Gingersnaps

I am afraid anything following the challah would have had a hard time impressing us…that bread was SO good!  I made the gingersnaps the same day I was baking the challah; squeezing it in, between the rises. 🙂  I figured it would be easy since they were just cookies.  So, not only were these cookies up against the challah, I also have an out of this world frosted ginger cookie recipe from Sunset magazine that I have been using for years.  They are unbelievable…and SO easy.  That brings us to the current recipe…

The recipe was simple enough…mixed up the dough and put it in the fridge to chill.  You roll these out similar to sugar cookies.  I am showing how liberally I floured the dough and granite since the recipe stated the dough can get sticky.

I rolled out the dough no problem..

Then I tried to put them onto the cookie sheet…what a nightmare!!

I literally had to scrape all the dough back together into a ball to chill again.  This time I put it into the freezer for a bit.  I worked really quickly with the dough the second time to get the cut out cookies onto the cookie sheet.

Thankfully they didn’t stick but wow these were a lot of work…and the end result just ok.  I don’t see myself making these again.  Onto the next recipe! 🙂

Challah

This was the most delicious bread I have ever made…and one of the best recipes I have ever tried!  How is that for a way to start the blog? 🙂  I would say if you are like me and have never made challah, than you should give it a try.  Pretty straight forward recipe with amazing results!

Mix up the yeast.

Allow the dough to rise.

Create your three sections to braid…have to say I was glad I had a lot of experience braiding hair growing up or this might have been challenging.  I did appreciate the helpful hint to start in the middle and braid to the end on each side.

Create the braid.

Another rest.

Bake the bread.

It was so hard to wait until the bread cooled down to try it!!  It smelled so good and looked delicious.  I tried a piece and thought it was really good…like REALLY good.  Had my son come in and try it and he said it was AMAZING and promptly ate a few slices.  We had more at dinner so the rest of the family could sample it and we all thought it tasted similar to an Auntie Ann’s pretzel.  We loved the slightly sweet taste with the coarse salt on top.  Everyone that sampled this bread loved it.  I could actually see myself making this again…even though bread making is a bit time consuming.  I have the second loaf in the freezer waiting to be made into french toast…can’t wait to try that!! 😉