Homemade pretzels

Pretzels must be a hot food trend right now, because I've been seeing them everywhere -- in cooking magazines, on fast-food menus, at the grocery store bakery.  I took a few days off of work earlier this fall and decided to try a pretzel recipe I found in the latest issue of Hy-Vee's Seasons magazine.

I was surprised by how easy this recipe is. I mixed and kneaded the dough in my Kitchenaid mixer.  (Thanks again to my parents & sister for giving me the mixer for my birthday!)  The dough rose beautifully.  The hardest part was rolling out the pretzels. I don't have enough counter space to roll out the dough in long ropes.  So my pretzels puffed up quite a bit in the oven and ended up looking more like pretzel rolls than knots.

My hubby got the bright idea to turn the pretzels into hamburger buns. He made blue-cheese mushroom burgers (with Maytag blue cheese).  So good!

You can find the Hy-Vee Seasons pretzel recipe here: https://www.hy-vee.com/seasons/recipe.aspx?r=8778.

Have you ever made homemade pretzels?  Do you have any tips for shaping the pretzels?  I'm definitely going to try this again, now that I know how easy it really is.

Iowa State Fair Blue-Ribbon Cinnamon Rolls

I don't know about you, but now that the seasons are changing (even though it's still 90 degrees outside!), I'm in the mood for fall baking.  I found this recipe for the 2012 Iowa State Fair Winning Cinnamon Rolls from Two Chicks from the Sticks, who happened to judge the Tone's Cinnamon Roll contest this year.  I actually baked these on a whim.  I woke up on Sunday morning and decided I wanted to knead some bread dough.  What better recipe to try than a blue-ribbon winner?

Oh, did my husband love me for baking up these rolls for him!  I rolled the dough loosely, so the caramel topping oozed into the middle of each roll.  And I noticed right away that the rolls have a healthy dose of cinnamon, which made them unique.  The caramel sauce also sits on the stove for a little bit longer than normal so it gets extra rich and gooey.  I'm sure I'll be baking these sticky rolls up again soon!

Super-easy sourdough rolls

Now that you know how to make your own sourdough starter, I'm sharing the easiest recipe I've ever found for sourdough rolls.  It's from the King Arthur Flour Baking Banter newsletter (my favorite baking magazine, by the way).

These sourdough butter pan rolls are "drop" rolls, which means you don't have to shape the dough at all. Just use a muffin scoop (or I use an ice cream scoop), and drop the dough into the pan.  They aren't the prettiest rolls, but they are very soft and buttery.

Now I have to admit, sometimes these rolls turn out a little dry and crumbly.  I'm not exactly sure why that is -- maybe it has to do with the age of the sourdough starter?  Sometimes I go a little too long without "feeding" the starter, and maybe that impacts how the rolls rise?  Like I've said before, I'm still new at baking with sourdough.  But it sure is fun to experiment with it, especially in the winter when I'm cooped up at home.

The interior of this batch of sourdough rolls was very crumbly. These are excellent rolls to serve with soup.

Here's the recipe, if you want to give them a try at home.  Enjoy!

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Sourdough Butter Pan Rolls

From King Arthur Flour's Baking Banter

• 1/2 C. butter, melted and divided
• 2 tsp. active dry or instant yeast
• 1/2 C. warm water (about 100 degrees Fahrenheit)
• 4 C. flour
• 1/4 C. sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 C. active sourdough starter
• 1/2 C. warm milk

Pour 2 Tbls. of melted butter into a 9 x 13-inch pan, tilting it to cover the bottom and sides.

Dissolve the yeast in the water.  Add 2 C. of flour, the sugar, salt, the remaining melted butter, egg, starter and milk. Beat for 5 minutes, then add the remaining flour. Cover the dough, and let rise for 45 minutes.

Stir the dough down and drop into the pan, making 16 rolls. A muffin scoop is handy for this.  Cover and let rise 30 minutes while you pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until brown. Remove from the oven and serve warm.

