, I have created a photostream on Flickr, which you can view here. If you just looooove my pictures (hey, they’re improving!) you can subscribe to the photostream so you are alterted whenever a new photo is uploaded.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all find the changes useful and exciting.
Happy Monday!
11 Oct
Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake
Posted by Chelle as Brownies & Bars, Cheesecake, Chocolate | 30 Comments
Behold, a gorgeous four-part cheesecake in all of its glory:
Oreo crumb crust.
Creamy cheesecake.
Fudgy brownies.
Chocolate ganache glaze.
WOW. Now, many of you know I am a self-professed Queen of Cheesecake. No, I’m not tooting my own horn about how fabulous my own cheesecakes always turn out, but cheesecake is by far my very favorite dessert. I’ll eat it before anything else laid in front of me. And so when I saw this cheesecake featured on Smitten Kitchen, there was no turning back. I had to make it. Immediately. And with no good reason whatsoever other than I wanted it. No company, no dinner party, no celebration. Just because it looked THAT good.
08 Oct
Roasted Flank Steak with Olive Oil-Herb Rub
Posted by Chelle as Beef | 6 Comments
I had cut this recipe out of a Cooking Light issue more than a year ago and stowed it away in my stash of “to make” recipes, never to be seen again. I have an entire folder of recipes ripped out of magazines that I want to try (not to mention the hundreds that are starred in my Google Reader), and until last week I had all but neglected them. Last Wednesday morning after getting out of the shower our power went out. I work from home, so no power = no work. I decided that my “recipe shelves” (i.e. all of my cookbooks, magazines, and tear outs) were in desperate need of a purge and reorganization, so with the freedom of not being tethered to any electronics, off I went and I unearthed this recipe. I honestly wish the power would go out more often - it’s such a liberating feeling to know you can’t turn on the TV, surf the Internet, or do anything else than just “be”. Maybe I should make that more of a priority even when the power IS on! I digress…
