gorgeous

i wanted ice cream. so i thought of making dorie greenspan's chocolate ganache ice cream. but then i realised that i've neglected beranbaum's pie and pastry bible for too long, so i flipped to the ice cream pies section and chose one of the ice creams to make. didn't make it into a pie though.

i chose the peanut butter ice cream, which was a dream to make. just a cooked egg custard whisked with peanut butter. it was so thick and creamy and tasty and so dangerously edible even before churning.

what to go with peanut butter ice cream? chocolate bread pudding!

i picked a dorie greenspan recipe for the chocolate custard. the bread was the very old, refrigerated, failed wassant. the warm pudding was so delicious with the ice cream!

and then i went back to the first bread i attempted. nigella's norwegian cinnamon buns! the first time i made the buns i failed so terribly because i hand-kneaded the dough. then i tried cutting the dough using a knife. it was horrible, but the bread was tasty. but that was in 2008.

so i thought, after 3 years, and knowing that bread is truly best kneaded with a mixer, i could reattempt the bread. but, the dough was really horible; it didn't come together no matter what even with a mixer. but i refrigerated it and the next day i worked it while it was cold, so i suppose that solved part of the problem.

somehow, the cinnamon sugar-butter mixture was firmer than i remembered. maybe i didn't soften the butter entirely. but i used butter handwhipped from cream, and it felt really homemade.

i love how the buns start off flat, and then during baking, the centres swell and rise up slightly so it looks like a mountainous road. i think it's because the cinnamon swirl is so rich in butter that in the hot oven the butter melts and lubricates and helps the centres to slide upwards.

so pretty, and so tasty!