HBin5: Milk and honey bread

Hi everyone!  The weather is so perfect this spring, I haven't spent a lot of time in the kitchen baking.  But I've been waiting for months to try this week's Healthy Bread in 5 assignment, Milk and Honey Bread.

My husband is a big fan of raisin bread, so I was looking forward to trying a healthier version.  Once again, this bread was super easy to prepare.  Just mix the ingredients and let it rise in the fridge overnight.

The bread turned out beautiful!

I had a tough time mixing the raisins into the sticky dough (I use a wooden spoon and mix my doughs by hand whenever possible).  My husband noticed right away that the raisins were on the outer edges of the bread, not the inside.  Oh well.  When it's homemade, it doesn't have to be perfect :)

Please visit Big Black Dogs to see how the other HBin5 bakers did with their breads this week.

HBin5: Pizza

I strayed from this week's Healthy Bread in 5 assignment.  I'm not really interested in trying gluten-free recipes; thankfully, neither my husband nor I have glutten allergies. I thought this would be a good week to try the olive oil pizza crust recipes in the "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" cookbook, which I bought at the same time as HBin5.

The whole reason I decided to splurge on a baking stone was so I could make restaurant-quality pizza at home.  We don't have a pizza delivery place in my town, so we have to make do with ingredients we can find in our little grocery store.

I'm happy to report that the ABin5 pizza dough turned out amazing!  I had a little trouble rolling it out to 1/4-inch thickness as was recommended in the book.  I don't have enough counter space to roll dough easily.  And when I tried to slide my first pizza off the peel onto the stone, an edge of the pizza rolled under, and then the cheese ended up sticking to the stone, so I couldn't get the pizza easily off the stone. But after some wiggling with a spatula, the pizza finally came off the stone.  And it looked beautiful!

 

I ended up making two medium-size pizzas - a pepperoni and a "taco" with seasoned ground beef, lettuce, tomato and doritos added after baking.  My husband ended up eating nearly an entire pizza by himself.

Again, I can't get over how easy these pizzas are.  The last time I made pizza dough this fall I accidentally let rise for too long, and I had to mix up another batch last minute.  It's so much easier just to mix the dough in a bucket and then let it rise in the fridge.  These no-knead recipes are terrific!

Please visit Big Black Dog to see how the other bloggers fared with their gluten-free recipes.

HBin5: Carrot bread

Hello everyone!  I found time this weekend to bake the Carrot Bread for the Healthy Bread in 5 blog club.  I was really curious to try this recipe, since I often bake carrot quick bread and carrot muffins as breakfast treats.  I wondered how the HBin5 version would compare to my favorites.

Once again, the carrot bread was super easy to make, with ingredients I already had in my pantry and refrigerator.  I used a "Cherries and Goldens" dried fruit mix that my husband bought in bulk a while back as an Amazon.com grocery deal.

The carrot bread wasn't as pretty as some of the other HBin5 loaves I've tried.  I had a little trouble forming the "gluten cloak" with all the shredded carrot getting in the way, which may be why the loaf looked a little lumpy coming out of the oven.

Like the other HBin5 recipes, the texture of this bread was wonderful -- very tender and moist.  But I have to admit that the carrot bread was just OK to me.  It didn't have the same sweetness as my other favorite carrot bread and muffin recipes (although that's probably a good thing, health wise).  So in the future, if I'm going to take the time to grate carrots, I'll probably turn to my good ol' morning glory muffins.

But this was still a fun recipe to try.  Please visit Big Black Dog to see how the bread turned out for the other participating bloggers.

HBin5: 100% Whole Wheat Bread with Olive Oil

It's time again for the next "Healthy Bread in 5" assignment.  This week's project was a triplet:  100% Whole Wheat Bread with Olive Oil, Aloo Paratha and Southwest Foccacia with Roasted Corn and Goat Cheese.

I decided to keep it simple this week and only bake the 100% Whole Wheat bread.  I wasn't sure if my husband and I would like the other two recipes, so I'll wait and see what the other bloggers say about them.

The 100% Whole Wheat Bread turned out terrific.  It was very easy to mix up, and it rose beautifully after an overnight stay in the refrigerator.  But instead of olive oil, I ended up using grapeseed oil.  Turns out that we ran out of olive oil, and I didn't realize it until I opened up the kitchen cupboards and it was gone.  My husband likes to experiment with different cooking oils, so I gave the grapeseed oil a try. 

I definitely liked the results.  The crust was nice and chewy, and the interior was surprisingly moist for a whole wheat bread.  I'll definitely bake up this loaf again.

Please join me in visiting Big Black Dog to see how the other HBin5 bloggers fared with this week's recipes.  I'm always so impressed by how beautiful their breads turn out.  I'm learning a lot from them!

HBin5: Red Beet Buns and Chocolate Tangerine Bars

In honor of Valentine's Day, this week's Healthy Bread in 5 project was a fitting selection of two recipes: Red Beet Buns and Chocolate Tangerine Bars.

Have to admit, I didn't have high hopes for the Red Beet Buns, and I guess it shows in my fuzzy picture.

