Tag Archives: bread

Pizza Dough

Posted in Baking, Cooking, Entree by

Making dough is definitely in my top 3 favorite cooking tasks (the bottom 3 tasks include cutting raw meat, cutting up whole pineapples, and slicing watermelon).  The rising, punching, and kneading process is so very manual – a job where you really have to just dig in and get your hands dirty.  Some doughs are easier to work with than others and pizza dough is one of the easiest to work with and handle.  It’s easy, there are only 5 ingredients, and it always, always turns out great.

This dough is suitable for calzones, pizza baked in the oven, and, my favorite, grilled pizza.  It’s a relatively small recipe – it would comfortably feed a family of four, but usually for my crew of 6-8 I double it.  You really only need 2 hours start to finish, but if you happen to make it 4 hours ahead of time, that’s fine too (just add another raise).  If you make too much, it’s easy to freeze – just roll it into a ball, coat with a thin layer of olive oil, wrap in plastic wrap, and stick it in a ziploc bag.

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Pizza Dough

1 TBSP yeast

1 TBSP sugar

1.5 cups warm water

1/2 tsp salt

3.5 to 4.5 cups flour

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir the water, yeast and sugar together and let sit for about 10 minutes.  When the yeast is bubbly and foamy, stir in the salt and begin adding flour, 1 cup at a time, until combined.  I typically use about 4.5 cups, but depending on humidity you may need less or more.  Once the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl, I add about a half cup more and then let the mixer knead the dough at medium speed for a few minutes, just to make sure all of the flour is incorporated.

2.  Manually form the dough into a ball – if you find it sticking to your hands excessively, consider adding a bit more flour.  Transfer the dough into a greased bowl, cover it, and move it into a warm spot to rise (in the wintertime I turn my oven to warm and then turn it off and allow my dough to proof in there).

3. After 45 minutes to an hour, when the dough has doubled in bulk, punch it down, reform into a ball and allow to rise again.

4. 45 minutes to an hour after the second rise, when the dough has doubled to tripled again, punch it down and roll out to your desired size.  I find that this dough requires ample flouring to avoid sticking to your rolling pin and surface.  You could also freeze the dough at this point.

If you plan to grill your crusts, spray each side with olive oil and place the crust directly on the grill.  Once the first side is done, flip the crust and quickly arrange the sauce, cheese, and toppings to your liking.  Remember that grilled pizza is highly artisanal and traditional aesthetics do not apply.

Focaccia Bread

Posted in Baking, Quick and Easy by

There’s an amazing brunch place in Dallas that serves $1 bellinis and mimosas until 2 p.m.  They limit you to six (six!), but the mimosas are basically champagne with a little splash of orange juice, in other words, a perfect mimosa.  That, in itself, is reason enough to drive across town and, inevitably, waste the remainder of your day in a post-brunch coma, but they also have amazing food.  Specifically, their focaccia bread is out of this world.  They bring it before your meal on a big pizza pan and ours is always long gone.  After several trips, I decided to try and replicate the focaccia – I had big dreams of doing it one afternoon following brunch, but after 3 mimosas, 4 slices of bread, and a massive eggs benedict (to think – I used to hate brunch food!), all I did was lie on the couch and watch The Little Mermaid with my kids for the millionth time.

I’ve eaten many focaccias over the years – some with onions, olives, and other craziness.  Typically if there’s a food option that contains additional fancy ingredients such as those, I’m all in, but, in the case of focaccia, it’s truly a less is more situation.  This calls for no toppings except rosemary, salt, and a little parmesan cheese.  It’s shockingly easy to make, and a really great introductory bread if yeast breads intimidate you.  Basically, when making bread, in order to get your dough to the right consistency you either need to add your flour to your water or water to your flour slowly.  So much depends on how sifted your flour is, the humidity in the air, the heat in your kitchen, etc.  Most breads have you mix the wet ingredients and add flour until you reach the desired consistency, but in this recipe you add water, and I think it’s easier to gauge the consistency that way because it’s easier to add until the dough just sticks together.

I grow rosemary in my garden, so I have the ingredients for focaccia on hand all the time and started making it about once a week.  You really only need an hour and a half of rise time and half an hour of baking, so it’s possible to make on a weeknight, which is rare for bread.  I actually use canned parmesan cheese for topping – typically I’m a total cheese snob and use fresh grated, but in this case, the can is pretty ideal.

Focaccia Bread

5 cups AP flour

2 tsp yeast

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 cups warm water

olive oil for drizzling

coarse salt

fresh rosemary

1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

1. Stir the flour, yeast, and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer with a bread hook.  Add in the oil and mix until well-combined.  Add the water slowly, a half cup at a time, until the dough comes together in a ball.  Use the mixer to knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic.  Transfer to a greased bowl, cover with a dishcloth, and allow to rise in a warm spot for about an hour when the dough is doubled in bulk.

2. Punch the dough down and spread into a rimmed baking sheet.  Continue to work the dough until it covers the bottom of the pan.  Allow to rise for an additional 30 minutes while preheating the oven to 425.  Dimple the dough all over using your fingertips and drizzle with olive oil, salt, fresh rosemary, and parmesan cheese.

3. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

 

Hawaiian Buns

Posted in Baking by

We’ve been in the midst of picnic season in North Texas lately, so picnic food has long been on my mind.  Sandwiches are my go-to, especially egg salad, tuna, and a bizarre TVP concoction I’ve been eating since I was a kid.  At the crux of all small picnic sandwiches are my favorite store-bought bread – King’s Hawaiian rolls.  Soft, fluffy, sweet – they’re one of those foods I could eat for every meal, and polish off the whole bag in a day.  Of course, I’ve longed to make my own.  These are not quite the same as the standard King roll – they aren’t quite as fluffy, a little denser, especially if you make them with some whole wheat flour, but they also don’t come with hundreds of unpronounceable ingredients.  The beauty is that you can customize them to fit any sandwich – small for picnic sandwiches, big for hamburgers, etc.  They do need to rise for a substantial amount of time (that’s why they’re fluffy!), but they aren’t much work otherwise.

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Hawaiian Buns

3 eggs

7ish cups AP flour

2 cups pineapple juice

1/2 cup suga,

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp vanilla extract

1.5 Tbsp yeast

1 stick of butter, melted

1. Beat the eggs and add the pineapple juice, sugar, salt, ginger, vanilla, and melted butter (I use my stand mixer).  Stir together until combined.  Add the yeast and mix until the yeast is fully incorporated.  Add the flour, one cup at a time, waiting for each to fully incorporate.  Continue to add flour until the dough is sticky, but not overly wet (usually 7 gets it there for me).  Continue to knead the dough either with a bread hook or your hands until it forms a soft ball.  Transfer to a greased bowl and allow to rise for a few hours, until doubled in size.

2.  Once doubled, punch the dough down and roll sections of dough into individual rolls (I shoot for ping-pong ball sized).  Place these into a greased pan – I usually fill one 9×13 pan and one 8×8 pan.  Place the rolls far enough apart to allow them to double in size.  Cover with a dishtowel and allow to rise for another hour or two until the rolls have doubled in size again.

3. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.  Overbaking will cause these to become crunchy, so be sure to pull them out before they get too brown.

Almond Poppy Seed Bread

Posted in Baking, Quick and Easy by

Before you go any further, let’s just get one thing straight: this is “bread” in the sense that a bellini is a “fruit smoothie”, but eating bread for breakfast seems so much more reasonable than eating cake for breakfast and it IS baked in a loaf pan.  This comes together really quickly, uses pretty basic pantry ingredients, and smells absolutely divine while it’s baking.  Pair it with your favorite coffee for breakfast, or with a hot cup of tea for an afternoon snack and you’ll feel super decadent, even for a Tuesday.  Of course, pair it with a bellini and you basically have toast and a fruit smoothie – super healthy breakfast!

Almond Poppy Seed Bread

3 cups flour

2 tsp, baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups milk

1 Tbsp poppy seeds

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 Tbsp melted butter

for the glaze:

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup orange juice

2 Tbsp butter

1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract

1. Preheat your oven to 350.  Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir in the oil and eggs until well combined.  Mix in the sugar and milk.  Fold in the poppy seeds, extracts, and butter.  The batter should be a thin, not at all dough-like.

2. Divide the batter into two greased loaf pans.  Bake for 50 minutes, until the tops begin to crust.

3. As soon as you remove the bread from the oven, stir the glaze ingredients together in a small saucepan.  Cook over high heat until the sugar melts (I brought mine to a boil, which was fine), stirring constantly.  When the glaze has cooled a bit, remove the bread from the pans and drizzle the glaze on top, stopping occasionally to let it soak in.  I recommend doing this on a plate or over foil because it will drip over the sides.  Allow the bread to cool before serving.

 

Honey Wheat Bread

Posted in Baking by

At my house, Monday are bread baking days.  More specifically, I make the bread on Monday, but per my husband I can’t start baking it until Monday evening when he gets home because he hates missing out on the fantastic smell that baking bread fills the house with.  This honey wheat bread is pure heaven from the smell of the baking to cutting the first piece.  It’s not overly sweet, and it isn’t outstanding for sandwiches (it’s a bit dense – it’s great with an open-face sandwich), it’s absolutely the perfect bread for toast.  During the week, I’m not into huge breakfasts and I like something fast and easy on my stomach since I go to Stroller Strides in the morning to workout, so 2 pieces of this bread with a little butter or peanut butter works really well.

The recipe yields 2 loaves and in my family we never have trouble polishing off both loaves by Sunday, but if you don’t eat as much, you could easily freeze one loaf after it’s cool.  The only downside would be that you don’t get bread baking smell as often.  The original recipe comes from a West Texas Girl Scout cookbook (odd since we don’t, to my knowledge, know any West Texas Girl Scouts).

Honey Wheat Bread

2 envelopes dry yeast (or 1.5T if you buy it in a jar).

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup honey

1 T salt

1/4 cup melted butter

1 3/4 cup warm water

3 cups whole wheat flour

3-4 cups all purpose flour

1 T butter

1. Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water in a mixing bowl (I use my stand mixer).  Add the honey, salt, butter, and 1 3/4 cup of water.  Stir together until well combined.

2. Add the whole wheat flour and mix until incorporated – I use the bread hook on my mixer.  Add the flour, one cup at a time, making sure it’s completely incorporated before adding more.  Stop when the dough is still a little sticky, but pulls away from the side of the bowl.  Continue either kneading or letting your bread hook do the kneading until the dough forms a ball.

3. Transfer the dough to a large bowl with a little oil in the bottom and swirl the dough to make sure all sides are coated.  Place the bowl in a warm area of your kitchen (I turn my oven on warm and then turn it off when I put the dough in so it’s not HOT, but still warm).  Allow the dough to raise until it has doubled in size – an hour or so.

4. Punch the dough down and split into two loaves.  Place the dough into two greased loaf pans and allow the dough to raise in the loaf pans for another hour or two until doubled again.

5. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes.  Rub the last T of butter over the top of the hot loaves.