KookyCulinary

My first Daring Bakers Challenge!! I have to admit when I first saw the challenge, I was a little apprehensive because I’ve never ever made Crackers. Not only that, it had to be vegan-free and/or gluten-free. But hey, I joined the Daring Bakers to challenge myself, so I decided to give it a try.

The challenge this month was to make Lavash which is the soft Armenian flatbread and a dip. The recipe was taken from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. which happens to be sitting on my shelf collecting dust!!

Surprisingly it turned out to be really fun making the lavash crackers. The only problem I had was at the end when I got ambitious and tried to cut out the crackers with cookie cutters. The problem was that I had roll it really thin. So when I cut it, it was hard to remove without losing the shape. In the end, I ended up just cutting it into strips. Then I topped half of the dough with sesame seed and the other half with cinnamon sugar.

As for the dip, I ended up just making a simple peach salsa. The crackers turned out really crunchy and were a big hit with my 3 year old. She was just gobbling them up!

As I was baking the first batch, I realized that some of the dough were puffing up and they turned out to be the ones that were not rolled very thin. I decided to experiment and make the 2nd batch a little thicker. Then use the biscuit cutter to cut into rounds.

The dough puffed out a lot and the final product turned out just like mini pita bread! Since I didn’t have any filling, I just stuff some cheese and it was great. Another item to add my 3 year old’s lunch box. Overall, this recipe is a keeper and I am sure that I will be making it more often.

I saw this gorgeous carrot cake in a magazine and I knew that I had to try it. Instead of the usual 2 layer carrot cake, this carrot cake had 6 layers of cake and icing. Unfortunately……..

I didn’t end up with 6 layers! The cake that I made did not turn out like the one in the magazine. I realized that I made 2 major mistake. The first was that I used my food processor to grate the carrot and it ended up being too fine. It would have been better if it had been a little rougher and thus more bite to it and probably a little less watery. Then I didn’t use the right size pan. Mine was a little too big, so the cake ended up a little flatter than I wanted. Other than that, I really like this cake. I will have to try it again soon.

Finally!! My first post. This blog has been created to document some of my culinary adventures, mishaps and all : )