I'm not a big fan of beets, but I thought maybe I wouldn't be able to taste them when they were baked in the bread.  The rolls turned out a beautiful red color.  The dough was sticky to work with, though, so I couldn't shape them as well as I would have liked.

I took my first bite...

...and I didn't like it.  I could still taste the beets.  I'm not sure why, but beets just taste like dirt to me, no matter how much I wash them off. And it was a pain to clean up all the beet stains.  Not worth the effort for me, although my husband didn't seem to mind them.  He thought it just "tasted like bread."

On to the next project, another unusual recipe, chocolate tangerine bars.  I mixed up a batch of Chocolate Expresso Bread and used the dough for these bars.  I was a little worried at first, because the dough didn't appear to rise on the counter or in the fridge overnight.  And they didn't look to pretty after I baked them.

But I ended up liking these bars.  Hard to resist the little pieces of chocolate. The bars were surprisingly soft considering that they didn't rise much.  I also had to improvise the recipe and use semi-sweet chocolate, since I couldn't find bittersweet in our little grocery store.  And I thought I had dried cranberries in the cupboard, but couldn't find them, so the bars went without them.

Would I make the chocolate bars again?  I'm undecided.  They were OK, but if I want a chocolate fix, I'd rather make brownies, not chocolate-studded bread.  Maybe if I paired the bread with something, like a raspberry spread.  Looking forward to reading how the recipes fared for the other bloggers.  Please check out Big Black Dog to see their results.

HBin5: Soft Whole Wheat Bread

I'm loving how easy it is to make the recipes in "Healthy Bread in 5."  This week's challenge was soft whole wheat bread and a few of its variations.  I mixed up a batch of the bread dough about a week ago and let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours, as directed.

The bread turned out great on my first attempt.

I enjoyed eating this bread with homemade apple butter.

A week later, I used the rest of the dough to make the apple struesel bread.  I was so excited about this recipe.  The bread has a swirl of diced apples, walnuts, raising and raw sugar.  It's like a healthier version of cinnamon-raisin bread.  It looked beautiful right out of the oven.

The only strange thing is that both loaves of bread ended up with a "crack" in the top crust.  It was especially noticeable with the apple struesel bread because the filling was oozing out.  I made sure to put the swirl's "seam" on the bottom of the loaf, so I'm not sure why it cracked.  Is anyone else having the same issue?  I'm wondering if it has to do with the "gluten cloak."

I didn't have time to make the hamburger/hot dog buns for this week's challenge.  Plus, I used up all the dough making the soft whole wheat bread loaf and the apple struesel loaf.  I must be making my loaves too big, because I usually can only get three loaves out of a batch of dough, not the four that the book calls for.

Anyhow, I enjoyed the apple struesel bread for an afternoon snack today, with a cut up pear on the side.  So good!

Really enjoyed this week's project.  I'm pretty excited about the next project: red beet buns and chocolate tangerine bars.  It will be quite a culinary adventure! 

HBin5: Whole Grain Artisan Bread

Hello everyone! We're having a heat wave here in Iowa -- temps reached over 30 degrees today! The snow if finally starting to melt a little, and my spirits are high!

Over the past few months, I've had so much fun writing this blog and taking part in the Martha Mondays and Martha Stewart Cupcakes Club. I've truly enjoyed connecting with people from all other the country (and the world) with the same interests as myself. Sometimes, I feel a little odd that instead of going out to eat all the time, I'd rather stay at home and do some kitchen experimenting. The blog clubs have really inspired me to try something new.

So with this newfound courage, I decided to join a new blog group. More than 100 bloggers are embarking on a two-year journey to try recipes from the "Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" cookbook. Long story short, the book is a whole-grain version of "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes Day."

I've had my eye on the "Artisan Bread" book for a while. I checked it out from the library to figure out how the book's no-knead recipes work. It sounded too good to be true. Just mix the dough, let it rise in the fridge, then bake. No need to knead or rise.

So I finally broke down and bought a pizza stone and the two books. Soon after, I learned of the HBin5 blog group. I immediately signed up. It's a great incentive to actually try these recipes and make my investment in the pizza stone worth it.

I mixed up my first batch of dough last week. I followed the recipe exactly, and miraculously, it turned out great, even for a beginner!



I can't believe something so beautiful came out of my oven! I topped it with butter and my homemade apricot jam. It's a great breakfast bread!

The texture was also terrific. I expected the bread to turn out tough and dense, but it's a nice combination of chewy and soft. I have to admit, I still prefer the white flour verision of this bread, but I'm sure I'll be making this again if I feel like something a little healthier.

Another great thing about the book is you can make multiple recipes from one batch of dough. I had the dough in the fridge for more than a week, and it was still fresh enough to make these chili crackers.

Admittedly, I was in a hurry when I made the crackers. I didn't roll them out as thin as directed in the recipe. But they still looked like crackers when they came out of the oven. However, I probably won't be making these crackers again. They were a little too much work for me, and I didn't like the chili powder. Maybe another spice would work?

Also on our HBin5 schedule was a wreath-shaped bread, but I didn't have the kitchen shears to make the design. So I skipped it for now.

I had so much fun with this project. I'm looking forward to trying more HBin5 recipes.

If you'd like to learn more about the group, visit Big Black Dog for a list of other participating bloggers.