Sourdough starter

A couple years back, I took a bread-baking class at Living History Farms in Urbandale, where I learned how to make my own sourdough starter. You can buy sourdough starter from several sources on the Internet, but it's really easy to make it at home.

King Arthur Flour offers a master recipe for sourdough starter. But the Living History Farms instructor shared an even simpler recipe, which I thought I'd share with you.

First, find a plastic container with a lid.  Make sure it's a container that you don't use everyday, because you can keep the sourdough starter in the fridge indefinitely, as long as you remember to "feed it" regularly.

Next, mix 1 C. flour with 1 C. water in the plastic container. Cover the container with the lid, but don't seal it all the way tight, so the gases given off by the fermenting process have a chance to escape. Then leave the container on the counter overnight. No need to refrigerate just yet.

Now, each day for one week, add 1/2 C. of flour and 1/2 C. of water.  By the second or third day, you'll start to see bubbles forming on the top.  That's a good sign.  That means you've created your own yeast! Eventually, a layer of liquid (or alcohol) will float to the top of the mixture.  You can just stir the liquid back into the mix, or drain it off right before you want to bake with it.  It should start to smell a little like beer.  That's the sourdough flavor you're aiming for.

See those bubbles. That's a good thing. That means your sourdough is alive!

After seven days, you should have a good sourdough starter to work with.  Place the container in the fridge, then remember to "feed" it with another 1/2 C. of flour and 1/2 C. of water once a week.  That's it.  Super easy!

To be honest, I actually "cheated" a little with this batch of sourdough.  I mixed up a batch of bread dough from my favorite "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" cookbook.  When I baked up all the dough, I didn't wash the container.  I left behind the sticky bits of dough, and then added the flour and water to create the sourdough starter.  The leftover yeast really helped get it all working fast.  I had bubbles after the first night!

I'm still new at this sourdough thing, but if you have some questions on how to start your own sourdough starter, just leave me a comment, and I'll try my best to find an answer for you.  I'll also share a couple of my favorite recipes, although the King Arthur Flour website also has some excellent sourdough recipes.  Have fun with this!  It's like a science experiment in your kitchen!

Iowa recipes: Cornmeal rolls

I found this unusual recipe for cornmeal rolls in an Iowa farm newspaper and knew immediately that I wanted to try it.  The recipe was submitted by a grandmother who says she bakes these rolls with help from her grandkids for their family's twice-a-year "baking day."  I scribbled the recipe on a sheet of paper, then tried it a few weeks later.  Unfortunately, I realized right away that I made a mistake, because the recipe calls for margarine, but I didn't write down how much is needed.  Oops!  I tried to make a semi-educated guess and added 4 Tablespoons, which is probably a little on the heavy side, but I thought it would be better to have too much margarine than not enough.  (I actually used butter instead of margarine, by the way. I always bake with butter.)

When I added the 4-1/4 cups of flour listed in the recipe, I knew something wasn't right.  The dough was soupy and wasn't "solid" enough to knead.  So I added another 2 to 3 cups of flour until the dough was still sticky, but kneadable. I felt pretty proud of myself that I can now tell when the dough is ready just by feel. All my failed experiments are finally paying off!

The dough rose beautifully -- so well, in fact, that I ended up with more dough than I expected.  I ended up turning them into giant cinnamon rolls, but the recipe says you can shape the dough into biscuit-like rolls or doughnuts.

My husband, the taste-tester, said he really enjoyed the texture of these cornmeal rolls.  Yet he thought I made the rolls way too big.  He wants me to try this recipe again, but this time bake the dough as smaller dinner rolls.

So here's the recipe, with my guesstimation of margarine.  Next time, I think I'm just going to add 2 Tbls. margarine instead of 4 Tbls. and see how that turns out.  If anyone has any suggestions on how much margarine to add, I would appreciate it.  Enjoy!

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Cornmeal rolls

• 2 C. milk
• 2 to 4 Tbls. margarine or butter (I used 4 Tbls, but will try next time with 2 Tbls.)
• 1/2 C. sugar
• 1/3 C. cornmeal 
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 package yeast
• 1/4 C. warm water
• 4-1/2 C. flour (I ended up using over 6 cups; just keep adding flour until the dough is kneadable)

 Cook milk, cornmeal, sugar, salt and margarine, and cool until lukewarm. Add eggs. Dissolve yeast in 1/4 C. warm water. Add to cooked mixture with beaten eggs and flour. Make into soft dough and knead for several minutes. Place in a greased bowl, put a dish towel over it, and let rise until doubled.

Punch down dough, and cover again for 10 minutes.  Then put on floured board and roll out 1-inch thick.  Cut with juice glass.  Put onto cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Let rise again. Bake 8 to 12 minutes at 350 degree.

Can also make cinnamon rolls (8 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees) or doughnuts.

Best-ever caramel rolls

Consider this an early Christmas present.

I'm sharing my favorite recipe for caramel pecan rolls.  And this time, I'm not taking any shortcuts.  I made these rolls on Thanksgiving weekend, using leftover mashed potatoes.  Usually, I'll use my go-to bread dough recipe to make these rolls.  Or (gasp!) I'll use potato buds. But these rolls really do turn out best with real mashed potatoes.

Oh yeah.  That's real caramel on the top, too. Not butterscotch pudding mix.

My photos (taken at night without natural light) really don't do these rolls justice.  The dough was soft and white, like a marshmallow.  My husband gobbled about half the pan up in one sitting. 

These rolls would be perfect for a holiday brunch, or alongside a bowl of chili.  (Did anyone else enjoy chili and cinnamon rolls at their elementary school cafeteria?)  Enjoy, my blog friends!

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Caramel Pecan Rolls

• 3/4 C. sugar
• 3/4 C. hot mashed potatoes
• 1-1/2 C. warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
• 2 packages instant dry yeat
• 1 C. butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. salt
• 5-1/2 to 6-1/2 C. all-purpose flour
• Caramel syrup (recipe below)
• Cinnamon-sugar filling (recipe below)

In large bowl, combine sugar and potatoes.  Add water and yeast; mix well.  Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.  Stir down dough.  Mix in 1/2 of the butter, eggs and salt.  Gradually stir in flour to make a soft dough.  Turn out onto lightly floured surface.  Knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Place dough in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top.  Let rise until doubled.  While dough rises, prepare caramel syrup. (Recipe below.)  Pour syrup into two 9-inch square greased pans.  Sprinkle 1 C. pecans over syrup in each pan.

When dough has doubled, divide in half and roll out each half to a 14x8-inch rectangle. Spread each rectangle of dough with 1/4 C. of the butter, then sprinkle with filling. (Recipe below.)  Roll up dough from the long sides, jellyroll style.  Cut each roll into 9 pieces.  Place rolls, cut-side down, into prepared pans.  Cover and let rise until double.  Bake in 350 degree oven to 30 to 35 minutes, until browned.  Cool 5 minutes in pans before turning out.  Makes 18 rolls.

For caramel syrup:

• 1/2 C. butter
• 1 C. packed brown sugar
• 1/4 C. light corn syrup
• 2-3/4 T. heavy cream
• 2 C. coarsely chopped pecans

Mix butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and cream in a small saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring until all melted.

For filling:

• 2/3 C. sugar
• 1 T. cinnamon

Combine sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.

Whole-wheat rolls (using Iowa-grown wheat)

A few weeks ago, I visited Carlson Christmas tree farm near Hampton in northern Iowa.  I met Cathy Carlson, who started the tree farm with her husband 25 years ago.  In addition to selling Christmas trees, Cathy also runs her own home-based bakery.  You can find Cathy's baked goods at Dudley's Corner, the gas station along Interstate 35 off the Hampton (Highway 3) exit.  She gave me these blondie bars to take home to my husband, which he quickly devoured, of course.

Cathy also gave me a sample of her home-grown whole wheat flour.  That's right -- in addition to her baking business, Cathy also grows 6-1/2 acres of wheat.  She sells the wheat either as milled flour or unmilled, if you prefer to mill the wheat yourself.  (I would love to get a grain mill someday.)

The whole wheat looked gorgeous coming out of the bag, very soft and caramel-colored.

As soon as I got home, I baked up Cathy's recipe for 60 minute whole wheat rolls.  Actually, these rolls took me a couple hours to make.  I live in a drafty house, so I find it difficult to get bread to rise quickly.  Also, the recipe called for quick-rise yeast, which I didn't have on hand. I just used the Red Star active dry yeast I keep in my freezer at all times.

These rolls turns out great! They were very soft and tender for a whole wheat roll.  I drizzled them with honey, which was an excellent decision.  My husband also gave these rolls a try, but he didn't like them as well as the white rolls I typically bake.  He's just not a big fan of whole wheat anything, but I'm trying to convert him since whole wheat is a more nutritious choice.

Here's Cathy's recipe for 60-minute whole wheat rolls.  Enjoy!

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Cathy's 60 Minute Rolls

• 2 C. whole wheat flour
• 2-1/2 C. of unsifted white flour (Cathy's note: I mix the flours together before I start to make the recipe)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3 Tbls. sugar
• 2 packages Fleishmann's Active Dry Yeast (Cathy's note: I recommend rapid rise yeast)
• 1 C. milk
• 1/2 C. water
• 1/4 C. margarine

Combine milk, water and margarine in a saucepan.  Heat over low heat until liquid is very warm (120 degrees). Margarine doesn't need to be melted.

In a large bowl, measure 1-1/2 C. of flour, then sugar, salt and yeast.  Mix thoroughly and gradually add the heated ingredients.  Beat 2 minutes at a medium speed of electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally.  Add 1/2 C. of flour.  Beat at high speed.  Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough.

Turn onto a lightly floured board; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.  Place in a greased bowl cover and let rise for 15 to 20 minutes.  Make your favorite rolls.

Cover and let rise in a warm place free from draft, 15 to 20 minutes.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Banana blueberry bread

Don't the blueberries look fluorescent in this picture?  Don't know how that happened.

I like to buy fresh blueberries whenever they are sale in the summer.  I usually bake up a batch of blueberry muffins, but I also had some over-ripe bananas that I needed to use up.  So I found a recipe for blueberry banana bread from Taste of Home, my go-to source for baking recipes.
 

The recipe calls for shortening, which I typically don't like to bake with because I prefer real butter (for the flavor) or canola oil (a healthier alternative).  But I didn't have time to tinker with the recipe, so I just made it as is. The bread baked up just fine, and I enjoyed it.  My only compliant is that it was a little bland.  For some reason, I couldn't really taste the blueberries, which was disappointing.  In the future, I'll probably try to look for another recipe if I ever find myself with blueberries and bananas that need to be used up.

If you know of a good blueberry bread recipe, please share.  I would love to try it sometime.

Artisan Bread in 5: Pita Bread

My husband and I love gyros.  Actually, I didn't love gyros until I met my husband and fell in love with him.  When we lived in a little apartment in a bigger city, he used to buy sliced gyro meat, cucumber sauce and pitas from the deli in our favorite grocery store.  But when we moved to a small town, the nearest grocery store didn't carry the gyro fixings. So we were left reminiscing about one of our favorite foods.

Then a few months ago, I discovered that a grocery store on my way home from work offers gyro meat, sauce and pitas, just like we used to buy.  However, the pita bread isn't nearly as good.  I've searched several area grocery stores for good pita bread, but the pitas I have found (if I find them at all) are stale or really tiny, I suppose for making little sandwiches.

I remembered that my Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day cookbook carried a pita bread recipe.  And I'm always looking for a reason to use my pizza stone (which I still love, by the way. Our best kitchen investment since the Oxo salad spinner.) But I was a little hesitant to try making my own pitas.  They look too time consuming, and I didn't want to spend my weekend cleaning up flour dust from my kitchen.

Well, I finally decided to take a chance, man up, and give the pita recipe a try.  And guess what?  It was so easy!  The hardest part was waiting for the bread to rise in the fridge overnight.  Rolling out the dough wasn't difficult at all.  I thought the dough would be sticky, but it wasn't.  In fact, I didn't have to use much flour at all, so there wasn't a lot of mess to clean up.  And it was so cool to see the finished product -- a bread that puffed up in the oven, then flattened as cooled.  The pitas were hollow inside, making them perfect for cutting in half and filling with gyro fixings.  So glad that we can now enjoy gyros with fresh pita bread again!

You can find a copy of the pita bread recipe in the cookbook Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. (I first discovered it at my local library.) Or you can google "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes pita recipe" and find versions of the recipe online. Give it a try if you're feeling adventurous.

Healthier banana bread, part II

Hello, everyone!  Hope you are all enjoying the Independence Day weekend.  If you're like me, you are probably too busy to spend time on the computer, so I'll keep this short.

Now that it's berry season, I've replaced the bananas in my morning bowl of cereal with berries. Yet I keep buying bananas, even though they turn brown before I use them.  (I'm not a big fan of brown bananas in soggy cereal.)

Usually, if I have any leftover bananas, I cut them up and put them in the freezer, so they're ready for when I'm in the mood for smoothies or banana bread.  A few weeks ago, I came across this recipes for Heavenly Healthy Banana Bread from King Arthur Flour.  Like a lot of folks, I'm trying to add more whole grains to my diet, and this bread is 100 percent whole wheat.

Admittedly, I was a little skeptical.  The last whole-wheat bread I baked was a little too dense for my liking.  But I had so many extra bananas to use up, I thought why not give this recipe I try.  And I'm so glad I did.  This turned out fantastic!  The bread was very moist, and the banana flavor really shined through.  If someone served this bread to me, I don't think I would realize it was 100 percent whole wheat.  Please give this recipe a try if you have a couple (or a dozen!) extra bananas to use up.

And on a side note, have a great July 4th!  Thanks to all the servicemen and women who protect our freedoms!

Honey Oatmeal Bread

I've been looking to experiment with whole-wheat bread recipes, and I came across this honey oatmeal bread on the Tasty Kitchen website.  I loved how this bread turned out.  It looked just like whole-wheat sandwich bread when I sliced it up.  My only compliant is that the bread had white "specks" in it that looked like unmixed-in flour -- although it may have been the oatmeal flakes, I'm not sure.

I thought this bread was a winner, but my husband wasn't too excited about eating anything with "buckwheat" in it -- his code for anything whole wheat.  No, this recipe doesn't have buckwheat in it. He just doesn't like whole wheat bread.  So I had the loaf all to myself, which was fine by me.  It's excellent served with butter and homemade strawberry jam.  Give it a try for yourself.

Iowa recipes: Caramel pecan rolls

Hello, everyone!  I know most people are trying to return to healthy eating after the holidays.  But the winter is also an excellent time for bread-baking, when you're spending a chilly weekend at home.  It's also a nice excuse to turn the oven on when you live in a drafty old house!

It's literally taken me years to perfect the sticky roll.  And I'm finally getting close to perfection.  I'm proud to say that these rolls have such a pretty spiral that they look like they came out of a biscuit tube!

I morphed two recipes together to make these sticky rolls:  my favorite white bread recipe and a caramel roll recipe from an old Iowa State Fair cookbook. 

I've learned from a lot of trial and error that the best way to get bread dough to rise in my drafty house in the winter is to place them on top of the oven while I'm roasting or baking something else.  I've also had some success with letting the rolls rise in the oven, after I've let the oven warm up to its lowest temperature and then turned the heat off.  However, the lowest tempeature on my oven is 150 degrees, so if I don't wait for the oven to cool off below 100 degrees, the rolls rise too fast, and then flop. And there's nothing worse than waiting hours for bread to rise, only to have it not turn out when you are having a bread-craving.

Here's the recipe I used for caramel pecan rolls.  Enjoy!

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Caramel Pecan Rolls

Bread dough:

• 1-1/3 C. warm water
• 1 package of yeast
• 1/3 C. sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/6 C. canola oil (about 3 Tbl.)
• 4 C. flour

Dissolve yeast, salt and sugar in water; add oil. Mix in flour. Knead, put in bowl and let rise about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until double in size. Punch down.

While dough rises, prepare caramel syrup (recipe below).  Pour syrup into two 9-inch greased pans (I used one 13x9 pan). Sprinkle 1 C. pecan over syrup in each pan.

Divide dough in half and roll each half to a 14x8 inch rectangle. Spread each rectangle iwth 1/4 c. butter, then sprinkle with filling (recipe below).  Roll up dough from the long sides, jellyroll style.  Cut each roll into 9 pieces.  Place rolls, cut-side down, into prepared pans.  Cover and let rise until double.  Bake in 350 degree oven 30 to 35 minutes, until browned.  Cool 5 minutes in pans before turning upside down.

For caramel syrup:

• 1/2 C. butter
• 1 C. packed brown sugar
• 1/4 C. light corn syrup
• 2-3/4 Tbl. heavy cream

Mix butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and cream in a small saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring until all melted.

For filling:

• 2/3 C. sugar
• 1 Tbl. cinnamon

Combine sugar and cinnamon.  Set aside.

Monkeying around

Now that I'm more comfortable with my bread-baking skills, I thought I'd try a fresh-from-scratch monkey bread recipe from a recent Taste of Home magazine.  (Must be a subscriber to see online.)

It's so much easier to make bread this time of year.  I can leave the dough out on our enclosed back porch, and the warm temps help it rise.

I had a little trouble with the caramel syrup.  It solidified while I was shaping the balls of dough, so I had to reheat it to make it pourable again.  Then when I removed the bread from the pan, the syrup was so thick, it stuck to the bottom of the pan (along with most of the chopped pecans).  I scraped the caramel from the bottom of the pan and spooned it back on to the warm bread.

Overall, these rolls were great, although they were a little on the dry side.  Not sure why, but I may have overcooked the bread a little.  Lately, I've been erring on the side of overcooking, after several attempts at baking bread that ended up still doughy in the middle.

Monkey bread is one of my husband's childhood favorites, so he ate nearly the entire loaf up fast.  I once made monkey bread for my family when they were helping us move into our house, and they thought it was the greatest thing, well, since sliced bread.  It always impresses, and it's fun to pull off the little rolls of cinnamon-caramel goodness.

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.

Martha Mondays: Chocolate marble quick bread

I love baking quick breads.  They are so simple and easy to make, and the results are almost always delicious.  So I was thrilled to try this week's Martha Mondays pick, Chocolate Marble Quick Bread with Ganache.

I usually have terrible luck with "marbled" recipes -- the swirls tend to just mush together.  But for this recipe, the batter was thick enough that it didn't all run together and it was easy to create the pretty "swirl" in the bread.  And the chocolate ganache frosting is a brilliant addition.  I ate more than a couple spoonfuls of the ganache all on its own.

My quick bread turned out a little dry, but I think that's because I don't have the right size pans.  Has anyone else noticed that all the bread recipes call for an 8 inch pan, when all I can find at the local stores are 9 inch pans?  I have the same problem with cake and pie recipes.  The recies always call for smaller pans than I can find at the store.

Anyhow, this was a fantastic recipe, and it was so much fun to make on a rainy day.  Thanks to Megan's Cookin' for the recipe.  Please visit Martha and Me to see how the other bloggers did with the recipe.

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: 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.