Archive for the ‘Bread Basics’ Category
Memorial Day Party Foods
May 25th, 2013 | 
Author: I’ve gathered some of my favorite dishes for you to take or prepare for this holiday weekend. Now hurry up and get to cooking cause I’m hungry 
Memorial Day Party Foods
♥ Smoked Chili Candied Bacon – we’re talking MAN CANDY
♥ Toasted Almond Chocolate Caramel Bark with Sea Salt
♥ Strawberry Margaritta Jello Shots
♥ Lasagna Roll Ups
♥ Watermelon Feta Salad
♥ Tater Topped Meatloaf Balls
♥ Blueberry Buckle
♥ Chicken Prosciutto Roulade
♥ Cheesy Shaved Beef Stuffed Potatoes
♥ Pittsburgh Slaw
♥ Tomato Zucchini Tart
♥ Pepperoni Pretzel Bread
♥ Roasted Cauliflower Hummus
♥ Margarita Chicken Meatballs
♥ Chocolate Peanut Butter Bacon Pretzels
♥ Apple Crostata
♥ Twisted Cheesy Herbed Breadstick Twirls
♥ Watermelon Pineapple Jalapeno Salsa
♥ Nutella Tofee Krispy Bars
♥ Stuffed Shells
♥ Raspberry Brownie Trifle
Posted in Appetizers, Beef, Bread Basics, Cakes/Cupcakes, Chicken, Cocktails & Drinks, Desserts, Main Dishes, Pies, Pork & Sausage, Recipes, Salads, Side Dishes, Snacks n'at, Sweet Treats | 
Tags: Apple Crostata, Blueberry Buckle, Cheesy Shaved Beef Stuffed Potatoes, Chicken Prosciutto Roulade, Chocolate Peanut Butter Bacon Pretzels, Lasagna Roll Ups, Margarita Chicken Meatballs, Memorial Day, Nutella Tofee Krispy Bars, Pepperoni Pretzel Bread, pittsburgh slaw, Raspberry Brownie Trifle, Roasted Cauliflower Hummus, Smoked Chili Candied Bacon – we’re talking MAN CANDY, Strawberry Margaritta Jello Shots, stuffed shells, Tater Topped Meatloaf Balls, Toasted Almond Chocolate Caramel Bark with Sea Salt, Tomato Zucchini Tart, Twisted Cheesy Herbed Breadstick Twirls, Watermelon Feta Salad, Watermelon Pineapple Jalapeno Salsa | 
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Awesomest Double Chocolate Chunk Crusty No Knead Bread
Ever since I posted my recipe for the Most Awesomest Crusty No Knead Bread EVER! the bread baking revolution has soared. Folks that were afraid to make bread from scratch were now becoming master bread bakers in their kitchens. Those that tried numerous times making other breads and ended up with nothing but bricks failed; giving up hope.
Until this… this GLORIOUS gorgeous bread.
When I tell you this is the EASIEST bread you will ever make, believe me! No kneading, no mixers, no fuss and nothing complicated.
Now while I make that bread about once a week with various flavor adaptations I always try and push the limits; see how far I can take it. Well the one day I was in a I NEED chocolate mood! But I also wanted bread. I really do limit my bread/carb intake even though it’s just cruel and pretty much a punishment but for me bread tends to pack on weight which is so not what I want. So as I stood in the kitchen one night staring at the jar of chocolate sitting right next to the loaf of tomato basil bread I contemplated making a chocolate sandwich. I instantly regressed back to sitting in 7th grade Social Studies watching a film and them discussing how French people eat chunks of chocolate between 2 slices of baguette bread for lunch. Yes, I did consider this but the though just seemed ‘dry’.
However…
and there’s always a however with me. What if I made chocolate infused bread?!?! A wicked little grin formed on my face (kind of Grinch-like) and I figured I’d throw caution to the wind and make a chocolate version of my crusty no knead bread. I put it all together and covered it. About 18 hours later this thing looked so gorgeous. All black and puffy. I could not WAIT to put this baby in the oven. Since I was leery on the chocolate melting and sticking to the pan I dusted some parchment with cocoa and placed it on that. When this came out of the oven the chocolate chunks that were expose were charred (in a good way) and the smell of warm cocoa and chocolate was intoxicating!
