Home Made Bagels

My friend made a batch of delicious Hamantachen (above).  While I enjoyed the wonderful snacks, I was inspired to make somthing myself.

I remembered the great-tasting home made bagels recently, I decided to give it a try, following the recipe our cousin gave us graciously and simple enough even for me, who has no affinity to baking.

I followed the recipe to the letter.  Unfortunately, our cousin, an expert baker, didn't think it necessary to specify the temperature of water for mixing with yeast, therefore, I used cold water.  After a while, when I saw the dough didn't rise, I asked an expert and learned that warm water was best for such purpose.  I sat the container on a pot of hot water and later the dough dutifully rose.  The rest of the recipe was very clear and in due time, my first batch of home made bagels were ready - good looking and great tasting:

Apricot and Cherry Galette

It's stone fruits season in California now and we can enjoy the lovely and tasty fruits fresh, or in some other forms involving some baking, such as galettes.

Not only fruit galettes taste wonderful, they are beautiful to look at and not very complicated to make.

Below are a series of photos I took while an apricot and cherry galette was made.  My sole contribution was pitting the cherries.