Cordelia Andreas’s Braided Bread

As I read Eleanor Brown’s The Weird Sisters, I got a nagging craving for fresh, homemade bread.  Cordelia, the youngest sister, is pregnant, and when her nesting instincts kick in, she heads for the kitchen and whips up multiple loaves: St. Lucia bread, chocolate bread, Hawaiian bread – you name it.  The passage below will give your cravings “a rise” as well:

            There is nothing that is not beautiful about bread.  The way it grows, from tiny grains, from bowls on the counter, from yeast blooming in a measuring cup like swampy islands.  The way it feels a room, a house, a building, with its inimitable smells at every stage of the process.  The way it swells, submits to a firmly applied fist and contracts, swells again; the way it stretches and expands upon kneading, the warm supple fell of it against your skin.  The sight of a warm roll on a table, the taste – sweet, sour, yeasty on the tongue. (page 286)

           
Who knew baking bread could be so sexy?  So tempting?

In honor of Cordelia Andreas, the youngest (and my favorite) Weird Sister, I made Braided Bread.  The braided varieties were her favorites because she liked the challenge of getting the strips even, then tying them together in such a way that they were still distinct after baking.  Here’s the recipe:

Book Club Recipe – T.S. Spivet’s Honey Nut Cheerios Bars

Poor T.S. Spivet – his brother died, his Father doesn’t understand him, his mother is self-absorbed.  I wish I could make it better for him – give him a cookie and a hug to make everything alright again.  His favorite food is Honey Nut Cheerios with which he says he has an almost “philosophical obsession”:

            “A dry bowl of cereal has a way of calling you.  I doused the Cheerios with milk and dove headlong into the delicious world of tiny crunchy doughnuts.  When I was done, I performed my favorite part of the ritual: the drinking of the leftover milk that had become lightly infused with sweet strains of honey, as if a magical honey cow had dispensed her milk right into my bowl.”        

-          from The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

T.S. made me think about how I haven’t made any homemade goodies for my kids in a while (I think the last treat I made was at Christmas).  In order to feel I’m at least a smidge more nurturing than Dr. Clair, I decided to make some tasty (and easy) Honey Nut Cheerio Bars.  Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

½ cup honey (or Karo syrup if you don’t mind corn syrup)

½ cup sugar

½ cup peanut butter (if you use crunchy, you can omit the almonds)

½ cup almonds

5 cups Honey Nut Cheerios

Grease a 13 x 9” pan with cooking spray or butter.  (I line my pan with foil, then spray it with cooking spray).  Put honey and sugar into a large saucepan, stirring and bringing to a boil.  Add peanut butter, and stir until melted.  Remove from heat.  Pour in HN Cheerios and almonds, and stir until the nuts and cereal are completely coated.  Spoon mixture into greased pan, patting it down until nice and even.  Allow to cool for 15 minutes.  Cut into bars.  (If you used a foil liner, lift foil out of pan and cut.  The foil method makes for cleaner and easier cutting.)

Serve to kids (or your book club) alongside a large glass of cold milk so they get that yummy magical honey cow taste.