The temps came down and baking resumed!

We were able to turn off the air conditioning Saturday and Sunday - so nice! I really do hate having the house all closed up all the time. Lower outside temps, also meant I could bake.

I seriously needed to make regular bread and some snack breads for the boys. First, I made the banana blueberry bread again as it was an instant hit. Again, turned out great:


Then, I made a bread called a hearty white bread. it's made with white flour, but with added wheat germ, eggs and powdered milk. It turned out OK, but not a favorite recipe. Has a bit of a sweet taste, which is not what we were looking for, but the loaves turned out great. I got great oven spring (probably a bit too much as I probably underproofed a bit) and I was able to get a good slash on it - yay!

Then on Sunday, I made with my two strawberry blonde boys, mandelbread. It's a Jewish style biscotti. The recipe is from a friend. She had made it once and we got the leftovers. I just recently got the recipe (again - after misplacing it the first time). Henry measured all the ingredients and helped crack the eggs and Adrian mixed all the ingredients and helped me roll the dough into logs. I then baked, sliced, and rebaked.

Here is the progress - rolls just after cooking (and I had some SERIOUS doubts as it looked like the dough was melting in the oven, but eventually, as the dough got hot in the interior, it did puff back up instead of turning into a bar cookie). 

And then slicing. I first tried to slice it when it was immediately out of the oven, but that wasn't working as it was smushing and falling apart. I waited a minute or two and then sliced, which worked much better:

Then, we rebaked it to make it crisp and then sprinkled a bit of cinnamon sugar on top. This wasn't in the recipe we got, but noticed it was pretty standard from other recipes, and who doesn't like cinnamon sugar?

We were thrilled! We bought these from a kosher bakery a couple weeks ago and they were $4 for 8 pieces. This entire recipe probably cost $5 to make and it made about 60 pieces:

Best part was making it with the boys. It's so easy and keeps for a long time. I'm sure this will become a family favorite. Next time I'll have to try it with nuts (almonds).