Category: breads

Wheat Dinner Rolls

This is most definitely the cutest recipe I made last weekend. I decided to tackle the dinner roll, and used this recipe with a blend of white and whole wheat flour. Many days I bring a container of soup for lunch, so a roll like this will be the perfect companion. And if baking bread from scratch wasn’t enough, I followed the original blogger’s lead and got fancy, making cloverleaves and knots. The rolls came out looking cute, but a little bit dry because I think I added too much flour. The dough felt a bit stiff when I set it to rise, but it was too late by then. Another episode of live, bake bread, and learn…. Still, the experience of breaking into one of these rolls fresh from the oven is something you just can’t buy at the store.

Roasted Garlic Naan, Take 2

I made naan for the first time last month, and I wanted to try it again with roasted garlic butter. I used the same recipe, which calls for just yeast, flour, sugar, and water. For the roasted garlic butter, I cheated and just mixed in some Garlic Gold.

Last time, the naan had a fluffy and soft texture, but tasted very plain. This time, the garlic butter helped to offer more flavor, but the naan was tough and chewy. I still have a lot to learn about making bread, but here’s hoping the third time will be a charm for this recipe!

Homemade Soft Pretzel Bites

Another fabulous Superbowl party in the books! Really for me, it’s all about the people and the food. Oh, and the impromptu half time dance party to the Black Eyed Peas.The cooking crew pulled together to make quite a feast – BBQ chicken, cole slaw, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, two different kinds of chili, nachos, and of course, the football cookies.

I made these Homemade Soft Pretzel Bites, and really liked how they turned out. I admit, I was intimidated at first because of all the steps. First, you make the dough, let it rise, and shape it into 1″ pieces. Then, you boil 15 pieces at a time for 30 seconds. Finally, you brush the bites with an egg wash and a sprinkle of salt, and bake them for 15 minutes. But you are rewarded well when these come out of the oven and cool for just a minute. They are salty and addictive! And although the game of the evening was football, the taste reminds me of the soft pretzel that you might get at a baseball game. Or maybe I was just wishing that baseball season would get here a little faster. Either way, these pretzels are the perfect project for a weekend afternoon, and make a great snack!

Challah Bread

One of the things that I love about Twitter is that I get new recipe ideas from those that I follow. It might be hard for you to believe, but even I have trouble thinking of new things to cook sometimes! On Friday, a fellow tweeter sent a link to various recipes for challah bread. Something clicked, and despite the fact that I am not Jewish, I decided that I had to try to make some challah.

I used this traditional challah recipe, and since I still have bread in the freezer from my last experiment, I cut the recipe in half. Some eggs and a little sugar in the dough make this bread very light and just a touch sweet. I was proud of my braiding skills, and the egg wash made the crust golden brown. While eating a warm hunk of this bread straight from the oven, I was reminded of the hot cross buns that my grandmother used to make. And now I know what my next baking project is going to be, with a due date of Ash Wednesday.

Naan

I’ve dabbled a lot in Indian food lately, but this was my first attempt at homemade naan. I used the recipe from Eat, Live, Run but I left the naan plain instead of coating it in Roasted Garlic butter. (I know, what was I thinking??)

Yes, you do need to break out some yeast for this recipe, but the dough comes together fairly easily, and I even mixed it by hand. It only requires one rise, and then you get to form the naan and poke holes in it with your fingers. After a quick bake at a high temperature, this is what comes out of the oven. Crispy in some places, pillowy in others, and perfect for scooping up my latest dal. But next time, I am roasting some garlic and taking this to the next level!

Whole Wheat Bread

Last winter I tried some Whole Wheat No Knead bread, but this year I think I’ll give kneading a chance. I find making bread to be both fascinating and frustrating – there are so many different variables which affect the final result, and yet so many errors you can make along the way. Even though I have memories of large bowls of dough covered in towels at my grandmother’s house, I am essentially a beginner.

So after a long afternoon of Internet recipe searching and cookbook reviews, I just about gave up and decided to stick with the Betty Crocker recipe from my 1989 cookbook, and substitute in some whole wheat flour. First, I added a package of active dry yeast to 1/4 cup warm water, with just a sprinkle of sugar. The good news was that it started to foam up right away. Then, I set 2 cups of milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon butter in a small saucepan on the stove and heated until warm. I put 1 cup of white flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour in a large bowl, and added the warm milk and stirred. I added the yeast and stirred again.

