Popovers

I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen recently, making various cakes. To help me pass the time, I like to listen to books on tape. My book on tape obsession dates back to middle school when I first discovered the section at the library and thought "genius, you can read a book without actually having to read". I picked up the habit again last summer as I made the 6 hour one way trek to visit EC while he lived in a different time zone completing a summer internship.

Recently I have been listening to a series about a cookie baker who solves murders. This poor baker keeps finding dead bodies. One would think that would be bad for business, but not in her fiction world. In the books, there are also recipes. I got brave and decided to try one, mostly because I was testing it to see if it would work for my brother's wedding. I don't think it will. But, the popovers were pretty good. Not like I expect them, I expected bread. These are more like a single serving German Pancake.

.

Popovers

From a book on tape

.

4 eggs

2 cups milk

2 cups unsifted flour

1 teaspoon salt

.

Heat oven to 450. Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with Pam. Whisk eggs by hand until light and uniform, approximately one minute. Whisk in milk, then dump in flour and salt all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon until flour is moistened and incorporated - mixture will be lumpy. Pour into cups and bake for 30 minutes. Don't open the oven while they are baking or the Popovers will fall. Bake until browned. When you take them out of the oven, pierce the tops with a knife to release the steam and let stand for 1-2 minutes before serving.

Italian Bread Bowls

Oh goodness, it has been a long time! Not because I have been super busy or anything, just lazy. And I am getting slightly to very caked-out, which I never thought could happen to anyone, ever. Anyhow, here in my little town, the weather has been miserable. My favorite quote describing the weather is a friend was talking to his daughter and said "I thought it was supposed to be Spring" and his daughter said "Well, winter thought it was supposed to be winter". That about sums up the weather.

One of the perks about it being so cold is that it makes soup taste extra good. And since I love bread bowls (LOVE!) I decided to make clam chowder and bread bowls for dinner one night. These are the best bread bowls I have ever eaten, seriously. EC liked them too, and he doesn't like soggy bread, so that tells you just how good these are. They are definitely the perfect cure for ANOTHER snowy day.

.

Italian Bread Bowls

adapted from allrecipes.com

.

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast

2 1/2 cups warm water

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

7 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornmeal

1 egg white

1 tablespoon water

In a large bowl (or bowl of an electric mixer), dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
Add salt, oil and 4 cups flour to the yeast mixture; beat well. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well with an electric mixer at medium speed after each addition until a soft but not sticky dough is formed (you may not need to use all 7 cups).
When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes (or let knead in an electric mixer). Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Punch dough down, and divide into 6-8 equal portions. Shape each portion into a round ball. Place loaves on lightly greased baking sheets sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in bulk, about 35 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, beat together egg white and 1 tablespoon water; lightly brush the loaves with half of this egg wash. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Brush with remaining egg mixture, and bake 10 to 15 more minutes or until golden. Cool on wire racks.

We're half way done!

Goodness it has been a while since I have posted! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! I was off visiting family and the 'laws for the holidays, but I am back now. I am happy to announce3 that on December 19th EC officially became half way done with school! We were so excited we celebrated with half things. For dinner, we had a half calzone, which equaled a pizza! The pizza was actually EC's creation. His half had sausage, olives, mushrooms, green pepper and cheese, everything I do not enjoy on a pizza. My half had chicken, tomatoes, green onion, and cheese, yum. EC also made the pizza a stuffed crust. We had a nice celebration and look forward to counting down the next year and a half.

Pizza Dough
From EC's Brother's Mother-in-law
Makes 2 pizza crusts

4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon yeast
1 1/2 cup water
1/4 cup oil

Combine ingredients. Oil hands and knead dough for about 10 minutes. Cover bowl with plastic, place in oven (not warmed) until double. Punch down dough, divide in half. Place dough on oiled pizza pans, spread out the dough by pushing down on the thick spots.
Top with your favorite pizza toppings.
Bake at 425 for 16-20 minutes.

Yeast Raised Glazed Donuts

Finally, the moment BFF has been waiting for...Donuts!

Recently I got it into my head that I wanted to make donuts. I think it came about like this:

Me - Hey, EC, what do you want for dinner tonight?
EC - Hmmm, I know, donuts!
Me - Hmm, what is we made them this weekend instead?
EC - Ok.
Me - So, what are we going to have for dinner tonight?

The donut recipe that I found said to cut out donuts using a donut cutter and since I like to follow my recipes as closely as possible, I had to find a donut cutter. This meant me dragging EC to Michaels, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and Walmart, and then later making EC call Macy's and Shopko for me, all to no avail. I was about to order one off the Internet and then I had a sudden burst of inspiration: TriState (sing it: We live in North Idaho, and it shows).

So EC called them up and apparently I wasn't the only one who's husband requested donuts for dinner, because they were out of donut cutters until Wednesday. WEDNESDAY - that meant I had to wait 4 days, and I hate waiting. But finally Wednesday came and I bought my little donut cutter. Then on Saturday I made the dough up for the donuts so the EC and I could make them together on Sunday.

