whole wheat focaccia

Yet another recipe from the Pillsbury Complete Cookbook. This focaccia bread uses an egg, which is a little different than most of the focaccia recipes I saw on the internet before just going to Mr. Doughboy.



I added about two cups of whole wheat flour and a little white. What I've noticed about whole wheat is it takes a hell of a lot longer to rise, but it's good in the end. Just give yourself a good amount of time (um, 2-3 hours/rise) to achieve palatable results. Earlier this month I tried to make dinner rolls, and allotted the same amount of time for them as I had white rolls. We had dinner pucks.




Tasty stuff!

Strawberry cake

Well, dear reader, I am back - albeit temporarily. Life has decided to get pretty crazy.

On the upside, I'm now a certified librarian! Now if only I could find a job. Ha. ...not kidding there. Anyone need a baker for hire?

At any rate, I got to host a lovely party for some friends earlier this week and happened upon a veritable truck of strawberries at Costco. Out of that came a salad with strawberries, almonds and basalmic vinegar and this lovely strawberry cake.

I can't say enough good things about the Pillsbury Complete Cookbook. It's got some awesome recipes for baking that never fail. Thanks, mom!




At any rate, I used the yellow cake recipe from this book and made a simple cream cheese icing:
1 block cream cheese, cold
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups strawberries
powdered sugar to taste

Beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add the strawberries and then add powdered sugar until it reaches a good consistency. I should have added more but was reluctant to kill the taste of the cream cheese. The cake melted in the warm weather of the evening, but it was awesome.

Forgive the questionable pictures - it was late at night and the host may have had a few drinks by the time the party was jumping enough to cut the cake.