Coffee cake makes me feel safe and loved

I woke this morning feeling like shit. Not like I was going to puke but like I was being defeated by a little annoying troll with bad breath. It was my mind playing tricks on me again. I think my wife felt the same way because I greeted here with a loud "Mornin' sunshine!" and she only grunted in reply. The clouds looked especially gloomy outside. The kitchen was a mess. My kids were not beaming. I needed a pick me up.

Nothing does it better than coffee cake! Use your hands to mix the topping, please.

I am very sneaky. I put whole wheat in the topping mix instead of white. The kids were distracted by Star Wars and shall never know. The whole wheat makes the sugar/flour mixture feel like beach sand. Come with me. Take a vacation. Do it before the holidays (before putting in the cinnamon).

Walnuts are very nice for the topping. Chop them up! Don't use peanuts. I made that mistake once. Here is the topping... Looks more like the beach sand you find in the Pacific Northwest.

The question I have right now is, should I use cream or yogurt in the cake? I went with a compromise!

Embroidery

Make your shirts more interesting!

Here is my run-of-the-mill shirt that is in need of a little flare.

I decided to embroider brown, dark blue, and light blue bars on the end of my sleeve. 

Here is the finished product. It turned out to be a fairly subdued finish. My next project will be more kick-ass than this one was. I think I will go for a floral on solid white!

Wheat Bread... 2nd attempt

I have been finding that it is fairly difficult to make fluffy wheat bread. You see it at the grocery store all the time. Why is that mine comes out so dense? Last week, I tried a new recipe from the America's Test Kitchen for regular wheat bread. Here is what came of my experiment:

Do you like how they glow?

Homemade Rustic Bread

I tried my first loaf of bread yesterday! Well, I've made bread before under the tutelage of my dear wife. This experiment was completely on my own. I started with grinding hard white wheat, then making a sponge and combining the sponge with my dough. This was the first time I had ever heard of a sponge. Apparently, this is a fermentation starter to help the bread to rise.

Well, here is a picture of the bread right after it came out of the oven:

Notice the slits I cut were not deep enough so they didn't blossom. I will try cutting them deeper next time.

The texture of the bread itself wasn't bad but I think it was a little on the dense side. The crust was also a little harder to cut through than I expected. The reason for this is likely due to the whole wheat. I need to find some ways to lighten up the whole wheat bread.

Happy baking, men!

Cookbook recommendation

I highly recommend The America's Test Kitchen cookbooks for those that thrive on details and structure. The recipes are very well spelled out and make for a challenging and rewarding experience.

Square foot gardens are great for kids

My son and I built this together. He took ownership of it and is very proud of it. He comes out to inspect it multiple times per day.

Display your fruit rather than plop it on the counter

When you bring fruit home from the grocery store, don't just set the bag of fruit on the counter. Find something nice to put them in. If the container is not big enough, store the extras in a cool place and set enough out for people to see. Here is what I did:

The kids will be more likely to pick up fruit to eat it when it looks inviting. Display is half the battle!

Good luck, men.