Beehive Bread

There are quite a few beehive bread pins on Pinterest, I pinned this one from disneyfamily.com (warning: this site plays extremely annoying and difficult-to-silence audio ads).

It's a sweet, orange-flavored yeast-bread formed into twisted ropes and would around a greased bowl for baking.

Here's the key instruction:

Divide dough into 16 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 24 inches long. Twist two ropes together and wind around foil covered bowl from the bottom. Repeat with remaining pieces, pinching ends together until bowl is covered and resembles a beehive.

Twist any remaining ropes into smaller beehives and set on tray with larger bread. Let bread rise for 20 minutes. 

 I decided this would be a perfect Easter brunch bread, and picked out a variety of bowls to try.

I was thinking that the larger bowl would be the main bread, and the smaller ones for any extra dough. When I got it all done, though, the dough didn't even cover the larger bowl completely.

It looked great, though. From the front.

The back - not so much. I think in the future I'll try fewer, longer ropes to avoid the awkward joins. 

The problem joins became worse with baking. Again, from the front it looked fine, from the back it was sort of a mess.

  

It tasted fantastic, though. It was perfect for Easter, and my guests ate just about every bite. The kids were huge fans.  It's a sweet, not-particularly-healthful bread, so it's best for a special occasion.

The shaping could be fixed, I think, with thinner ropes. I'll also try smaller bowls to reduce sagging caused by the weight of the dough. Maybe 3 cereal-bowl sized molds instead of the large one.

Verdict: Delicious, and with a little tinkering it could be really pretty too.

Mug Desserts: Skinny Brownie in a Mug

This recipe for a skinny brownie in a mug promises the world: low-calorie! chocolatey deliciousness! super-quick!

I've had good luck in the past with My Happy Place's mug desserts, so my hopes were high for this one.

The brownie uses whole wheat flour and plain yogurt, along with the more traditional ingredients: cocoa, sugar, baking powder, vanilla. Note that there are no eggs or butter. Microwave for a minute.

My brownie came out like this:

It looked decent, but the texture was quite dry and the taste was rather bland. It obviously lacks the richness that full fat provides. You may be able to improve this a bit by either using full-fat yogurt, or by throwing a tbs of butter in there. As it is, it tastes like one of those old-school SnackWells fat-free cookies.

Verdict: Vaguely sweet but cardboard-y. If you want a good mug dessert, you're going to have to make your peace with fat.

Chicken Meatloaf in a Muffin Tin

I was reminded of this recipe for chicken meatloaf in individual servings (from Living a Changed Life) because it recently had a bit of a pin resurgence.

It's basically buffalo chicken meatloaf, complete with bleu cheese and Frank's Red Hot sauce. It uses standard meatloaf binders, oatmeal and milk.

I prefer to use a panade of egg and breadcrumbs in meatloaf, and this recipe didn't change my mind. It came together quickly and easily, but the end result was rather bland and dense. It wasn't popular with the family.

Verdict: Single-serving meatloaf is a good idea, but this just isn't the recipe.