Baking Piroshki

On a rainy day,  my mom, dad,  siblings, and I baked piroshki (p•rosh•kee).  My Russian grandma gave us the recipe, and this was the first time we made them. My grandma only makes piroshki on special occasions because it takes a long time to make. Since it was a rainy day,  we had a lot of free time to bake piroshki. Here are the ingredients:

To make the dough:

•  2 cups of flour
• 35 ml of vegetable oil
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 package of yeast
• 1/2 tsp of sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• pinch of salt

 To make the stuffing:

• ground chicken, turkey or beef
• 1 onion
• salt 
• pepper

To make our dough, we first emptied a package of dried yeast into half a cup of warm water. We added in the sugar, mixed it up and let it stand for 20 minutes. We waited until the yeast grew to the very top of the cup.

Yeast when we first put it in the cup

Yeast after it has risen.

Next, we sifted two cups of flour into a bowl.  Then we added salt, oil, milk and yeast, and mixed everything together until we had dough. We covered the dough and put it into the warm oven to rise for half an hour.

Sifting the flour

The dough before it rose in the oven

While the dough was in the oven, my dad ground chicken and onion through a meat grinder.  Next, he fried the meat and onions together with salt and pepper in a pan. This will be the stuffing for the piroshki.

Meat and Onions

Frying the meat

When the dough had risen, we took a piece of the dough and rolled it out. Remember, always put flour and then roll out the dough or else it will stick to the board and you will not be able to take it off. Next, we took a cup and pressed it into the dough to make an even circle. Then we put a little meat into the rolled out dough, and we folded it up into a small round piroshki. We put them onto the baking sheet into even rows.  After the piroshki were on the tray, we took an egg and beat it up in a small bowl.  Then we got a brush and we basted the piroshki with the egg so it would turn a nice brownish color when they were in the oven.

1. Taking the risen dough out of the oven

2. Rolling the dough

3. Putting the meat on the piroshki

4. Folding the piroshki

5. Basting the Piroshki with egg

We baked them in the oven until golden brown at 350˚ F. While the piroshki were baking in the oven, the house smelled delicious.

What do you like to bake on a rainy day?

Baking Banana Bread

We had so much fun baking chocolate cookies that we decided to bake banana bread too.  We happened to have a couple of over ripe bananas so instead of throwing the bananas away we baked banana bread.   The recipe called for the following ingredients:



Chef Miriam



2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups of mashed overripe bananas




To make the bread we first mixed all the dry ingredients and all the wet ingredients intp 2 separate bowls.  Then, we combined everything together and baked at 350 degrees.

Adding cake batter into a greased pan

We made some modifications to the original recipe:

Look at all those chocolate chips!



We added 1 cup of chocolate chips at the very end. Because we put chocolate chips and they are very sweet, we only put 1/2 a cup of sugar instead of 3/4.  We also added a couple of extra spices.  We added a teaspoon of cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla.





Our favorite part of baking banana bread was mashing the overripe bananas.  The bread tasted more like cake instead of bread.  It was delicious!

Sarah mashing bananas



Banana bread



What do you think of the recipe?

Chocolate Chip Cookies

It was a cold and rainy day and we decided to make chocolate chip cookies.  First, we found a recipe and bought the necessary ingrediants that we didn't have at home. We chose the following recipe:

 
1 cup butter, softened                         

1 cup white sugar                             

1 cup packed brown sugar                

2 eggs                                              

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons hot water

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

First, we creamed together the butter and sugar until smooth.

Then we beat in the eggs one at a time.

Next, we dissolved baking soda in hot water, and added it to the batter together with salt, vanilla, and flour.



Wow! Look at all that chocolate.



Then we added 2 and a half cups of chocolate chips which was everyone's favorite part.  We all tried the chocolate chips just to make sure they were good.  

Finally, we preheated the oven to 350 degrees and baked the cookies until the edges were slightly brown. The whole house smelled wonderful and the cookies were delicious. 

What do you like to do when it rains or snows?

Do you like to bake? 

What kind of special recipes do you have?