Welcome to the very first week of our 2024 Baking Challenge! I am not a professional baker, but I do love to bake! I’m kind of a mess in the kitchen, but really wanted to challenge myself to bake more often, and to explore new recipes and skills, so the 2024 Baking Challenge was born!

We are baking on a budget, cutting corners to make things easier and more accessible, and altering recipes for food allergies and picky eaters (seriously, my kid doesn’t even like pancakes!)

Every week on Wednesday I will post the shopping list to our Facebook and Instagram accounts! Every Saturday at 9am Central, I will post a new video. These beginning videos are going to be shaky, but I’ll get the hang of it eventurally! I can’t promise not to be awkward or ramble, that’s just who I am!

I do hope that you will bake along with me!

Week one is the Cinnamon Star Bread recipe from King Arthur Baking. You can find the recipe on their website here. The link to the video is here. I am not affiliated with, nor sponsored by King Arthur, I’m just a fan! (Although if they would like to sponsor me, I’m totally down!)

This may have been a bit ambitious for the first week. I had many struggles, as you can see in the VIDEO. I think one of my big issues was that I didn’t measure things out ahead of time. I felt like that would be cheating. However, I believe I lost track of my measuring, which resulted in a VERY sticky dough. I will be measuring things out ahead of time from now on!

I chose to use my amazing bread maker to mix and proof the dough. I’ve had a few bread machines over the years, but this one has stood the test of time and gets used so often! (I’m a sucker for the french bread recipe that was included with the directions!) I refuse to call is cheating, and no one should gatekeep baking like that. Sometimes my hands don’t work as well as they used to. Sometimes I don’t have to time to break out the mixer. It’s just another kitchen tool to help you bake wonderful things!

Another things that I’ve always been terrible at is rolling our dough in a circle, or to specific thickness or dimensions. This rolling pin set, while not my favorite rolling pin to use, the thickness guides and the mat are really a huge help!

I hope you try this recipe out! I had fun with it and it was very tasty too! I think I am going to make it again and experiment with a strawberry jam filling in the spring. I can see so much potential here, and, who knows? Maybe one day my finished star bread will look as pretty as the professional ones on the KA website!

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