Jen Caputo

Mascarpone Nutella Bread - Thanks SBG!

Yesterday I came home to two giant boxes from Amazon.  They were wedding gifts from my wonderful and generous family at Scrapbook Graphics. I wanted to use a few of the gifts right away and feature them in one of these wedding gift posts to show them how very thankful I am.

We're making this.

My own invention - Mascarpone Nutella Bread.  Oh baby.

From the SBG Gals, I'm using:

• Fiesta Sil-pin Silicone Rolling Pin
• iSi Silicone Scraper Spatula
• CIA Masters Collection Measuring Spoon Set

You'll also need:

• About 1 - 1.5 pounds of dough - I posted my recipe right here.
• 1 Cup Mascarpone Cheese
• Zest of one lemon
• Powdered sugar
• Nutella
• Flour for dusting your work surface
• Butter (to butter your bread pan)
• Microplane (to zest the lemon)
• Bread Pan
• Mixing Bowl/Mixing Utensil

First, we have to make the mascarpone filling.  Dump the mascarpone into your mixing bowl, add the zest of one lemon (or less if you don't want it too lemon-y)

6 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

Stir it up.

Butter your bread pan.

Flour your work surface, shape your dough into a bowl and dump it on the counter.

Roll out a rectangle, until it's about 1/8" thick. This silicon rolling pin worked beautifully and never stuck to my dough.  Old wood rolling pin, meet Goodwill!

My rectangle was about 13" wide and 18" long.

Spread a little less than half of the Mascarpone mixture onto the dough. Make another loaf tomorrow with the other half :)

And then the nutella. 

Now, you have to roll it up.  This is where the silicone scraper comes in so very very handy!

Look, we're all rolled up and no dough is stuck to the counter - woohoo!

Since my roll was long and skinny, I folded it in half, popped it in my buttered bread pan, and covered with plastic wrap. You have to let it rise in a non-drafty location for at least an hour or until it's doubled in size.

I brushed a little butter onto the top of the loaf. Put it into a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  Let cool for 30 minutes before slicing.  Consider adding a little more of the mascarpone mixture on top as a spread! (I did.)

Also pictured - a beautiful bamboo cutting board that my favorite girl, Kristin gave me at my bachlorette party and the J.A. Henckels Twin Signature 8-Inch Bread Knife from Aunt Peggy.

Shower Gifts: Food Scale & Dough Whisk - We're making bread!

Today I'm making bread dough with the following gifts:

• Oxo 1130800 Good Grips Food Scale with Pull-Out Display from Aunt Ginny
• Danish Dough Whisk from Aunt Sherry & Kim

Look at that bow on the package from Aunt Ginny - she made it!

I thought I would walk you through the dough-making process that I've used with all the breads I've shared.

As I mentioned before, I use the master recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. This is such an easy bread to work with and you really don't need to purchase anything except for a few basic ingredients.  Using the food scale to measure your ingredients makes this dough so much quicker to come together!

Here's what you need:

• Unbleached All Purpose Flour
• Yeast
• Salt
• Water
• Something to mix it in (I use the Cambro Round Food Storage Container)
• Something to mix with (I use a Danish Dough Whisk)
• A food scale (I use this one from Oxo - it is light weight, small, runs on batteries, and rocks!)

Put your mixing container on the scale and zero it. Add 1lb 12.75 oz of flour.

Zero it again

Add 1/2 an ounce of yeast, and 1/2 an ounce of salt.

Stir it up and then pour in 1.5 lbs of warm water. (not hot!)

 

And mix

You want to continue to mix just until all of the flour is incorporated. Don't overmix, don't knead.  Eventually it will look like this:

Then, you rest the lid on top (don't snap it all the way shut)

and let the dough rise until it doubles in size and flattens off.

And that's it - I keep this dough in the fridge all of the time.  Here are a few pictures of various breads I've made with this dough:

Not pictured: flatbreads, cinnamon swirl loaf, pepporoni rolls, pita bread, boule's, etc.

Shower Gifts: Jars, Sheet Pans, Spice Grinder: Sun Dried Tomato Powder!

This is the next post in my series of "Things I Did With My Shower Gifts".