Sadly I didn’t get to eat it that day as Mr. Fantabulous wanted Date Night (which means Home Depot) then dinner then here and there. By the time we got home it was super late and while I could have nommed on that bread then, I waited until the next day. The next day we worked in the yard however I kept thinking about this bread. I wasn’t sure how to eat it. I mean – do I butter it? Peanut butter? Nutella? So I did what I always do when I need suggestions.. I took it to the TKW Facebook Family! There were awesome suggestions but one member, David gave the most perfect suggestion EVER. A deconstructed S’more! I mean how awesome is that?! My dear TKW friend, you are brilliant!
So I cut a piece, well okay 2 pieces – 1 to try plain (which ROCKED… OMG!) and the other for the deconstructed S’more! When I took my first bite of this I swear I saw angels! This was totally mind blowing! The next day I made this as a ‘grilled cheese’ but with raspberry jam, brie and nutella. DELISH!
You have to try this! Seriously, you HAVE TO TRY THIS!
| Awesomest Double Chocolate Chunk Crusty No Knead Bread |
|
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1/2 tsp instant yeast
- 2 Tbl double dark chocolate cocoa plus additional for dusting
- 2 Tbl sugar
- 3/4 tsp table salt
- 1 1/2-3/4 cups water (room temp)
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks or semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Lidded cast iron dutch oven or clay dutch oven/pot – see note if you do not have one of these!
- In a large bowl add in the flour, yeast, cocoa, sugar and salt. You need to make sure the bowl is at least 2 times the size as this will easily double in volume.
- Whisk to combine.
- Add in the water and chocolate.
- Mix with a wooden spoon – do NOT use a stand mixer.
- Mix it until it’s combined and forms a ‘shaggy’ dough. Just make sure that all the flour is incorporated. It will not be a smooth dough – that’s how it’s supposed to be.
- Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place overnight for at least 12 hours but no more than 24.
- When you’re ready to bake, put the rack in the middle and preheat to 450F.
- When the oven reaches temp, put your dutch oven pot (cast iron or heavy ceramic {check to see that your ceramic can handle 450F temp first!}) in the oven WITH THE LID on.
- Let it heat up for 30 minutes.
- While that’s heating up, use a dough scraper and scrape your dough onto a heavily floured surface (or you can flour parchment paper and put it on there). *See note
- Shape into a ball, tucking the sides under. It will be sticky but that’s good.
- Cover lightly with plastic until the 30 minutes is up.
- Remove the pot from the oven and plop the ball down in. Or if you transferred it to a cocoa dusted parchment paper, you can place the whole thing inside (try to remove the excess cocoa if you have a bunch on it).
- Sprinkle the top with cocoa lightly.
- Replace the lid and bake for 30 minutes. No peaking!
- Remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and using tongs remove the bread and cool on cooling rack.
If you’re not comfortable with shaping the dough, when you remove the pot from the oven after 30 minutes you can carefully just pour the dough into the pot. It won’t be a perfectly round bread loaf but that’s okay – it’s just rustic. If you do pour it in, just jostle the pan around to kind of even out the dough before putting the lid on. But practice with shaping the dough. You can’t screw it up.
Don’t have a dutch oven or clay pot? Never fear! Grab your cast iron pan instead!
1. Take a 12″ round cast iron pan (with preferably a 2-3″ side wall) and place that into your 450F degree oven (just like the directions on the site). This pan will go on the middle rack.
2. WHILE you are heating that up, place a metal pan on the lowest shelf/rung in the oven at the same time. I just use an old cake pan that has seen better days.
3. When you remove the VERY HOT skillet from the oven and put your dough in it (have the dough resting on parchment paper so the bottom doesn’t get that ‘black’ color from the pan).
4. AND as soon as you put it in the oven put about 3 cups of ice cubes in the hot baking pan. DO THIS FAST as you want to trap the steam in the oven!
5. This will create steam (just like a dutch oven).
6. After 30-35 minutes check the bread. It should be done but if it’s not cook for 10-15 min more. If at 30 minutes it’s getting dark but not done (will sound hollow when tapped), just tent some foil over top for about 10 minutes.
7. Cool as normal.
Drunken Cheesy Irish Soda Bread
This bread is PERFECT with my Guinness Crock Pot Corned Beef & Cabbage with a Guinness Reduction Sauce I mean PERFECT! Actually anytime I make that dish, I make this bread. It just goes perfectly!
