Lesson #14 Celebrating Bread Baking Outside!

Our good friend Steve is a potter and a bread maker. The two really do go hand in hand, they are very similar forms of art. He recently completed his outdoor oven. It is beautiful! To celebrate his accomplishment several friends got together to bake...of course! Everyone brought some sort of bread to bake. It was fabulous. After we had partaken of several types of bread we all began to experience foggy brain from carb overload. Some of the breads we devoured were; rye, beautiful white loaves, homemade pretzels with homemade beer cheese (to die for), stromboli (with vodka sauce), a sausage stuffed bread (wonderful with the cream cheese and homemade pepper jelly on top), Evie's sweet bread, a skillet apple pie, and a lovely creamy pear dish. All cooked in Steve's fabulous oven. We stayed warm by the fire created from the oven. You actually remove the wood/hot coals before baking. So we transferred the hot coals to the fire pit for a great time sitting outside around the fire. Evie's bread was delicious, and she was very proud of it. She made a sweet bread with dried apricots, dates, and walnuts. Since I forgot to take a pic of her bread, bellow is the recipe she used. I had made homemade pizza dough for the kids to make pizzas and there was so much other food they just never got around to it, so the pics of the pizza was my creation with the dough at home. I am sure there will be more baking days and we look forward to it! I only took the one pic at the bread celebration party, and will add a pic of the oven soon.

Evie's Sweet Apricot/Date bread:
 makes one loaf-bake at 350 for 55-65min.

1 cup chopped pitted dates 
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup softened butter
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 chopped walnuts
2 eggs
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Directions
combine dates/apricots/butter/baking soda
pour in boiling water-stir well and let stand for 15 min.
beat sugar/walnuts/and eggs into fruit mixture
combine rest of dry ingredients and stir into fruit mixture until blended
cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes