Make Ahead Crisp Buttery Garlic Bread

from My Kitchen Cafe

Ingredients:

• 12 tablespoons butter, softened
• 4 garlic cloves, very finely minced
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 12 (1-inch) slices Italian or French bread

Using a fork, beat butter, garlic, sugar, salt and pepper in small bowl until combined. Spread butter mixture evenly over both sides of bread.

Freeze the slices on a large baking sheet or plate until firm, about 15 minutes. After they are firm, transfer the slices to a freezer ziploc bag and freeze for up to one month.

To serve, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Arrange bread on rimmed baking sheet and bake until golden brown on the first side, about 10 minutes. Flip and bake until golden brown on the second side, 6-7 minutes more. Serve.

Note: To serve the bread immediately instead of freezing, bake buttered bread on rimmed baking sheet at 425 degrees for 8 minutes then flip and bake 5 more minutes on the second side.

Jo-Lynne from Musings of A Housewife is one of my blogger-heros.  She is someone I truly look up to in the quest for eating more real foods, partly because she makes it seem do-able.  She’s not soaking grains and fermenting things (yet!), she’s just sticking to the basics, like baking her own bread.  I’ve had this recipe of hers bookmarked for a while, and I finally got a chance to try it this week.  I’m not sure why I waited so long.  Maybe I was intimidated by the mere idea of baking bread?  I had a pretty rough time baking Julia Child’s French Bread a couple of years ago, but I’ve used yeast successfully many other times.  There is no reason to be afraid of this recipe, all of you yeast-o-phobes!  This bread is really easy to throw together, and super flexible in terms of the kind of flour you can use!  The best part is that the recipe makes 4 loaves, so if you use one loaf a week, then you only need to make it once a month!  Good look with rationing the bread out for an entire month…just try to stop yourself from eating it all!  I will note that I found out the hard way that my Kitchen Aid mixer is too small for the full recipe.  Next time I’ll make half a recipe.  Instead of posting the recipe here like I would normally do, just go on over to Jo-Lynne’s blog to see her recipe and fantastic photo tutorial!

My extra uncooked loaves, ready for the freezer:

Delicious!

Pita Bread

recipe from Brown Eyed Baker via Annie’s Eats

Yield: 8 pitas

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour, plus 1/2-3/4 cup more as needed
• 1 ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. sugar or honey
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1 ¼ to 1 ½ cups water, roughly at room temperature
• 2 tbsp. olive oil, vegetable oil, butter or shortening

Mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar.  Add the olive oil and 1 ¼ cup water and stir together with a wooden spoon.  All of the ingredients should form a ball.  If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water.

Once all of the ingredients form a ball, place the ball on a work surface, and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes. If you are using an electric mixer, mix it at low speed for 10 minutes.  As the dough is mixing, continue to add flour, a tablespoon or two at a time, until the dough clears the sides of the bowl and is tacky but not sticky.  (I add a significant amount of flour, so don’t be afraid to keep adding more until you reach the right consistency.)

When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the dough around so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it will be easier to shape.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 450°. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while it is preheating. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between ¼ – 1/8” thick – 6 inches in diameter. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently, you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5-10 minutes before trying again.

Place discs on a lightly greased baking sheet or parchment paper and let rise, uncovered, until barely doubled in thickness, about 30-45 minutes.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes. If you want your pitas to be crispy and brown you can bake them for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, but it isn’t necessary.

It’s so easy a 2 year old can do it! No really.  My 2 year old practically DID do it, except for the last step (cooking in a hot skillet for 30 seconds on each side), and they taste great!

(Please ignore the choppy hair on the back of The Littlest Apple’s head.  I love all of his mop top hair, but the mullet had to GO.  It was my first time trimming his hair, an act of desperation, and my first “snip” wasn’t well received by TLA.  Hence the big chunk missing behind the ear shown above.  The other side looks way better, I promise!)

Back to the homemade tortillas:  They were WAY better than any store bought tortillas.  But if you want them to be more circular in shape and of relatively uniform thickness, I wouldn’t recommend actually letting a 2 year old make them.