What I love about this bread is the simplicity of it. There’s no kneading or yeast and you really don’t have to put too much thought into it. It’s rustic in appearance and well, it has beer and cheese ‘n it.
Just look how amazing the loaf cooks right in the pan! No muss, no fuss and the only clean up is you toss the parchment paper and wipe out your cast iron pan.
How easy is that?! 
Now if you REALLY wanted to be daring, I would even go as far as adding cooked bacon chunks to the dough.
Seriously… beer… bacon AND cheese!
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what about some caramelized onions too?!!!
This Irish bread is sure to charm the pants off of any Leprechaun… or Irish Man *wink*
| Drunken Cheesy Irish Soda Bread |
- 3 cups flour (all purpose)
- 1 Tbl sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 stick cold, firm butter (unsalted)
- 2 cups grated cheddar, divided
- 1 cup Guinness , foam removed
- 1 Tbl apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tbl cream
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Lightly spray a piece of parchment paper AND a 12” cast iron pan.
- Line the parchment paper in the pan so the sides extend at least 1/2” above the edges of the pan.
- Pour the Guinness into a large cup.
- Carefully spoon off the foam and discard.
- Measure out 1 cup of the beer and set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, 1 1/2 cups of cheddar, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a large mixing bowl.
- Add in the butter cubes and using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles very coarse crumbs with bits of butter still visible here and there.
- Stir in Guinness and vinegar until you have a shaggy, messy dough.
- Mix everything together in the bowl with your hands into a cohesive dough that holds together without kneading it.
- Shape into a dome and transfer to the parchment lined pan.
- Gently score a cross pattern into the top without deflating the dough.
- Brush the top lightly with cream and 1/2 cup cheddar and bake for 35 – 40 minutes or until golden and crusty and bottom sounds hollow when tapped.
- Carefully grabbing the parchment paper, transfer it and the bread immediately to a cooling rack and cool completely before slicing, or just break into quarters along the score lines.
Posted in Appetizers, Bread Basics, Recipes, Side Dishes |
Tags: Beer Cheese Bread, Drunken Cheesy Irish Soda Bread, Guinness Bread |
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How to make Bread Flour
I love bread. No, really. I LOVE bread. I swear there is nothing better than a warm slice of freshly baked bread with butter and homemade preserves on it. This, many a nights, has been dinner for me.
Now I know carbs are bad. So… Seriously, so what! I live a very healthy lifestyle, work out like it’s my job so if I wanna have a dinner of butter bread, I am damn it.
QUIT JUDGING ME! LOL
No seriously, I do love my bread but just like everything else in life, it has to be in moderation.
As you can tell on here I have a bunch of bread recipes that call for bread flour. Well not every home cook has bread flour on hand. Just like cake flour and self rising flour, you buy it specifically for a single recipe and then it sits. Why? To me that’s wasting money ESPECIALLY when you can make it yourself using All Purpose flour.
Now the recipe is really, REALLY difficult so I’m going to apologize now.
| How to make Bread Flour |
- 1 cup All Purpose Flour
- 1 Tbl Vital Wheat Gluten
- Add both to a bowl, whisk.
- Store in cool, dry, air tight container.
If you are making a big batch of this to store, I’d recommend after you whisk it together to sift the ingredients together this way you will get even distribution.
Store in your container then.
Tough, huh? *wink*
Posted in Bread Basics, Recipes, Tips and Tricks |
Tags: how to make bread flour, substitute, tips, tricks, when you're out of an ingredient |
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Twisted Cheesy Herbed Breadstick Twirls
The other day when I was making that Cheesy Baked Ziti I knew I wanted bread with it. To me, bread with pasta (I know carb on carb) just is a perfect marriage. It’s like peanut butter and jelly, ice cream and hot fudge, ketchup and eggs (shut it.. leave me to my perfect marriages!). lol Growing up when my parents made pasta I really didn’t like it as it had GINORMOUS chunks of onions and tomatoes in it. And you all know by now, this child does NOT do chunks like that! No way, no how! However the only saving grace was butter bread. Sundays were either pot roast day (with homemade bread) or spaghetti & meatballs with home made bread. Either way it was a win-win for me as I would load up on bread and fake pretend (as in push the food around on my plate) that I was eating the massive chunky pasta (gag). Well as I got older and perfected my Italian Gravy I never gave up on the bread with it.
Now I didn’t want just plain warm buttered bread and I was sick of garlic toast. I wanted something different. Well, when I opened up my metal utensils drawer in the kitchen I saw my 12″ wooden skewers (that I have to keep hidden from Mr. Fantabulous as he tends to steal them and use them in the garage for God knows what!). It hit me, what if I made the dough and twisted ‘em around them skewers??? And that’s exactly what I did. Since I knew I was going to be baking these I felt best to soak the skewers so they didn’t catch on fire… again. LOL Yes, I caught them on fire in my oven one, twice or 5 times before but we won’t go there. I’ve since learned my lesson.
As I was making my dough I decided to throw caution to the wind and just dump herbs and cheese in the dough. I let the dough rise once, then cut it out into equal parts, made some ropes and wrapped them puppies around the skewer. Now this is where I got stuck. I could have laid them down on the pan but then I would have had flat bottom breads. And while that would have worked, it kind of ruined the image I had in my head of this bubble bread twirling around the skewer. I needed to ‘hang’ them to proof and bake. I dug through my cabinets, found some 9×13″ pans and then laid the skewers over top of them this way the ends were suspended but the dough didn’t touch any part thus I could have my bubbly twirls.
I popped the ziti in the oven. When the ziti was done I lowered the temp and baked these beauties while the ziti cooled a tad (no need to getting 10th degree cheese burns, right?!). When I pulled these out of the oven the smell was intoxicating! Honestly I didn’t want the ziti, I just wanted these GORGEOUS twists!
Now look at these! And yes, they were so pretty that I put them in a vase! I am so doing this again next time we have a party! It’s super fun and just ‘makes’ the table setting.
When I served these Mr. Fantabulous gave me the funniest look and the look of okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay um… bread, in a vase. Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk LOL But the first bite he was hooked!
You can bite them right off the stick or do what I did and gently pull pieces off. This was so good that I was in pure heaven!
| Twisted Cheesy Herbed Breadstick Twirls |
- 1 1/2 Tbl cake yeast (can use 2 1/2 tsp dry instant yeast)
- 2 Tbl sugar
- 1 3/4 cups warm water
- 1 Tbl vegetable oil
- 1 tsp garlic salt
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 tsp rosemary
- 1/2 cup Asiago pulsed in the food processor (you want small pebbles)
- 1/4 cup Parmesan pulsed in the food processor (you want small pebbles)
- 3 1/2 cup bread flour
- 3/4 cup melted butter
- 3/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
- 2 Tbl Parmesan cheese
- 10 12” inch skewers (soaked for 15 minutes)
- In a bowl of a stand mixer, combine the yeast, sugar, and 1 1/2 cups warm water together and let sit for 5-6 minutes until foamy.
- Fit the mixer with the paddle attachment.
- Add in the flour and mix just until shaggy.
- Add in the oil, garlic salt, thyme, rosemary, Asiago and Parmesan crumbles.
- Mix on low until combined and then place on medium and mix for 5-7 minutes until the dough is soft and stretchy. It’ll be tacky but not sticky. If the dough is too dry, add some of the remaining 1/4 cup warm water but in Tbl increments.
- Place the dough in a large bowl (at least 3 times the size of the ball) coated with olive oil.
- Place dough back in the bowl turning once to coat, then cover with a towel (or plastic shower cap) and let rise until doubled ~1 hour.
- Divide dough into 10 equal parts
- Lightly cover your hands with flour and roll each part into a 14-16” inch long rope. *Note: you don’t want a lot of flour otherwise it will be difficult to roll the ropes out.
- Starting at 1” from the bottom of the skewer, wrap the dough around and then wind up towards the top leaving a 1” space from the tip.
- Lightly spray the top edges and inside 2 9×13”metal pans.
- Hang skewers over the edge of a 9×13 inch pan.
- Lightly spray with olive oil or cooking spray and cover loosely with plastic wrap.
- Let rise until doubled again. ~1 hour.
- minutes prior to baking preheat the oven to 375F.
- In a small bowl mix the melted butter, garlic powder, ½ tsp dried rosemary and Parmesan cheese.
- Brush the bread twirls on all sides.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and immediately brush with the remaining melted herbed butter.
Posted in Appetizers, Bread Basics, Daily Soul Fuel, Recipes, Side Dishes, Snacks n'at |
Tags: Breadsticks, Buffet foods, Tablesetting, Twisted Cheesy Herbed Breadstick Twirls |
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