Inspiration: One of my new-to-me favorite cooking shows is Girl Meets Farm. So much so that when I spotted one of Molly Yeh’s cookbooks on the shelf of my local bookshop, I decided to make a purchase.
Within Molly On The Range was Yeh’s challah bread recipe.
However, the enclosed recipe makes two loaves — which is a lot of bread! Undoubtedly, aware that these loaves are huge, Yeh also offers alternate ways of utilizing this base dough — including prezel buns. Needing more than the line of instructions given in the book, I quickly located Yeh’s recipe here.
And I must admit, though these bakes looked intimidating to make, once you overcome that trepidation, they are pretty straightforward. And, despite my amateurish scoring skills, these buns turned out great!
Learn From My Mistake: This recipe calls for baked baking soda, which is easy to make. However, in this form, it can (and did for me) easily irritate the skin with very little contact.
Moreover, next time a recipe calls for baked baking soda, I will need to wear a mask while transferring it into a container, measuring it out, and before adding my wet ingredients into a mix. Since no matter how careful I was, the fine powder went airborne and irritated my lungs as well.
Agatha Christie’s Canon of Characters: I think Lucy Eyelesbarrow, from the Miss Marple mystery 4.50 From Paddington, would whip up this recipe (with far more finesse than I) for one of her clients. As the challah base recipe can yield at least nine different bakes, allowing Lucy to dazzle her clients with a variety of tasty treats with minimal effort!
Inspiration: With the fridge and freezer now containing homemade apple butter, I took to the interwebs once again. This time seeking a tasty looking apple butter cookie recipe…and, happily, I found one on Dessert Now Dinner Later blog!
Thin, chewy, applely, and filled with warm spices, these were a total hit with the crew at game night! And we ate entirely too many in one go!
Though I must admit I did fiddle with the spices called for in the recipe, since I knew exactly what was in the apple butter. So I added a single pass, on a micro-planer, of nutmeg, 1/16 tsp of ginger & mace — just to give it a little added depth without muddying the hero flavors of cinnamon and apple.
Agatha Christie’s Canon of Characters: Although these cookies aren’t as sophisticated as millionaire shortbread or a petite four, they are tasty enough to tempt Poirot. Especially if Capt. Hastings trys them first! And in a rare bit of overlap, I believe Miss Marple would also enjoy nibbling on them whilst gathering intel over tea!
Inspiration: A few months back, my better half and I went apple picking. The obvious outcome of this fun-filled excursion was many, many pounds of apples that needed something done with them. One of the most obvious recipes that this quantity of apples could easily handle was apple butter.
Scouring the internet for recipes, I found one I liked on the Pioneer Woman website and gave it a go. (Since I intended to use the apple butter as an ingredient in my bakes, I was not concerned with the comments this recipe garnered. As many of the reviewers took umbrage at the amount of apple cider vinegar the recipe called for. Plus, I enjoy the extra tang of apple cider vinegar, and it helps ensure the end product doesn’t become sickly sweet.)
And let me tell you, the apple butter turned out great!
Though, admittedly, I did need to cook it a bit longer to get my stuff to match the picture.
The literal fruits of our labor!
Helpful Hint: If, like me, you intended to use this as an ingredient rather than simply spreading it on toast, be mindful of the spices you add. If you add a ton of cinnamon, then add the apple butter to another recipe that calls for yet more cinnamon (for example), you could end up with an end product that’s overwhelming (not in a good way) and a tad unpleasant.
Hence why, for once in a row, I stuck to the recommended Tbsp and tsp.
Agatha Christie’s Canon of Characters: I can easily see Miss Maple or Tuppence making apple butter as a treat or to fill their table for a sale of work to benefit their community!
Inspiration: Recently, my better half has been devouring Korean comics. One he recently found and thoroughly enjoyed featured a character whose superpower skills included cooking.
Some delectable, mouthwatering cooking.
Amongst the many delicious dishes featured in the panels of art was kimbap. As my husband and I are VERY familiar with sushi, we were immediately intrigued by kimbap’s similar – yet distinct – appearance.
So as fast as my fingers could type, I took to the interwebs. Whereupon I learned kimbap is a Korean seaweed rice roll that’s filled with a wide variety of vegetables and protein, and does not require any dipping sauce. Moreover, kimbap can be eaten as a roll, triangle (like onigiri) or a burrito, depending on your preference.
Mildly confident in my rice shaping abilities, thanks to my recent forays into making rice balls, I settled on this recipe for Bulgogi Kimbap.
I lost my nerve partway through and found it again after watching this video several times.
Not only because of My Korean Kitchen‘s clear instructions, but also because she’s published a recipe for bulgogi beef as well. (A dish I’ve eaten plenty of times in restaurants, but never tried making from scratch.)
And, nearly immediately, I messed up.
So excited/trepidatious about making kimbap, upon making the marinade for the bulgogi, I failed to blend it in the blender. It still turned out tasty, but I’m looking forward to trying again using My Korean Kitchen‘s exact method.
