Soft Pretzels

Thanks for the inspiration, Ms. Huis! Saturday's wine tasting was Riesling, so I made a batch of soft pretzels for the occasion. I have changed my poll response accordingly. This recipe is lifted straight from Alton Brown on The Food Network site, which probably breaks all kinds of fair use laws, but I suspect y'all won't turn me in.

My notes:
I've always heard that pretzels are difficult to make. If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, these are a breeze.

I couldn't find pretzel salt, so I used coarse sea salt instead. It was maybe a little intense for my tastes, but still a serviceable substitute. I also toyed with the idea of using margarita salt, since I think of that as being softer and slightly less salty. But maybe that's just the influence of the tequila. Also, I measured my flour by weight and it came to barely 4 cups. Maybe 4-1/2 sifted? Perhaps related to that, everywhere he says to oil a surface? Oil it. This is sticky dough.

The best thing about these is how intensely buttery they taste, even though there's only 2 ounces of butter in the whole recipe.

The recipe:
Ingredients

* 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 2 teaspoons kosher salt
* 1 package active dry yeast
* 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
* 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
* Vegetable oil, for pan
* 10 cups water
* 2/3 cup baking soda
* 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
* Pretzel salt

Directions

Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.

Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.

Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

The Dude's Pizza Crust Recipe

Dude put this in the comments of the last Wednesday fun, but I figured for easier finding later, I'd paste it into a post.

Gino's East style Pizza Crust Recipe

1 cup of warm water
1 package yeast
1/2 cup cornmeal or corn flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 T corn oil
2 ½ to 3 cups of cheap generic flour
Yellow food coloring – the real secret to why its yellow.

Take the water and put it in your mixer. add yeast and a touch of sugar. Let the yeast foam up to be sure that it is active. Then add the rest of the ingredients including 2 1/2 cups flour. I usually end up adding between 1/4 and 1/2 teaspoons of yellow food coloring. Using a dough hook, kneed the dough until it is well combined. If the dough is sticky add a little more flour. The dough should be moist but not sticky. Let the mixer kneed the dough for 10 minutes. Put it in the oven to rise. If you desire a late in the day pizza taste (beer like), then let it rise all day.

Assembling the pizza -
Preheat oven to 350. After the dough has risen take your deep dish pizza pan (or a round cake pan with straight sides) and coat the inside of it with a very healthy coating of melted butter. Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick and up it in the pan. Then pinch the dough up along the sides of the pan. Now put your cheese, and I mean a lot, into the crust. Then add your spinach and anchovies, and finally your sauce. Bake in the oven until the crust is starting to brown and cheese is starting to bubble up through the sauce.

Amish Friendship Bread

We make this whenever someone hands us a starter (although, you can start your own as follows). We all love the main recipe but the chocolate is wonderful and so is the lemon. We have also made the rhubarb which adults in my family love but the kids are not as crazy about.

We do not handout many bags as we make about 3 batches at a time. You take the cup that you are suppose to give to friends and make another batch. It works great and you get bread to freeze for a later date. (We also give lots of bread away!) It only takes a little more time and the mess is already out.

To start your own starter.....
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 package of yeast
Mix together in a bag.

Here is a site for the rest of the steps. I think it is worth it.

Pumpkin Bread

This is a favorite around here anytime I make it.

3 1/3 cup flour
2 tsp. Baking soda
1 ½ tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Nutmeg
3 Cups Sugar

Mix Well.

4 eggs
2/3 cup water
2 cup or one can pumpkin
1 cup oil

Beat till smooth with above.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour (toothpick test).
Makes 3 loaves.
Muffins about 30 and cook for about 20 minutes.

Walnut Banana Bread

1/2  Cup  shortening (I have always substituted butter with no problem. I've also done applesauce with just 2 Tbs of butter and that works too if you want something a little healthier. If you use the shortening though, it makes it super moist.) 

1 Cup sugar

2 Eggs

1 Cup mashed ripe bananas (2-3 medium) 

1 Tbs milk

2 Cups flour 

1 Tsp baking soda

1/4 Tsp salt

1/2 Cup chopped walnuts (pecans are good too) 

Cream shortening and sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in bananas and milk. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in nuts.  Pour into a greased 9x5x3 in. loaf pan.  Bake at 325 (F) for 65-70 minutes, or until toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool for at least 10 min. before removing from pan. (those are the real instructions, but really, I just throw it all in a bowl and mix it up.) 

This is a very forgiving recipe and it will still work if you don't have milk or if you only have one banana or you have 4-5 bananas, etc. 

April Theme - Quick Breads

Oh, hi! Look at that - it's already April 5th & I'd completely forgotten about putting this month's theme up. So sorry!

