Numbers are Hard

oatmeal, caramel, oatmeal -- what could be better?

I am obsessed with a new blog called I am Baker. This woman has an awesome assortment of delicious baked goods which are all decorated beautifully; she’s my amateur baking idol. One treat in particular caught my eye: an oatmeal brownie bar stuffed with caramel, inspired by Martha Stewart. I got hungry looking at it and decided that I was willing to run on the treadmill for an extra 45 minutes to have one of these bad boys. Without wasting any time, I head to the store at 9:30 PM to collect the ingredients and returned with a pint of heavy cream and 6 Milky Way bars.

Let me interject here with the theme of this post – things that are difficult. There are a few things I’m not the greatest at (typing, air traffic control, balancing my checkbook) but I was pretty sure I mastered numbers in kindergarten after I got my “counting to 100 certificate”. Apparently, this is a skill I need to work on because the recipe only called for 2 Milky Way bars and somehow I brought home 6. Did I accidentally multiply by 3? divide by 2 and add 5? Take the square root to the second power and multiply by the second composite number in the sequence? Hard to say, but let’s hope Milky Ways bars have a long shelf life, because I have way too many. 

Fail

Also among things that are hard – reading directions. Another fun fact that I discovered upon returning home with 4 too many Milky Way bars was that I also needed 47 squares of caramel. Really? By now it’s 10:00 and I’m not going to venture back out to the Food Emporium to correct my inability to count or follow directions. I’ll just make it work with some homemade caramel.

Making homemade caramel is actually pretty easy, all that it requires is some heavy cream, butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. The only tip is you want to make sure to use large pot, because the mixture triples when it starts boiling. Combine all of the ingredients over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it reaches a boil. From there, you just let everything hang out until it reaches 230 degrees F. 

Needless to say, I don’t have a candy thermometer (I don’t even have a people thermometer to tell if I have a fever, so I’ll probably invest in one of those first). A few tips to tell if your caramel has reached it caramel-ness is the color (notice how it changes from a blonde, to a dirty blonde, to a nice golden brown color). 

 

Also, once you think the caramel is ready to go, take a fork and drizzle a little into a cup of cold water. If it can form a soft ball, you’re in business.

So with that mixture ready, it’s time to add the 2 chosen Milky Way bars. This is where you also want to add some cream so the ingredients combine together. Once that’s done, let the mixture cool down for 5 or 10 minutes. 

 

Meanwhile, make the top and bottom layers. The I am Baker recipe suggests mixing in some brownie mix, but I was in a classic mood, so I stayed true to the Midwestern oat-bar and left it unadulterated. After pressing ½ of the mixture into a greased dish, I poured the caramel/Milky Way concoction on top and save the remaining crumble to cover everything. 

Then you pop it in the over for 30 long minutes and end up with something that looks like this:

Not exactly Maratha Stewart quality, but it tastes damn good. I think next time I will just make the caramel from scratch and scatter a cup of chocolate chips on top because the Milky Way bars didn’t really add a chocolaty taste to it. Any way you want to make it (as a brownie, or with any combination of chocolate and caramel) this is a very easy, delicious recipe. And if you’re lucky enough to have basic math problems like me, you might end up with a couple extra Milky Way bars. 

Strawbrizzle Jam

So I’m still no further in thinking about what I want to do with the blog, but that’s not going to stop me from documenting my baking escapades, especially when one of my most favorite ingredients is in season – strawberries. Upon seeing $5 flats of strawberries on a recent trip to TJ’s, I just couldn’t deny my hoarding tendencies—so I bought a bunch. I mean, the apocalypse was just days away… what if I couldn’t get strawberries after 5/21? 

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but once I got them home, I had to figure out how to consume about 6 pints of strawberries in a matter of a week. I put them in my breakfast, ate them for dessert, and after about day 3, couldn’t force-feed myself any more. Then, I remember the delicious homemade jam my grandma use to make in the spring time. When I was 8 I could easily go through and entire jar of strawberry jam in about 2 days. The ingredients are what make is so good: strawberries and sugar -- It’s pretty much dessert in a jar.

I was sure this strawberry jam recipe was some locked down Hannah family secret because of how delicious it was. I called home and had my parents look through every recipe card in my grandmother’s old cookbook to find it. When it finally turned up, I was a little depressed when I learned that grandma got this one from the back of a gelatin box. Whatever, grandma obviously knows not to mess with the classics. 

  

So, recipe in hand, I was ready to start on my homemade jam/canning adventure in the wee kitchen. But, I would also have to have something to put the jam on, so I figured I would make a nice, buttery, brioche bread to serve as the vessel for the jam… can’t be that hard right? Right?

I started by making the bread. The list of ingredients is pretty short – some flour, 3 sticks of butter, yeast, a little water – it’s combining them all together that is the work. Just about every recipe I read suggested using a bread maker, or at least a standing mixer. Oh yeah – like I have room for that in my 8 x 8ft kitchen. Knowing the Big Lots hand mixer would probably kick the dust if I forced it to blend bread together, I decided to do it all by hand. You have to mix each little chunk of butter in by itself by punching and turning the dough. It took a good amount of time, but I worked my aggression out. 

Phew – all done, now just gotta cover this up with some saran wrap and let it rise.

Jump forward 60 minutes…. This looks exactly the same. What the hell?

After checking a few baking sites, it seems like the yeast wasn’t “activated”, so I tried it one more time and made sure the yeast had little bubbles in it before I remixed everything.  Ok, so take 2, going to try this again. 

After the bread (finally ) rose, I cut it into 3 pieces, rolled each of them into a log, and then braided it together to form a braid. It got brushed with some egg whites and sugar and then into the oven. GODSPEED!

 

Now onto the main event – strawberry jam. Compared to the bread, this is quite easy. Strawberries + sugar + heat + 20 minutes of boiling = Jam. If you want some more specifics the “secret family recipe” is below. It advises using Sure-Jell which is pectin and just about impossible to find in NYC (with so many people awaiting the apocalypse, you’d think…). I read a couple of canning blogs (nerd!) and to find that lemon juice is a good substitute since the acidity works with the sugar to make the jam more jelly-like and made that substitution below. 

All that’s left is pouring the strawberry lava into jars. Make sure the jars are sterilized or you end up with botulism in your food without any exceptions** (this may not be 100% true). I just heated up a pot of boiling water and dropped the lids and cans in there for 5 min or so to make sure. Then pour the jam in, leaving about ½ inch at the top and seal. Drop the cans back into a few inches of water for another 5 or 10 min to make sure the can is going to seal. As the jars cool, they’ll pull the little security popper thing down because of a vacuum or friction or gravity… I don’t know… something with science. 

Bread is ready, Jam is ready; time to eat!

Strawberry Jam: 

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fresh strawberries, hulled
• 5 cups white sugar
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 pinch salt

Directions

1. In a stockpot, combine the strawberries, sugar, vinegar and salt. Bring to a rolling boil, and cook stirring frequently for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the temperature of the mixture has reached 220 degrees F (105 degrees C).
2. Transfer the mixture to hot sterile jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace, and seal. Process jars for 10 minutes in a water bath. Refrigerate jam once the seal is broken.