You may choose to call it procrastibaking, I call it part of my PROCESS
Happy Friday, friends! I've done a great deal of baking over the past week, since my deadline is next week and all, and I have plenty of baked goods to tell you about. But first, a reminder: I'll be at the LA Times Festival of Books in two weeks! I love love this event; I went a few times as a reader before I was published, and it's such a thrill to be back for the second year as a writer! I'll be on a panel on Saturday afternoon at 1 pm, with Alyssa Cole and Camille Perri, moderated by Erin Judge. You have to get a ticket for our panel (it's free) so get it now! We'll be signing after the panel. And if you're planning ahead to June, I'll be at the Book Con the first weekend of June, on a panel on Sunday the 2nd, with Tessa Bailey, Alexis Daria, Amanda Heger, Abby Jimenez, and Mia Sosa, moderated by Meg Cabot! I'm very excited about all of this, and I hope to meet lots of you!
This week I read The Collected Schizophrenias, by Esme Weijun Wang, and I have to rave to all of you about it. Esme is a friend, so you may think I'm biased, but the thing is, most writers who are friends of mine are people whose work I read before we were friends and they were so smart or brilliant or fun or interesting that I put out a desperate wish into the universe that we would become friends, and with Esme I was lucky enough for that wish to be granted. This book of hers has gotten a ton of press and accolades, -- People Magazine! The New York Times! The New Yorker! -- and it deserves them all and then some. It's a collection of essays about her life with schizoaffective disorder and the history -- in science, pop culture, and news -- of her disorder and the others that make up the schizophrenias. This book is absorbing, brilliant, interesting, and full of so much life and humor and joy and sorrow underneath it all. I read it in two days this week, and I can't stop thinking about it. I hope you'll all read it and love it too.
On to the baked goods! Over the past week I've made cookies, bread, and cake, because when I'm stressed or don't know how to solve a problem or am in a holding pattern (all of which have been the case in one way or another over the past month) I find cooking so soothing. If you do two, here are two easy recipes for you to self soothe with.
Nigella's Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake
Yes, longtime readers of this newsletter will know I've given you this recipe before, but I'm doing it again because it's just so good and easy and satisfying, but I do have one slightly new trick for it this time.
1 cup (or 8 ounces, or two sticks softened butter)
1 2/3 cups dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (she doesn't include this, but I do and I think it's better with)
1 cup plus 2 teaspoons boiling water (as I said last time, I just eyeball this, it's fine)
Heat the oven to 375 degrees F, and grease and line a 9x5 loaf pan with parchment paper, and then grease the paper. (Do not make this cake without doing this, it's a super wet cake and would be a huge pain to get out of a pan without parchment). The batter makes a little extra, so line a muffin tin with 3 muffin liners.
Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until well combined, then add the eggs and vanilla, beating until smooth. Next, fold in the melted and cooled chocolate until just combined. With the mixer on low, alternately add the flour mixture and the boiling water in 4 or so batches each, and stir until the mixture is all combined. The batter will be very liquid.
Here's my new step, and I do this because if you use all of the batter, this cake will overflow and get messy, but it's hard to judge when pouring it all into the loaf pan exactly when to stop: Fill your muffin tins first (fill them on the shallow side). Then pour the rest of the batter into the lined loaf pan.
Bake the cake for 30 minutes (take the muffins out after 20). Turn the oven down to 325, and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. Take the cake out and put on a rack and let it cool completely before you turn it out -- it'll fall in the middle, that's okay, that's how this cake is! Eat alone or with whipped cream or ice cream.
King Arthur Flour White Sandwich Bread
This bread I made out of sheer laziness this week. I'd run out of bread that morning, and I needed to go to the grocery store, but it was pouring down rain and I couldn't handle it so I looked up this recipe to see if I could make it before bedtime, and indeed I could. King Arthur Flour recipes in general are so well written and work so well, I highly recommend them. (You can look at the link for volume or grams)
12 3/4 ounces all purpose flour
4 ounces milk (use any kind of milk you want)*
4 to 5 3/8 ounces hot water, enough to make a smooth dough#
2 ounces melted butter or vegetable oil
7/8 ounce sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 packet dry active yeast dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm water, OR 2 teaspoons instant yeast
* their trick is to mix the cold milk with the hot water to make a lukewarm liquid and it's brilliant
# They say to use the lesser amount of water in the summer, or under humid conditions; and the greater in the winter, or when the climate is dry. It was cold and rainy that night so I didn't know what to do and just used about the middle amount and it was fine.
In a large bowl (or the bowl of your stand mixer) combine all of the ingredients. If you're doing this in your mixer, attach the bread hook and combine and knead for five to seven minutes, or until it becomes smooth and supple. If you're doing it by hand, stir the ingredients to combine, then transfer to a greased surface and knead for 6-10 minutes. Transfer the dough to a greased bowl, cover and allow to rise until puffy and almost doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours. Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface, shape it into a log about the length of your loaf pan, and pop it into your (greased) loaf pan. Cover the pan loosely with greased plastic wrap and let it rise for about another hour, until it's risen about an inch from the edge of the pan.
Preheat the oven to 350 while the bread is rising. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the bread is a light golden brown. Remove from the oven, cool on a rack, slice, eat, and be proud of yourself.
Have a great weekend!
Jasmine
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