This month's theme is pretty simple, but yummy - quick breads. Now, we're not talking yeast breads, but rather the ones that use baking soda or baking powder to make them raise, and therefore don't require a lot of time. Your banana breads, zucchini breads, corn bread, etc. I don't make these enough - they're so easy and quick and great for snacks, breakfast, etc.!

We don't have a lot of these posted yet. In fact, I'd say

• Diplowhat's Rhubarb Bread

definitely qualifies, and I suppose

• my Irish Brown Soda Bread
  

does, since it's made with baking soda & doesn't require time to raise, but that's all we got, folks.
So pull out those recipe cards and let's have 'em. Go, quick breads!

Coffee Cake

Finally broke down and called my mom for this wonderful recipe. This is my simplified version as I hate mixing dry ingredients separate and then adding them to wet. Throw it all in at once I say! Turns out just fine!

This makes a 9x13 pan.

1 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Beat this till creamy and then add:
2 c. flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
1 c. sour cream

Filling/Topping:
3/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp all spice (optional) (or any other spice you like. Cloves and or nutmeg are also good to add IMHO)
1/2 c chopped nuts (optional)

Put 1/2 or a bit more of batter in a greased 9x13 pan. The batter will be rather thick, so you will have to spread it out.
Put 1/2 of filling on top of batter. Then place rest of batter in the pan (again, a bit tricky to spread) and top with remaining brown sugar mix.

Bake for 30 min at 350.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

We made these today. They are "healthy" with no oil!! The kids love them. I would add more spice next time.

1 box spice cake mix
1 can pumpkin
4 egg whites (or 1/2 cup egg substitute)
2 Tablespoons water
Allspice---add to taste. (I did 1-2 t pumpkin pie spice and 1 t allspice could still use more)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl until creamy. Fill muffin cups. Bake at 350 for 18-24 minutes.

Tomato Bruschetta

Yesterday I was SO HUNGRY for tomato-covered bruschetta. The tomatoes, and basil, and garlic....yum! We'd gotten a large bunch of basil from our CSA the week before, so I'd thought to pick up some tomatoes...

I sort of made this recipe, which I'd gotten at a cooking class (with Chef Jeff). Didn't measure a thing, used regular tomatoes instead of Roma and a fresh CSA onion instead of the red onion, didn't toast the bread....

But it didn't matter. Because what I ended up with was absolutely, positively what I was hungry for. I'd made some dough from the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day earlier in the afternoon, so I baked up a loaf of that, and for supper, all I had was fresh, homemade bread mounded with tomato-y goodness.

It was summertime heaven.


Tomato Bruschetta
(makes 3-4 appetizer servings)

6 Roma tomatoes
1/4 c. diced red onion
1-2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp. fresh chopped basil (oh, just use LOTS)
3 Tbl. olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
3-4 1/2"-1" slices of fresh Boule bread (French bread may be substituted)

1. Remove the stem ends of the tomatoes; cut them in half lengthwise and remove the seeds.
2. Dice the tomatoes and place them in a 3-quart mixing bowl. (I'd only use pottery or other non-reactive material because I think the acidic tomato tastes funny otherwise.)
3. Add onions, garlic, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper; mix well.
4. Serve at room temperature.
5. Brush both sides of the bread lightly with olive oil and place on a 1/2 size sheet tray (or cookie sheet.)
6. Broil for 2-3 minutes or until slightly golden in color. Repeat procedure so that both sides are lightly toasted.
7. Remove from broiler, top with tomato mixture and serve.

Orange Butter Scones

I could have sworn I posted these before, or maybe emailed them to someone, but I can't find it anywhere, so I must just be remembering writing it down or something. One of Mr. Kluges's coworkers wanted this, so I figured if I was bothering to type it up anyway, I'd put it on here, so I could find it again.

This comes from The Ballymaloe Bread Book by Tim Allen. No, not the tool guy, but the husband of Irish food guru Darina. These measurements are primarily by weight, but I'll try to remember to make note of standard ones when I can... or even come back later and edit them in the next time I make it.

Scones:
450 g./ 1 lb. plain white flour [about 4 cups]
3 rounded tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
25 g./1 oz. castor sugar (superfine sugar, but standard is ok or powdered)
85 g./ 3 oz. butter, chilled [3/4 stick; 6 Tbl.]
2 medium eggs
200-225 ml. / 7-8 fluid oz. fresh milk (The eggs plus the milk should total 10 fl. oz.)