One more thing to mark off my list of 31 Things To Do Before I Turn 31!

Homemade Tortillas

Recipe from Rick Bayless, via Chowhound

makes 8 8-inch tortillas

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup lard  (you can find this near the shortening on the baking isle)
• 2/3 cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon salt

Cut lard into flour. Dissolve salt in warm water, then add gradually to flour mixture. Mix until dough begins to form. Turn onto floured surface and knead about 3 minutes. Divide ball into 8 smaller balls (for ~ 8-inch tortillas). Cover balls with plastic wrap and rest at least 30 minutes.

Heat cast iron pan over medium/medium-high heat. On floured surface, roll out ball until about 8 inches or so in diameter. Grill in dry pan, maybe about 30 seconds on each side or until they look done.  I flipped mine back and forth a couple of times, until they looked done. Keep the tortillas warm as you cook them by placing them in between two towels on a plate or pizza stone and then placing in the microwave or a warm oven.

One of my favorite things about fall is using pumpkin in baked goods.  This recipe is from Rebecca Rather’s The Pastry Queen cookbook which hasn’t let me down yet!  This is delicious and easy bread, with lots of pumpkin flavor as well as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and pecans.  The recipe makes 2 huge loaves, so you won’t feel so bad eating a whole loaf yourself…you’ll still have plenty to share!  I LOVE this bread!  It is my new favorite fall bread/muffin!

Autumn Pumpkin Bread with Pecan Streusel Topping

from The Pastry Queen, by Rebecca Rather

Bread:

• 1 1/2 cups pecan pieces
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 (15 ounce) can pure pumpkin
• 1 cup water
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping:

• 1/2 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup toasted pecan pieces (above)

To make the bread: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Arrange the pecans on a baking sheet in a single layer and toast them in the oven for 7 to 9 minutes, until golden brown and aromatic.  Reserve 1/2 cup of the toasted pecans for the topping.

Grease two 9 by 5-inch pans or 36 standard-size muffin cups with butter or cooking spray.

Whisk the oil and sugar in a large bowl.  Add the eggs, pumpkin, and water and whisk until combined.  Stir in the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt.  Gently stir in 1 cup of the pecan pieces.  Pour half of the batter into each loaf pan.  For muffins, fill the muffin pans almost to the top with batter.

To make the topping: Stir the sugar, butter, cinnamon, and the reserved 1/2 cup of pecan pieces in a medium bowl.  Sprinkle the topping liberally over the loaves or the muffins before baking.

Bake the loaves for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Bake the muffins for 30 to 35 minutes.

I’ve made beer bread several times before, and when I saw this recipe in the “Lunches and Light Dinners” section of the cookbook, I knew it would be a perfect side for the entrees I’m serving this week.  Beer bread is simple and delicious, and best served hot from the oven.  For the beer, I used Shiner Bock, which is made in Shiner, Texas.  Shiner is halfway between Houston and San Antonio, and is home to the infamous Bocktoberfest, a celebration of beer and music.  This is my entry into Emiline’s St. Paddy’s day Pub Crawl event.  This is her first time hosting a blogging event, so go check out her blog, Sugar Plum, on March 20 to see the roundup of recipes containing beer and liquor!  And be sure to check out all of the other great dishes she’s created and written about on her blog.

I made two easy variations for the bread: Jalepeno Cheddar Beer Bread and Ground Beef and Monterey Jack Beer Bread.  At one of our favorite BBQ joints, they serve a jalepeno cheddar bread that The Picky Apple loves.  So I thought I’d just throw some jalepenos and cheddar into one batch of the beer bread to make it extra yummy and spicy.

The other variation came about because I’ve been thinking lots lately about bread made with ground beef and cheese that I tasted once upon a time.  I can’t for the life of me remember where I tasted it, but I know it was homemade and not from a restaurant.  I discussed this with my mom, and she swears she never made any like that.  It is really driving me crazy that I can’t remember.  Maybe I just dreamed about it.  So that’s the inspiration for the other variation, the Ground Beef and Monterey Jack Beer Bread.

