Very Voluble

I did quite a bit of baking this weekend. I hadn't done any in quite awhile, which is probably for the best so i don't have deserts laying around. Saturday night i started a loaf of No Knead Bread. the second rise didn't go very well for me. I don't think my apartment is warm enough. I didn't do a good job of shaping the dough ball either. It wouldn't hold it's shape. the recipe calls for a 6-8 qt pan, but I think something in the 4qt range would be sufficient. I think it may have come out rounder if I had used a smaller rounder dish. As for the taste, it was quite nice. It had a nice chewy and crunchy crust with a slightly yeasty taste. Mine was a little dense due to the lack of rise. I probably could have baked it a little longer, but the soup was ready and I was impatient. I will definitely be trying this again. I made creamy chicken and wild rice soup to go with the bread. I made a lot of soup; I didn't mean to.

I also made some banana bread using the recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. I wasn't too impressed with it. It may have been better if I had baked it in to small pans rather than one large one. The outside got a little dark before the middle was done. Josh was quite worried that it would be burnt. I used a buttermilk powder rather than real buttermilk b/c the editors of Cooks' Illustrated told me it works in baked goods almost as well as buttermilk. I am not sure how much that substitution had to do with how it baked.

I started a pair of baby socks for a baby to be born in May. I think they are going to be quite cute if I don't totally mangle them.