Orange butter:
2 oranges, finely grated zest
85 g./ 3 oz. butter [3/4 stick; 6 Tbl.]
100 g. / 3 1/2 oz. icing sugar, sieved (powdered sugar)

Topping: (I never bother with the topping because 1) it's sweet enough without it & 2) I forget to do it.)
egg wash
50 g. / 2 oz. granulated sugar (standard)


Prepare the orange butter in advance. Cream the butter with the finely grated orange zest, add the sieved icing sugar and beat together until light and fluffy. (You could even do this a day ahead.)

Preheat the oven to 250C / 475F / regulo 9.

To make the scone dough, into a large, wide bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add the castor sugar. (I just mix them all right away.) Cut the chilled butter into cubes (or thin slices). Then rub the butter into the dry ingredients.** Make a well in the centre.

Break the eggs into a two cup measuring cup and whisk lightly. Add the milk, bringing the liquid up to the 300 ml / 10 fl. oz. mark. Pour nearly all of the milk and egg mixture into the flour. Using one hand with the fingers open and stuff, mix in a full circle drawing the flour from the sides of the bowl, adding more milk and egg if necessary. Bring the ingredients gently together into a soft dough. (I just use a spoon. Much easier and less messy.)

Turn the dough out onto a very well-floured work surface. Knead lightly and briefly, just enough to bring it all together.

Now gently roll the scone dough into a rectangle about 2 cm / 3/4 in high and about 35x23cm (14x9"). Using a plastic spatula, spread the orange butter over the top surface of the dough. Gently roll up the dough as you would roll a Swiss roll.

With a sharp, metal dough butter lightly dusted with flour (or just a knife), cut the rolled scone dough into about 14 slices.

Place the scones cut side down on a 9x13" pan. The recipe actually calls for a baking sheet, but the 9x13 keeps the melted butter closer in to the scones so it soaks it back in instead of letting it burn around the edges.

First brush the scones with the egg wash, then sprinkle over the top with granulated sugar. (I skip this step almost always. It looks a tiny bit fancier, but tastes just as good without it.)

Put the scones into the preheated oven to bake for 5 minutes, then turn down the heat to 230C / 450C /regulo 8 and leave to bake for a further 10 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack. Then tuck in!


** Yeah, basically you stick your hands in the floury stuff and rub the small pieces of butter into it until it gets kind of crumbly... the texture will be sort of like Bisquick? This takes a while, and you could possibly get a similar effect by just using a pastry cutter, but it wouldn't be as well-distributed.

Rhubarb Bread

Per Pusher's request. This one is tried and true. Hope you like it.

1 1/2 c brown sugar
2/3 c oil
1 egg
1 c buttermilk (or sour milk which is almost 1 c milk with 1 T of lemon juice)
2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1 1/2 c rhubarb, cut up
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c nuts (optional)

Topping:
1 T butter
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Combine sugar and oil; add egg and sifted dry ingredients with buttermilk. Add rhubarb, vanilla and nuts. Pour batter into 2 large or 4 small pans. Top loaves with topping mix. Bake at 325 for 60 minutes, less for small loves. Freezes well.

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

When Sewing Bee (aka Turtle, aka Pumpkin's godmother) was out visiting us, I was telling her all about (and feeding them bread from) this great cookbook my MIL gave me at Christmas, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. She was very enthused, so we baked some up and mixed up a new batch for the frig so she got to see the whole procedure. I'd told her I meant to post it, but just hadn't gotten around to it, but lo and behold if I didn't find an email from her in my inbox today with it all typed up, including a YouTube link about it. So without further ado, here is:

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

In 5 qt. lidded plastic container: (Ice cream pail works great.)

Mix together – leave lidded on counter for 2 hours or up to 5 hours then refrigerate.

3 cups warm water
1 ½ Tbl. yeast
1 ½ Tbls coarse salt (1 generous Tbls fine salt)
6 ½ cups flour

Leave in the fridge for up to two weeks. Bake when you need bread or the night before it serves great the next day. Recipe says it can make 4 loaves. We tend to make 3 loaves per batch. [MHH - I agree. I only ever get three loaves, too.]

To Bake: Break off about 1/3 of dough with floured hands. Turn it to cloak it. (Turn it under at the sides all the way around to make a round loaf.) Sprinkle pizza peel (or flat [rimless] cookie sheet) with corn meal and lay bread on that area. Leave for 20 minutes then turn oven to 450 degrees and put a broiler pan and pizza stone in the oven. (Broiler pan or jelly roll works great.) [MHH - pizza stone on lowest possible rack.] Set timer for 20 more minutes while oven heats up and bread keeps rising.