Above and beyond the inadvertent mistake, my enthusiasm for trying this new-to-me food meant I was unwilling to wait a few days until my pantry’s shelves owned all the requisite components called for in the recipe.
So, I simplified instead: using sushi rice, blanched spinach, pickled carrot ribbons, my mis-marinated bulgogi (after it was cooked), and king oyster mushrooms (which I minced in a food processor and quickly pan-fried with a dollop of gochujang for a bit of heat).
And, despite my mistake and variations, the rolls turned out delicious! I look forward to following the recipe as written and savoring the results.
BTW: This is the first time in decades I’ve been able to eat cooked spinach! And by decades, I mean since I was knee high to a grasshopper, when I found myself in a standoff with a parental unit over my refusal to eat a side of seriously stringy and cold cooked canned spinach lying limply on my plate. Though we eventually “compromised”, by me literally choking down a half-dozen forkfuls, I’ve been unable to stomach the cooked stuff since.
But apparently, blanching fresh spinach and hiding it amongst other textures and some seriously flavorful fillings renders it edible.
Maybe this is growth? Gastronomically speaking.
Christie’s Canon of Characters: In my mind’s eye, I can easily see Lucy Eyelesbarrow making and quickly mastering kimbap for one of her clients, then introducing it to more still afterward, as she’s very capable and adventurous in both her professional and personal life.
I know these look like ordinary brownies, but they’re hiding a secret: a teaspoon of coffee & cinnamon, extra coco powder and a cup of dark chocolate chunks!
Inspiration: Endeavoring to step outside of the usual flavors of my cookies, I started scouring my cookbooks. Happily, I landed on this promising recipe, Toasted Sesame Slice-and-Bake Butter Cookies from Nancy Silverton’s book, The Cookie That Changed My Life and More Than 100 Other Classic Cakes, Cookies, Muffins, and Pies That Will Change Yours.
Whilst I’m no stranger to slice-and-bake cookies, as I love recipes that require mixing on one day and baking the next, Nancy Silverton and Carolynn Carreno’s recipe threw me for a loop.
Cookbook Review: When I first perused The Cookie That Changed My Life… in my local indie bookshop, I initially glommed onto the recipe for Iced Animal Crackers. Not only do they require sprinkles, but these cookies also allow me to practice cookie-cutter dough — a style of cookie I’ve struggled to reliably produce without my grandmother’s guidance. (My unsupervised efforts always seem to spread, looking more akin to balloon animals than said four-legged friend I was aiming to create.)
What I didn’t realize, until after I got home and delved deeper into the pages, is that I’ve a preference on cookbook layouts. And, you’ve guessed it, The Cookie That Changed My Life… doesn’t follow it.
Rather than breaking down the recipes into easily checked-off and manageable steps, which in my experience helps ensure you don’t miss adding or manipulating an ingredient, The Cookie That Changed My Life… does not. The recipes are broken down only by the broadest of strokes, leaving bakers with anywhere from 2 to 5 inches of text to parse for several steps in each recipe. Making the somewhat complicated recipes even more challenging/intimidating to reproduce.
Unless you’re a baker who’s apparently willing to sit down, break down, and rewrite every single recipe before stepping into the kitchen.
What I do appreciate about the book is the clear ingredient list, which gives the weight of most ingredients. (A feature which should not be underestimated.)
If you enjoy pretty cookbooks then, The Cookie That Changed My Life… is for you. The layout and its uniformity, plus the intermittent pictures, create an attractive book. And if you enjoy reading cookbooks like they were works of fiction, then The Cookie That Changed My Life… is one for you. If you don’t tend to lose your place in large blocks of text in the midst of measuring, mixing, and manipulating ingredients, again I would recommend this book.
However, if you value a practical approach to recipe writing, this book will drive you nuts. As either the editors, writers, or publisher valued style over accessibility.
That being said, the unique flavors, interesting techniques, and variety of recipes do partially make up for this (in my estimation) aforementioned flaw, and I would recommend The Cookie That Changed My Life…
With reservations.
P.S.: This cookbook is not for someone who’s new to baking as some of the processes required to successfully produce the bakes are highly technical and/or unusual.
The Bake: Familiar with the taste buds of my audience, i.e., my husband’s coworkers, I must admit to altering the Toasted Sesame Slice-and-Bake Butter Cookies slightly by adding the zest of one orange and one teaspoon of ground ginger to complement the warm nutty flavor of the toasted sesame. (It also kept the cookie from becoming one note.)
And they went down a treat!
Agatha Christie’s Canon of Characters: This is one of the few bakes I’ve produced that (I think) Hercule Poirot would enjoy. The flavor is subtle, warm, and elegant without being overly sweet. Moreover, the sesame flavor generally pairs well with espresso. Providing Poirot with something to nibble on whilst sipping a bean-based beverage and using his little grey cells.
My 52 Weeks With Christie 
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