Leave the oven light on. Recipes #29 and #30.

I have a confession. I love to watch every thing I bake through the oven door window with the oven light on. I'm obsessed. I can't help it. It amazes me to watch something from start to finish. I would be crushed if we didn't have an oven window, because obviously I can't open the oven door every two minutes, it would ruin the process. I feel like the rise of the bread or cake or the browning of the crust is air in my lungs or the beating of my heart. I feel thrilled to see each item becoming what I hoped it would. T is the only one who witnesses my gestures of joy and goofiness.

In person, I'd like to think I'm fairly reserved with my emotions. I used to be less reserved but experiences have made me feel that at most times it's best to not wear one's heart on one's sleeve. If I like you, I bake for you, I feed you.

Tonight we're having new friends over to visit and we're making them dinner. I decided I would make Cloverleaf dinner rolls from my favorite baking cook book, The Art and Soul of Baking and a Fresh Apple and Toffee Tart from Hershey's Recipe Collection, a gift from T's parents for our wedding shower, that I've yet to try a recipe out of.




Recipe # 29 - Cloverleaf dinner rolls.

First the yeast, sugar and water sit for ten minutes until foamy.
Then add the flour, potato and salt and knead with your dough hook.
The we proof! The dough must rise and double in size.
Voila!
Then it sits in the fridge overnight.
Three ounces per roll, split it to one ounce balls. Then placed together to form a cloverleaf.


Second proofing, they'll double in size again.
Then into the oven! They smell amazing and wonderful. I want to bake bread every day of my life!
Oh my! They're taunting me.
Hot from the oven with sweet cream butter. Delicious and homey.
Recipe # 30 - Fresh Apple and Toffee Tart
Granny Smith apples.
Dougal loves the peels.
Apples, sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch... it's a Hershey's recipe, normally I don't like to use cornstarch.
Heath toffee bits get pressed into the crust.
Apples layered on top.
Fold the crust over the edge of the apples.
More toffee bits and I sprinkled Turbinado sugar around the edge of the crust.
I had some apple mixture left over so I placed it in a ramekin, sprinkled it with toffee bits and put it in the convection over for twenty minutes.
Delicious!
The finished tart! I'll service this after dinner tonight with vanilla bean ice cream and fresh whipped cream.