Here’s where it gets tricky because I stopped measuring. I added another 3-4 cups of flour, using a mix of white and whole wheat, and kneaded the dough by hand for a good 10 minutes. There was dough all over my hands, flour everywhere, and I had no idea whether I was on the right track. This happens all the time with new recipes, you just need to keep moving forward. But I finally dropped the ball of dough into a large bowl coated with cooking spray, covered it with a towel, and left the house to do some errands.

When I returned, more good news – the dough had doubled! I punched it down, let it rest, and then shaped it into two loaves. I placed each in a loaf pan coated with cooking spray, covered it with a towel, and did some laundry. The dough rose again! I baked it at 375F for about 30 minutes, and it was perfectly done. I let it cool before slicing, and then served it with real butter. I’ve got to say, it was pretty good for a beginning bread maker. But the texture was more like sandwich bread, and I want something with a little more crust, so back to the kitchen I go!

Apple Cheddar Scones

I took advantage of my extra hour this weekend to make apple cheddar scones. This is not really an “everyday” kind of recipe, but I was in the mood to bake and had two apples that needed to be used. The combination of apple and cheddar was very appealing, both things I love.

Baking novices beware, this is not an easy dough to work with. It’s very wet, which made it difficult to shape in order to cut the scones. I finally gave up and just formed the scones with my fingers the best I could. According to the recipe reviews, it seems important to start with very cold ingredients, not to overmix, and not to add too much flour. That was a lot to think about at 7am on a Sunday, but I took Deb’s advice and went with the flow.
The end result was good, but not great. And after all that work, I had high expectations. The scones were fairly flat, and I didn’t like the apple and cheese combination as much as I thought. You all know how much I like the recipes on Smitten Kitchen, but this one just didn’t work for me.

Pumpkin Scone

Another flashback, but this time to a recipe that I made in the earliest days of the blog. The first time I tried these was before I even had a digital camera. I can’t believe it took me this long to make these pumpkin scones again, but I’m glad I did.

There’s nothing artificial here, just butter, sugar, flour, and the like. Plus pumpkin of course. They have the texture of a muffin, but are much less sweet. Perfect for anytime of day!

Callie’s Focaccia Bread

My friend and fellow nutrition student Callie kindly gave me her recipe for focaccia bread. I made it for my family while on vacation (doesn’t everyone pack yeast in their suitcase?) It was a big hit, and I will definitely be making it again. I used fresh herbs from a neighbor’s garden for this batch, but it was my mistake not to compensate for using fresh instead of dried by increasing the amount. But this is a very forgiving recipe, and it will be great with whatever herbs you happen to have on hand.

1 1/2 c. warm water
3 T olive oil (plus additional for drizzling)
1 t honey
1 1/4 t salt
3 1/2 c. flour
1 T instant yeast
1/4 c. freshly grated Parmesan
1 T basil
1 T parsley
1 T oregano
1/2 t dill
1/2 t rosemary
1/2 t garlic powder

Lightly grease a 13″x9″ pan, and drizzle olive oil on the bottom. Combine water, oil, honey, salt, flour, and yeast and beat with an electric mixer at high speed for 1 minute. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan, and let rise at room temperature for 1 hour, until puffy.

Gently poke the dough with your fingers, and drizzle it with olive oil. Sprinkle the herbs and cheese. Bake at 375F for 35-40 minutes. Remove it from the oven, and let cool for 5 minutes before turning the pan onto a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Whole Wheat Scones

My grandmother’s Irish Soda bread recipe is a classic which I make almost every year. Last year, I tried these Irish soda muffins, which were good as well. This year, I wanted to make a whole wheat scone, so I tried the Irish currant scone recipe on this page, except that I substituted raisins for currants.

The scones didn’t rise in the oven as much as I expected so the texture was fairly dense, which may be due to the proportion of whole wheat flour. They were also much less sweet than a typical bakery scone, but still a nice treat with a cup of coffee or tea. There are a few other promising scone recipes on the page, so I’ll probably give one of those a try next time.