Today's posts features the following gifts:

• Chicago Metallic Professional 3-Piece Value Pack with 2 Cookie/Jelly Roll Pans and Cooling Grid - 2 sets, 1 from Aunt Sherry and Kim, the other from Cousin Gloria.
• Oven Thermometer from Aunt Sherry and Kim
• Silpat 11-5/8-by-16-1/2-Inch Nonstick Silicone Baking Mat from Aunt Peggy
• Krups 203-42 Fast Touch Coffee Grinder, Black - From Adam's friend Zack
• Ball 4OZ Canning Jars - From Cousin Julie

 

We used these gifts to make a delicious Sun Dried Tomato powder.  Actaully we made two flavors, one from Beefsteak Tomatoes, one from Jubilee, both from my garden!

This might seem like a lot of work but it is literally only about 20 minutes total of active work time and that includes cleaning up.

• Preheat the oven to the lowest temp you can set it.  For me, this was 170. 
• Line your sheet pans with a silpat or parchment paper.
• Cut the tomatoes as thin as you possibly can and lie them on the lined pans.  One tomato should cover an entire sheet pan.
• Sit them in the oven.

• After 6-10 hours you will have these paper thin dried tomato slices. They are so sweet and delicious! But try not to eat them all right now.

• We asked for the coffee grinder to use as a spice grinder since we didn't want to mix spices with coffee.  Load up the 'spice grinder' with your dried tomatoes.

 

• Process them into a fine powder.

• And store them in air-tight jars

Enjoy on pizzas, caprese salads, pasta, etc.

My Wedding Shower

A few weeks ago my mom (with help from my grandma and aunt) threw me a beautiful wedding shower back in Michigan. It was so great to be surrounded by the women I love most in the world.

My Aunt Peggy did the gifts for everyone:

My mom bought these delicious cakes - probably the best carrot cake I've ever eaten! My cousin, Julie, made the chocolates with raspberries in the center - they were the crowd favorite!

 

My mom, myself, and my Aunt Karen

 

A big hug from Aunt Dianne while my cousin, Lindsey looks on.

 

This is my Aunt Peggy and I with our Aunt Ginny.  Aunt Ginny passed away over the weekend :(  I am so thankful that my mom held the shower so early and that Aunt Ginny was able to attend. She will be dearly missed.

 

Jen (on the left) is one of my best friends since 2nd grade!  Gerlinde (on the right) has been a family friend since before I was born. She used to babysit my brother and I all the time. I probably hadn't seen her in over 10 years so it was definitely such a treat for her to attend my shower.

 

Betsy is my brother's fiance, I handed her my camera and made her play photographer for most of the day.  Here we are comparing our oven burns.

 

Look at all the presents!

 

Jen sat next to me while I opened my goodies and wrote down what everyone gave me. 

 

These are my adorable cousins, Lindsey and Kim.

 

Thanks for the wonderful shower, mom!

 

I got so many awesome presents but I didn't want to just post a bunch of pictures of me holding them up.  I registered for some pretty odd things, so instead, I thought I would start a new feature on the blog showing how I have been using all of my awesome gifts! 

 

I'll start with this Chicago Metallic Professional Nonstick Perforated French Bread Pan that my cousin, Gloria, gave me.

I've been really into bread baking lately but had yet to successfully make a baguette.  I couldn't wait to try the pan out.  I used the master recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day which is a fairly wet dough so I lined the pan with parchment paper.  I formed my dough and laid it in the pan, covered with plastic wrap, and let it rise for about an hour.

Then, I took the J.A. Henckels Twin Signature 8-Inch Bread Knife that I got from Aunt Peggy

to make slashes in the bread.  (after I sprinkled it with some Herbs de Provence that Adam's parents brought us back from France!)

Roughly 25 minutes later I had these beautiful baguettes! (which I sliced with the bread knife as well, of course)

I was so excited with the results!

And that vase - that is a Vera Wang vase that came from Aunt Sammy! 

Adam had just happened to pick up some flowers for me at the grocery store and I thought they would accompany the bread nicely :)

I'll be back soon to show you how I used some more of my fantastic gifts! 

This post brought to you with thanks to my mom, Grandma, Aunt Peggy, cousin Gloria, and Aunt Sammy. (and cousin Julie, Betsy, Jen, etc.)