Before you put it in the oven dust with flour and slash with a knife. When timer goes off slide bread in the oven off the peel and pour 1-1 ½ cups water into the hot broiler pan. Bake 35 minutes.

MHH - There are a ton of variations for this recipe in the cookbook, including foccacia (which I made today, but with grape tomatoes instead of onions). It really is super easy and convenient and the bread is FABULOUS with olive oil and vinegar.

Here's the YouTube video; it's an appearance by the authors on a MN morning show. It shows how easy it is to mix up and how to "cloak" the dough when making a loaf.

Brown Soda Bread

**Edited to add: Here's a link to another recipe for Irish brown bread that looks good. It makes it in a loaf pan, so if that's more what you're looking for, it might be just the thing. I haven't tried it yet, so if you do, let us know how it is!

**Edited later: This stales quickly, so don't plan on making it on the weekend & then serving it on Tuesday or something. It's best used the day it's made.

**2011 St. Patrick's Day edit: Here are the approximate amounts for a one-third-sized loaf, which is what's baking in my oven right now! 1 3/4 c. flour, 1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. baking soda, & what ended up to be maybe 1 1/4 c. buttermilk - 1 c. wasn't enough so I kept adding a bit at a time until it stuck together. Remember to reduce baking time since it's a lot smaller than the original!


As requested by Pusher, here's the recipe for Brown Soda Bread from The Ballymaloe Bread Book with what notes I remember, since I haven't made it for a while.

Makes: One large loaf [extremely large - I'd recommend halving the recipe or turning it into two]

Cooking time: 40-55 minutes

What you need:

• 1 1/4 lb. brown wholemeal flour (*shrug* I haven't made it here... maybe whole wheat flour?)
• 1 1/4 lb. plain white flour
• 2 rounded teaspoons of salt
• 2 rounded teaspoons bread soda [baking soda], finely sieved
• 1 1/2 points buttermilk, approximately

[If you want to halve it, that'd be 10 oz. of each kind of flour, a single rounded teaspoon each of the salt and baking soda, and 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk.]

What you do:

Fully preheat the oven to 230C/450F/regulo 8.

Mix the flours, salt and bread soda together in a large, wide bowl.

Pour most of the milk into the middle of the flour. Using your hand with the fingers open and stiff, mix the ingredients in a full circle drawing in the flour from the sides of the bowl, adding more milk of necessary, until the dough is softish, but not too wet. [Yeah, I use a spoon.]

Turn out the dough onto a well-floured work surface. Then wash and dry your hands.

Tidy up the dough by lightly rolling it around with lightly floured hands. Then pat it gently into a round about 6 cm/2 in high.

Place the dough on a lightly floured baking sheet, cut it across and prick it with your knife in the usual way.*

Bake in the fully preheated oven for 15-20 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 200C/400F/regulo 6 for a further 20-25 minutes. Turn the bread upside down on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before the end of baking. When the bread is cooked it will sound hollow when tapped.

Cool on a wire rack.



*Here's the "usual way" from the earlier recipe for White Soda Bread in the same book:

With a sharp knife cut a deep cross in it, letting the cuts go over the sides of the bread. Then prick the four triangles with your knife: according to Irish folklore this will let the fairies out!

No-Knead Bread

Last winter I came across this recipe for No-Knead Bread and I've been wanting to try it ever since. Let me just say right out that I am not a bread baker- I love to bake, but it's usually cookies/pie/cakes etc. Rarely will I bake bread. However, I love fresh homemade bread and I don't even mind the kneading/ rising/ kneading. It's kind of satisfying. A karmic way to earn the fresh baked yummy-ness.
But my curiosity got the better of me and I'd read that this bread was really quite good. The trade off for not kneading is that you have to wait about 24 hours between the urge to bake bread and the urge to eat the bread. The first rise is a 12-18 hour wait, another 2 hours for the second rise, 45 - 60 min. to bake, and then a little time to cool.

This is how the dough looked after the initial rise (18 hours or so). It looked more like pancake batter than bread dough and I was dubious. I was worried if I took it out of the bowl it was going to just run all over.


I managed to get it floured and set for the next rise- and it didn't quite double in size, but it did expand a bit and I got it into the pan. (sorry for the white on white here). It still did not look like a promising bread.


But THEN! Ta-dah! After baking for 45 min. the top was a nice golden brown and pretty crusty. When I put it on the wire rack, it was still cracking and popping. I cut into it a few minutes later and it looked great- nice crust, soft and chewy middle. It tastes really good too!


I used maybe a little too much flour in the second rise (but it was so sticky!) but I'm definitely going to try it again. This recipe is supposed to be very forgiving so you can add cheese, or herbs or dried fruit to make it savory or sweet.