CHOCOLATE BREAD

There is a new bread trend going around the country and ever since I've heard of it I've been unable to get it out of my head. I've been dreaming of finally getting to make it and I finally did!

Meet my chocolate brioche.

It was so delicious and so odd. It was so crazy to eat a yeast bread chuck full of chocolate and yet have it taste savory instead of sweet. It was so fun to make, now I want to make chocolate bread for everything....too bad it doesn't work well for most things. I mean who wants to eat a hamburger on chocolate bread? Weird, yes.

We have decided to do a few things with chocolate bread at the restaurant however. It made it debut as chocolate french toast this weekend with chocolate covered bananas coated in pistachios. Delicious? I think so. Soon it will also be made into chocolate bread pudding.... at least I hope so!

Chocolate Breads the new thing and I'm so grateful that it is!

Jammin' it up!

I spend a lot of time by myself in my kitchen (since I have my own baking one.) I recently got this craving to make jam like my grandmas'. I began formulating a plan to make it. Luckily I have a great friend who goes along with my crazy baking ideas. She was more than happy to jump aboard the jam train.

I arrived at her house with many strawberries, pectin, sugar, my amazing immersion blender, and jalapenos. (I said I had a lot of time to myself.) We opened the sure gel and read the instructions thoroughly and were off.

We quickly accomplished one batch and decided it was pretty easy. Now on to the next three! The second batch is the one we decided to try with jalapenos. It was fun to keep trying it to see how hot it was in an attempt to not make hot inedible jam. It came out really great. I'm really excited that my crazy idea went well. My friend is thinking of using hers as a meat marinade. I think it's a terrific idea.

The only downside it that I touched my eyes with my jalapenos hands. It was painful and embarrassing. That's all I'll say.

The jam came out beautiful and I am so excited to smother toast in it and share it with many others!

My friend made her's all cute and crafty. She's amazing at it! So this is a picture of her jar....mine are sad and bare.

Bacon Flavored Ice Cream

So I've blogged about how amazing bacon is before and I stand by the fact that you can do almost everything with bacon....take note that I say almost.

We have a soft-serve ice cream machine at work and it's my job to fill it with delicious unique flavors of ice cream. The goal is to basically out do Ben and Jerry without all the swirls and chunks of goodness. I've been doing amazing. We've had some really great ice creams....until we decided to try bacon.

I arrived at work early and was discussing ice cream flavors with our chef as my brain has somewhat run out of flavors. (3 ice creams a week and you will run out to.) We decided on maple a fan favorite and then the task was to decide what would marry well with it so that our twist would be delicious. We both thought for a few minutes with our eyes gazing around our spice shelves and storage areas to try and find something I could turn into ice cream.

Just when I thought all hope was lost my chef got a wicked smile on his face and said, "Let's make bacon ice cream." It was genius! We had lots of bacon from some samples and it was going bad. A perfect solution.

I quickly agreed and we started cooking some off. I quickly heated my milk cream mixture and started to seep my bacon. I loving tending to my bacon ice cream for three hours. Stiring, tasting, adding sugar, adding bacon, skimming the fat off, straining the bacon out. I finally decided it had to be ready. (Plus lunch service was starting in like two minutes and it takes at least fifteen to freeze.)

I ran it to our soft-serve machine and quickly got it freezing. The waiting began....I stood around for about fifteen minutes and finally the green light came on. It was ready. I poured a little out for me and my co-workers to taste.

I tasted it first and my first reaction was hmmmm....not exactly what I had hoped. My chef tasted it and his thought was that it was weird. The reactions from others varied to hmmmm...and I don't think I like that. Everyone was trying to be so gracious to me but the straight facts were. Bacon ice cream (at least in soft-serve form) is disgusting. It's like eating creamy smoke that's really salty.

I was so sad it was horrible. I'd spent so many loving hours tending to it. I quickly agreed with my chef that we couldn't serve. We make amazing ice creams and my reputation would not be ruined by bacon. I just couldn't let it happen.

I melted the ice cream, removed it from the machine and slowly poured it down the drain vowing to keep bacon as an ice cream topping (we make a delicious maple sundae with candied bacon. It's really good.) and not actually as an ice cream flavor.

Crazy few months!

I know I'm a bad blogger! My life has been insane the last few weeks or months rather! Things are so busy at work! New desserts for spring! Yah! Also, a dreaded soft serve machine....It makes my life so unhappy sometimes! I promise to blog more soon and be a better blogger!

Happy Birthday!

I'll accept--Congratulations, TA DA, You did it, You made it, and of course you survived. We just celebrated our first year anniversary. We've been open for a year. I'm feeling very blessed to have made it a year. We didn't have a big party or anything (sadly, I thought we needed something huge!) but I did make cupcakes for everyone. I continue to be in awe that we've survived a year and I hope there is many more years to come.

However,above my excitement about surviving a year I must wish happy birthday to what has affectionately been dubbed my child, named Junior. He is also one year old and I am impressed that he is still alive since he's tried to die a few times. Junior is my bread starter.

Now for those of you who don't know what a bread starter is, it is about the consistency of mud and is made from fermenting flour and water for a long period of time. They can live for years and years and years and I'm proud to say mine's one!

Bread starters are kinda gross if I think about them for to long because I'm basically growing a fermented yeasty, flour, water concoction. I fed mine about three times a week and am so excited every time to watch it grow up the containers I place it in.

There's not a lot to say about bread starters but they give bread such a delight taste and is what makes me so proud of my french loafs and their delicious sour taste!

So, Happy Birthday Junior!!