Habanero Herb Bread

So my boyfriend and I are sitting at the bar on a Sunday morning, contemplating what to do with our day. We started down the road of making Indian food, which lead to the idea of making naan. After looking up some naan recipes and deciding it was too involved, we kind of dropped that idea. We kept going down the cooking route, and bread came up. And then I had the brilliant idea to make spicy pepper bread. This lead to the googling of several recipes, and a trip to the store.

After arriving at his place, I ended up googling even more recipes. Neither of us had ever made bread before, so there was much research to be done. The tasty, tasty bread we made ended up being an amalgamation of several different recipes.

So here it goes:

2 1/4 cups warm water
1 package dry yeast
2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
Honey
3 cups flour

And freshly chopped:
Habaneros... lots and lots of habaneros
Rosemary
Sage
Thyme
Oregano

So first we combined the warm water, yeast, sugar, salt, and some of the honey. That sat for 15 minutes until it was good and foamy. Then we added everything else. It ended up taking substantially more than the 3 cups of flour that was called for to make the batter nice and stiff. At some point I kicked the boy out for some secret ingredienting (Yes, I just made ingredient a verb. Deal with it).

Then came the fun (messy) part. We floured the counted, and the boy got down to kneading, while I buttered the bowl (why? I don't really know, but a couple of the recipes called for it so why not?) Once the dough had been sufficiently kneaded we tossed it into the buttered bowl, covered it with a damp towel, and let it rise for an hour.

When it had risen, we kneaded it for another 5 minutes. Then we tossed our dough into a loaf pan, tossed our pan into a toasty 350 degree oven, and let it bake for an hour. The house smelled delicious by the time we pulled it out. And it was fantastic bread that was spectacularly devoured by all who came near it. It had a good kick to it, but wasn't too spicy. Really, it was awesome!

And the boy even took a picture of it for me:

7-Up Cake and MOAR BAKLAVA!

I promised the boy I'd surprise him with 7-Up cake one day, because it's his favorite (though I had never heard of it until him). So I made it!

I followed this recipe that I found. I even went out and bought 7-Up (cause I don't usually buy soda). I followed the recipe pretty much to the t. Though, honestly, I didn't cream the butter and sugar for 20 minutes. That seemed a bit much and I am not very patient. I did let my Kitchenaid go at it for a good bit though.

While that was baking, I wanted to use up the leftover dough from the previous attempt at baklava. I followed the rough draft of the recipe, but mixed things up a little more this time. Instead of pistachios I went with chopped walnuts. I also used cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom in the nut mixture instead of cinnamon and cloves. I used the same spices again for the honey syrup. What can I say? I'm like my adventurous baking.

The 7-Up cake was super rich and buttery.

The boy definitely enjoyed it!

The baklava was again awesome.

I think it was even better than the first batch, but I also think I personally prefer the spices I used this time around, so that's just me. The container of them I brought into work disappeared before lunch, so I think my coworkers agreed that it was pretty tasty too!

Baklava and Boys!

So that cute boy I was baking for (now the boyfriend) and I decided to make baklava! I've never made baklava before, and I've never baked with my boyfriend before so this is a whole new adventure!

So we followed this recipe with only a few minor modifications.

I melted the butter for the layering of the dough, which the boy did while I made the nut mix. I added some extra cinnamon to the mix, because who doesn't love cinnamon. Had I been baking alone, or done this before, I probably would have gone a bit crazy with more spices, but I contained myself.

Once it was all together, we tossed it in the oven and made the syrup. The boy added extra honey, and we used powdered cinnamon instead of cinnamon sticks in the syrup as well. When it came out we drenched it with syrup and began the agonizing wait for it to cool.

Yay Baklava!

Yay Boyfriend!

And, of course upon hearing the ruckus in the kitchen, and having sampled much of my legendary baking, my room mate, the mad scientist, came to see what was cooking.

As is his horrible fate, he had to sample some. He agrees... it's awesome! Also, my office agrees on the deliciousness. And, of course I win. I've got baklava and boys!