what's cooking wednesday - the award winning edition

Well I'm sure there are those of you out there who are curious of the outcome of the cheese bread competition Michael and I had entered. It pains me to write this, but the bugger beat me. Of course he cheated, so I'm afraid I can't call it a true win. Plus he only placed fourth, but that was better than my you suck thanks for exhibiting sticker. Oddly enough neither one of us got any pictures of his award winning bread and he's been surprisingly low key about his win. Perhaps it's his guilty sabotaging conscience? Or perhaps it's that we've hardly been in the same room together for more than a week. Don't worry though, I have no doubts the big win will pop up in conversation for the rest of my life sometime in the future.

No picture, but hey it's a loaf of bread. Close your eyes and try to imagine it.

Mike's Award Winning Cheese Bread Recipe

2 lb loaf
10 oz water (80F)
1 egg
2 tbsp butter or margarine
4 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp bread machine yeast
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, frozen

Place ingredients, except cheese, in your breadmaker according to manufacturers specifications. Add cheese when the alert sounds during the knead cycle.

instead. Recipe Notes: I am assuming here that all breadmakers have an "add-in" alert that goes off at some point in the early stages of the bread making. If not just put it in with the rest of the ingredients. Of course Michael didn't use shredded cheddar cheese, but a cup of cubed swissGoodness only knows where he got that idea.... oh wait, it was from me.

I know... bitter much?

But please don't feel too badly for me. I did okay. I didn't get around to baking an apple pie because "someone" forgot to bring home apples with him. Hmmmm more sabotage I'm thinking. To be truthful I really just didn't have the time, but if he had brought home apples I would have forced myself to stay up until some ungodly hour just to get it done.

I did, however, manage to take second place for my ginger snaps. Thanks to my fabulous neighbour for the recipe. I think I could have taken first if I had made them as I usually do, which is about half the size of the ones I entered. Then I undercook them just a tad so after they cool on the tray they are the perfect chewy consistency. I couldn't figure out how long to cook them at this size to recreate that. Those would be my cookies in the middle with the blue ribbon.



When I saw the category for chocolate cake it was a no brainer. I have made countless chocoate cakes in my lifetime and have a couple go to recipes for it. I figured I'd pick one of them and go with it. Then I saw this recipe for chocolate cake on A2eatwrite's WCW post and decided to make that one. A bit of a risky move, having never made the recipe before. The good news was I only had to enter half, so Mike tested the other half for me. When his eyes rolled back in his head I took that as a good sign. Turns out he was right, since I took first place. Thanks a million Jen.






What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret. Much to Kaffy's chagrin, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday.