brewing kombucha

The Latest Zottola Kitchen Adventures

If you visit the Zottola home at any hour, there’s probably something in the oven, on the stove, fermenting on top of our refrigerator, or cooling on the counter. Here’s the latest!

I’ve been baking up a storm (a flour storm?!) and enjoying every moment of it. Since creating my sourdough starter, I’ve been baking a loaf almost every day. Ob-sessed. I’ve done a few loaves of rye and pumpernickel, too. Love those strong flavors.

Sourdough bread

I became the proud owner of this cookbook devoted to cookies and dove right in. Molasses cookies were first on the docket and they were divine!

There’s nothing like a good ol’ cookie to end the day… every day 🙂

Molasses cookies King Arthur Flour

I had an order for a birthday cake and cupcakes and it went well (you can see the cupcakes in this post)! The cake turned out well and the customer was happy. Whoop whoop!

Birthday cake

When I was making the birthday cake, Jimmy and I were getting ready to go to my in-laws for dinner and whipped up this cake (below) with the extra buttercream.

It was fun to “play” with a cake and not have any certain design or decoration I had to do. I didn’t end up going to my in-laws because I started to come down with mastitis (ughhh), but Jimmy said the cake was great!

Decorated cake

Other adventures in the Zottola kitchen have included making vanilla extract (which I mentioned in this post and is finally ready!), mozzarella cheese, and brewing kombucha.

My brother-in-law knows how much I like to play in the kitchen, so he got me a cheese making kit and a kombucha brewing kit for Christmas, which have been a lot of fun. The kombucha has been fermenting for like eight days now, so I think it’s just about ready? Nevermind the fact I’ve never actually had kombucha before, haha.

Homemade mozzarella cheese

My first ball of mozzarella cheese! We ended up grating it and putting it on sourdough pizza crusts and sandwiches 🙂

Have you done anything fun in the kitchen lately?