Beer Bread

from The Pastry Queen, by Rebecca Rather

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 (12 ounce) bottle good-quality beer or ale  ()
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Generously grease a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan with butter or cooking spray.  In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.  Pour in the beer and stir until just incorporated.  (The dough will be sticky and heavy).  Pour half the melted butter into the bottom of the prepared loaf pan.  Spoon in the bread dough and pour the remaining half of the butter on top.  Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until the bumpy top is golden brown.  Remove from the pan and serve immediately.

Jalepeno Cheddar Variation: After stirring in beer, add 1-2 chopped jalepenos (remove seeds) and 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese to dough.  Continue with original recipe.

Ground Beef and Monterey Jack Variation: Brown 1/2 pound ground beef with 1/2 cup chopped onion.  Transfer to paper towels to soak up any extra grease.  After stirring beer into dough, add ground beef and 1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese to dough.  Continue with original recipe.

I noticed that the hostesses for the month indicated that the best type of flour to use for this recipe was french style flour, which is a lower gluten all purpose flour.  King Arthur Flour was mentioned, so at the beginning of the month, I headed on over to the King Arthur Flour website (which I love) to order some flour…..and noticed it was sold out.  Out of stock until February 14.  Yes, the best indication that the Daring Bakers are baking up bread this month is when a certain type of flour is sold out.  Craziness!  That’s when I knew that being a Daring Baker is serious business.  I went ahead and order some, knowing that it might not be here in time to complete the challenge by month’s end.  In the meantime, I found some flour at the grocery store that seemed to be similar in gluten content.

The next big challenge for me was timing.  The recipe indicates that it takes 9 hours from start to finish since the bread requires three separate rises.  With a needy six month old son who is currently going through a “don’t set me down ever ever ever or I’ll screech like you are pouring boiling hot acid all over me”, I figured I’d probably have to wait until the weekend when my husband was around.  Then my husband told me at the last minute he was going out of town for work one weekend.  Grr!!  But somehow, I found the time, sacrificing some sleep in the name of good bread.

My first attempt at the bread was a complete failure.  The dough never made it pas the first rise.  After reading through the recipe again, multiple times, I realized that I may have killed the yeast by using water that was too hot.  Stupid mistake, easily preventable.

The second attempt fared a little better.  A new day, a fresh start.  I very carefully tested the temperature of the water with a thermometer.  The dough made it past the first rise.  Hizzah!  But the second rise was a little lackluster, and took way too long.  At that point, I figured I’d already invested quite a bit of time, so I might as well soldier on.  After forming my batons, the shape I chose for the bread, the third rise never really happened.  Hoping that maybe the bread would rise in the oven, I went ahead and baked it anyway.  The result, this time at 1 am, was some very hard loaves that were anemic looking.  Bread 2, Cara 0.

For those of you that don’t know me, I can be very stubborn.  (And for those of you who do know me, I know you’re snickering right now….understatement of the year, right?)  And I have trouble admitting defeat.  This can be both a good and bad thing.  For instance, I took Advanced Placement Calculus my senior year of high school, and struggled the whole year, refusing to transfer to the regular Calculus class because that would be admitting that I wasn’t able to handle the AP class.  It was very silly and stupid of me.  But that’s how I was feeling about this recipe.  Frustrated, but not wanting to let the bread win.  I vowed to give it one last shot….

For my THIRD attempt, I bought new yeast, just in case there was an issue with the stuff I’d been using (doubtful because I’d used it recently with success, but I was covering all my bases here).  I bought new flour, because the flour I’d ordered STILL(!!) wasn’t here.  This time, the dough came together, rose, and generally behaved itself.  Success at last!  My husband and I impatiently waited for the bread to cool before digging in.  We both thought it was really good bread.  Really good.  Some Daring Bakers named it the best bread they had ever tasted.  In all the breads I’ve tasted, this one was definitely up there…  And it was still good two days later, reheated.  I’ll probably make this again in the future now that I’ve got this recipe all figured out, but it definitely takes some patience.  Now I’m ready for my next challenge!  You can read all about how the other Daring Bakers fared here.

Oh yeah, and that flour I ordered?  STILL not here…