Sunday came and making donuts was a family affair, even Petey got into it, by which I mean, sat in the dome box. I rolled out the donut dough, got out my new little donut cutter, pressed it into the dough....and the handle broke. I feel like that should be ironic. So EC used a cup and a large icing tip to cut out donuts and I used our newly acquired and newly broken donut cutter. We had fun, fried up the donuts, decorated them, and ate them. EC really liked them, he said they were better than store bought donuts. I am still slightly unsure of how I feel about them. I do know that they are much better fresh then they are the day after. The day old donuts were no good, ick. Thus ends the donut making adventure.

Yeast- Raised Glazed Doughnuts

1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar
2 and 1/4 tsp instant yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
vegetable oil for frying

Glaze :
1/4 cup milk
2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk, butter and vanilla and stir into the flour mixture, mixing until well combined. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then knead for 8 minutes until you have a smooth, soft dough. Place the dough in a buttered bowl, turn it over to grease the top and let it rise, covered in a warm place for 1 and 1/2 hours or for better result let it rise in the refrigerator overnight.
Deflate dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Gently roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into rounds using a doughnut cutter. Place in GREASED baking sheet and let rise again for 1 hour until doubled again.
Fry dough in oil (with temperature of 350 F) until golden brown. This should take no more than a minute for each side. Over cooking will make doughnuts tough. Drain on paper towels.
To make the glaze, stir the milk into the confectioners sugar until it is smooth, then add vanilla.
When the doughnuts are cool enough to handle (but still warm) dip the tops of the doughnuts in the glaze, then place on a rack or plate to let glaze drip down.

My Mom's Rolls

On Saturday we came home from doing something, I don't remember what, and there was a flyer on our door announcing a Thanksgiving Potluck at the Family Housing Community Center. There would be three different types of turkey available, steamed, BBQ, and deep fat fried, and if you brought a Thanksgiving-ish side dish you would be entered to win a door prize.
In true poor college student form, EC and I rarely, if ever, turn down an offer for free food. So I was left with the dilemma of what side dish I should make. Being indecisive, I couldn't decide. Luckily, EC was there for me and suggested my mom's rolls. Mind you, these rolls may look a little funny, but they are the best tasting things EVER. Especially if you make a turkey sandwich with leftover Thanksgiving turkey, mmmmm.
I think this picture looks a little funny, like the roll is gushing something, which it is, homemade blackberry jams made from the times we picked a plethora of blackberries. But, the rolls turned out awesome, EC and I hid two in his pockets before we went so we would be sure to get one, and it is a good thing we did, because by the time we got through the line they were almost gone. Victory is mine!

Cheesy Jalapeno Bread

When my older sister was here visiting during Labor Day, we went to the Farmer's Market (in a lame attempt to show her everything there is to do here, it took 10 minutes) and we bought a jalapeno bread. It was really good, very spicy. EC and my sister really liked it, and I liked it pretty well too. Not too long ago I was perusing a website looking for bread recipes and I stumbled upon a recipe for such a bread. I decided that Cheesy Jalapeno Bread was something that I needed to conquer, so I set off to do just that.The bread is just a basic white bread recipe. Things got exciting when I was supposed to knead in 3 cups of cheese and 2 tablespoons of jalapenos. The recipe made it sound like the cheese chunks would incorporate nicely into the bread dough, and maybe it did for them, but my experience was not smooth. There were cheese chunks flying in all different directions, with me trying to shove them all back into the bread dough. Then when I baked it it rose A LOT. And since there was so much cheese in the dough, cheese began to drip off the bread and into the bottom of my oven, later causing a small oven fire and the smoke detector to go off. Then I didn't let one of the loaves cool enough before I took it out of the pan, and since it was top heavy and had cheese for an interior, it collapsed on itself.
But in the end, it was DEFINITELY worth it. This bread is pretty amazing, especially straight from the oven, all warm with warm, gooey cheese. I think my older sister will approve.

.

Cheesy Jalapeno Bread

From Cast Sugar

Ingredients:
2 c. warm water (~110 F)
1/4 c. white sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp. active dry yeast

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 c. vegetable oil

6 c. bread flour, sifted
1 c. cheddar cheese, cubed
2 c. Monterrey Jack cheese, cubed
2 Tbsp. chopped jalapeno

In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam (about 10 minutes).
Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth, about 10 minutes. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes.
Punch dough down. Add cheese and jalapeno to dough and knead for about 5 minutes, until the cheese chunks are dispersed throughout (you will have some seriously bumpy dough!). Then divide dough in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

Wheat Bread Take 2

Last week while my older sister was up visiting, we attempted to make whole wheat bread. I checked out Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice from the local library and we were off! Things did not go smoothly however, and although the bread tasted good when it was done, it was very small and dense. Apparently we were not patient enough to let it rise enough during the final rising. So this weekend, in an effort to redeem myself, I tried a different recipe, one that used whole wheat, rye, and all-purpose flour, as well as wheat germ. The results: beautiful loaves of bread that tasted wonderful! I learned a very important lesson from all of this: I do not like 100% whole wheat bread.