Hello friends! When I wrote my blogpost titled “Baking My Way Through Quarantine” back in May, I never thought there’d be another Covid-related installment to that post. But here I am, still weary of venturing out and still baking – a lot! Thankfully, we are all healthy here. I hope you are too. Also thankfully, all my clothes still fit. Did I mention I've been baking a lot? Speaking of clothes and baking, I bought my first ever baking apron partly because it makes me feel official and serious, but mostly because I'm hopelessly messy. As before, I've linked recipes below to all of my baking. The only exception is the biscotti, which is a passed-down family recipe. Email me for that one! Also, the brownies and banana bread are from NY Times Cooking, which requires a subscription, but has a free trial. Totally worth it, in my opinion. One baking note, I ran out of the eggs when making the sugar cookies and learned that ¼ cup of plain Greek yogurt works great as a substitution. (Thank you Google!) If you follow me on Instagram, most of these photos may look familiar. Also, thank you for following me on Instagram! And if you don’t, please come find me - @karenpokras_author - especially if you want more baking pictures, the latest book news, and extra cute photos of my two black grumpy but lovable editorial assistant cats and adorable foster kittens. Right – baking. Here we go… There’s one more and honestly, it could get its own blog post, so I’ll try to give the short and sweet version: I received a request from my Englishman for a childhood favorite he’d been craving. Something this American never heard of called “Malt Loaf.” After some research, I learned it’s a fruit cake held together with a sticky, yet apparently vitamin-packed ingredient called “malt extract,” which I needed to special order. Another ingredient, molasses, also proved difficult to find for some odd reason, but I learned it’s easy to make from scratch. The recipe for malt loaf wasn’t complicated, but I’m not going to lie, malt extract smells awful. And the smell carried through my entire kitchen. After baking, I had to wrap the malt loaf in paper to “mature” for 4-5 days. Thankfully, the smell mellowed with the maturing process. And there actually was still another baked good, because I wound up making scones a few days later, both to cover the smell and because I wanted an edible British sweet in case the malt loaf was a complete disaster. I substituted dried figs and cherries for currants because that's what I had used in the malt loaf recipe. In the end, the malt loaf got a thumbs up, although not from me. I was glad I had scones as a backup. Happy baking and be well!
Xo, Karen
1 Comment
8/26/2020 05:34:25 pm
Yum. Looks so good! But I'd think you would have run out of 'regular' foods to bake. You should experiment with low carb baked goods - and if they actually taste good, post the recipes here. :D :D :D
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |