Wondering how to add a few calories to your breakfast?

Allow me.

These are really super easy to make (along with, uh, everything else I ever blog) and are such comfort food for breakfast! You will need:

See, King Arthur has a smaller pain de mie pan now, which is awesome. Like so:

I was excited about this because it takes us a while to work through a loaf of bread sometimes; Kiddo will go on a bread jag and eat nothing but this for a week [...]]]> Math skillz: I haz none.

See, King Arthur has a smaller pain de mie pan now, which is awesome. Like so:

I was excited about this because it takes us a while to work through a loaf of bread sometimes; Kiddo will go on a bread jag and eat nothing but this for a week and a half, and then not want to see it near his face for three weeks. It’s hard to predict. I slice it and keep it in the freezer so there’s always some on hand, and the smaller size pan makes just enough bread to fit in a one-gallon zip top bag. Perfect!

The problem is that King Arthur doesn’t have a whole wheat recipe for this size pan yet. So set out to convert the larger pain de mie recipe down to a size that fits the smaller pan.  I can’t tell you how long it took me to do enough math to convert this recipe. Well, I could but then I’d be embarrassed. Someone like The Yankee or my big brother could probably convert this in less time than it took for me to assume the appropriate thinky face (I totally stole that from Barefoot Foodie), but it took me slightly longer. But now it’s done and I will celebrate — with good bread.

So with your nifty smaller pain de mie pan, try this:

• 2/3 cup lukewarm milk
• 2/3 cup lukewarm water
• 2 ounces butter
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon + 3 teaspoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons + 1 1/4 teaspoons dry milk
• 2/3 cup potato flakes
• 13.75 ounces flour (or 3 1/4 cups)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1. Mix all ingredients in order then knead — about eight minutes by stand mixer — until dough is smooth. Transfer to a lightly greased bowl or spray a little nonstick spray around the mixing bowl and let dough rise till nice and puffy, about 90 minutes. I set the sprayed mixing bowl with the dough in the oven (off) with a pan of water that’s been just brought to a boil; think sauna for your dough
2. Lightly grease a small pain de mie pan pan, then shape the risen dough into a log; pat into the pan, flattening the top as well as you can. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise till the dough is about half an inch below the top of the pan (this will take about 45 minutes)
3. Spray the lid of the pan with nonstick spray and carefully slide it onto the pan — don’t deflate the dough! — and let the bread continue rising while your oven preheats to 350F (ideally about 15 more minutes)
4. Bake for 25 minutes, then remove the lid (carefully!) and bake for another 10 or 15 minutes until the middle of the loaf reads 190F, then turn out onto a wire rack; immediately brush with melted butter for an even softer crust

You know… like bread pudding, but biscuits? And OH MAH GAH this is amazing. This may be the ultimate comfort food. And yet another recipe that tastes a million times better than it looks.

See, my fabulous sister got me these books from Cades Cove, which is my most favorite place on earth. It’s [...]]]>

You know… like bread pudding, but biscuits? And OH MAH GAH this is amazing. This may be the ultimate comfort food. And yet another recipe that tastes a million times better than it looks.

See, my fabulous sister got me these books from Cades Cove, which is my most favorite place on earth. It’s home in every sense of the word. I’ve been picnicking at Carter-Shields as long as I can remember, and The Yankee and I love taking Kiddo there now to splash around and count “water spiders” down by the mill.

ANYHOO… the books. The books are Recipes, Remedies and Rumors from the Cades Cove Preservation Association. And they’re fantastic. Poison snake bite cure for dogs? In there. Squirrel dumplings? You bet. But also pork tenderloin, chicken and dumplings, fried potato cakes, you name it.

And my new favorite: biscuit pudding! This is criminally easy:

• 5 cooked homemade leftover biscuits, crumbled
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Assemble your ingredients, then:

1. In a medium bowl beat 2 eggs, and add sugar, milk, nutmeg and vanilla and mix
2. Crumble in biscuits and stir
3. Pour into a greased 8×8 pan and bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes

See what I’m saying? So easy. And so, so good.

Let’s start at the beginning. Don’t have anyone dying to give you some starter? You can make your own (recipe found here):

Have you ever looked at the clock and realized it’s 5:00 and you were going to make a loaf of crusty bread for supper but now [...]]]> A couple months ago I bought the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. It’s nigh onto life changing.

Have you ever looked at the clock and realized it’s 5:00 and you were going to make a loaf of crusty bread for supper but now it’s too late? Never again.

Have you ever wished you could have really good homemade pizza at home but didn’t want to knead bread forever, and didn’t start no-knead pizza dough the night before? No problem.

Wish you could serve homemade yeast rolls to the family for supper tonight without calling on Sister Shubert? Done.

This is such an easy solution that it’s almost ridiculous: keep dough in the fridge. The end. It takes five minutes to mix it up, and keeps for two weeks. So what are you waiting for?

If you’re not sure you’ll use it all in two weeks, you can make a half portion of the recipe. I do this because only The Yankee and I will eat it (The Kiddo not so much), and I don’t want any to go to waste:

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water*
• 3/4 tbsp. yeast
• 3/4 tbsp. salt

*If you’ve been straining yogurt and have some whey left you can use whey in place of water — a great way to add some protein and a little sourdough-like tang to the bread.

Mix all that together with a dough whisk, a wooden spoon, a mixer, or whatever. No kneading — you just want everything to be well combined. Put it in a container that’s not quite airtight: This produce container with the insert removed is perfect for a half portion of the recipe, and is designed to let produce breathe a bit, so it’s become my designated dough container. After two hours at room temperature, move it to the fridge to chill.

Now go bread crazy! I use the dough for pizza, for crusty bread, for buttery dinner rolls, for hamburger buns, even monkey bread! Maybe some barbecue chicken pizza? Dust a little flour on a corner of your chilled dough and pull off a piece as big as you need. Shape it into a ball and let it rise for at least half an hour, but an hour is great if you have the time. Then bake and enjoy! No harder than cracking open a tube of bread with questionable ingredients, and worlds healthier.

Most configurations of the dough will do great at 400 degrees in the oven. Baking time will obviously depend on the size of the bread, but you want the internal temp to be about 190 degrees and the bread to be nicely browned.

I really do recommend picking up the book. It has many different variations of the recipe, and many uses for each recipe. It’s about $18 at Amazon right now, and well worth the price.

Enjoy it, and let me know what you make with it!

Can one addition change a really great recipe into a really amazing recipe? You bet your Red Rider it can. Especially when that one addition is a bag of Craisins.

I started with the recipe for super simple bagels. You remember this, right? Flour, water, yeast, salt. I said they were simple! [...]]]> Oh my moly.

Can one addition change a really great recipe into a really amazing recipe? You bet your Red Rider it can. Especially when that one addition is a bag of Craisins.

I started with the recipe for super simple bagels. You remember this, right? Flour, water, yeast, salt. I said they were simple! But to the mix, toward the end of the kneading, I added a bag of Craisins.

They still puffed up just right.

They survived the boiling just fine.

And they baked up beautifully.

And I got to eat this for breakfast!

Hard to argue with that, isn’t it?

Here’s a quick run-down of the recipe; full details can be found at the original post.

Make a starter of:

• 2 1/8 oz bread flour
• 2 oz. cool water
• a pinch of yeast

and let it sit overnight at room temperature.

The next morning mix your bubbly starter with:

• 17 ounces bread flour
• 10 ounces cool water
• 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

Then:

1. Knead with abandon. Bread flour is high protein and will take longer to develop gluten; I let the stand mixer have at it for about eight minutes
2. About five minutes into the kneading, add one bag of Craisins
3. Let the dough rise for one hour, then deflate it. Let it rise for thirty minutes more
4. Divide the dough into 12 roughly-equal parts, roll into balls, and let rise under plastic wrap for 30 minutes
5. Preheat oven to 425 and bring a pan of water with 1 Tbsp. brown sugar to boil
6. Poke your finger through the middle of the dough balls and twirl on your finger to shape into a bagel. Poke in any Craisins trying to escape
7. Boil bagels, a few at a time, for 2 minutes on one side; flip with chopsticks and boil for one minute on the second side, then move to parchment-lined cookie sheets
8. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, but start checking after 15 — you want them browned, but not too crispy

Enjoy! These are great with cream cheese. They also mail rather well, which is a nice bonus.

But my college roomie [...]]]> I’ve so long been intimidated by bagels. I mean bagels. A staple of NYers past and present. The extent of my NYC experience involves dragging a ridiculous number of kids through Grand Central Station and into Times Square, and having unheard of amounts of fun doing it. Toys R Us anyone?

But my college roomie was coming in town with her husband and her sister. I wanted to be able to serve them an awesome breakfast, but I also knew that we would certainly be up till all hours the night before and I probably wouldn’t feel like rolling out biscuits the next morning. Or doing anything much beyond stumbling toward the warm glow of the coffee pot. So the day they were to arrive, I made these — the world’s easiest bagels!

This recipe called for an overnight starter of:

• 2 1/8 oz bread flour (I actually used AP flour for the starter and it was fine)
• 2 oz. cool water
• a pinch of yeast

Pretty easy so far, yes? Cover that and let it sit at room temperature overnight.

The next morning, mix your now-bubbly starter with:

• 17 ounces bread flour
• 10 ounces cool water
• 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1. Now it’s time to knead. It takes a little more time and effort to develop the gluten in bread flour, so don’t be a hero; bust out the stand mixer or the bread machine for this one. It took me about eight minutes in the stand mixer to make it look nice and smooth (tip: spray the dough hook with non-stick spray to keep the dough from climbing up the hook).

2. Put your pretty dough in a greased/sprayed bowl, cover it with a tea towel and let it rise for one hour. After an hour, gently push the air out of the dough, and let it rise again for thirty minutes.

3. Now to split up the dough! Divide it into 12 roughly even pieces (I was not even a little scientific about this — I patted it into a disc, then cut it like a pie). Roll each piece into a little ball, then cover them all with plastic wrap and let them puff up a bit for thirty minutes.

4. Transfer the dough to a work surface, and divide it into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth, round ball. Cover the balls with plastic wrap, and let them rest for 30 minutes. They’ll puff up very slightly.

5. Turn on your oven to 425, then heat a few inches of water in a wide pan till it’s boiling; add 1 Tbsp. brown sugar to the water.  I *ahem* heard the bagels will still taste very yummy even if you forget skip the sugar.

6. Line two cookie sheets with parchment or silicone sheets. Shape your bagels by poking your finger through the middle of a dough ball, then twirling two fingers in the middle (think the same motion as twiddling your thumbs) till the whole is about two inches across.

7. Time for a swim! Drop bagels, four at a time, into the boiling water bath. Cook for two minutes, then flip and cook for one minute on the second side. Fish them out with a chopstick through the hole and put them back on the lined cookie sheets. Repeat till all bagels are boiled.

8. Bake at 425 till the bagels are as browned as you like; for me this was about 20 minutes. Sneak one to eat warm from the oven, then cool the rest completely on a rack.

I served these with cream cheese, fresh butter and pear jam from the awesome feed mill in our county. So yummy!

Incidentally, this article (which is great) says that homemade bagels are dramatically cheaper than store-bought. And so much better tasting, it turns out!

Or you may be thinking that life is short, and you really should eat a big ol’ mess of Krispy Kreme bread pudding.

It’s always good to [...]]]> With bathing suit season upon us, you may be thinking it’s time to lighten things up a bit. Try some grilled fish, some raw veggies, some fresh fruit.

Or you may be thinking that life is short, and you really should eat a big ol’ mess of Krispy Kreme bread pudding.

It’s always good to start with this:

If things go horribly wrong and you never even get a chance to cook, you still have two dozen donuts. And not just donuts — Krispy Kreme donuts. A gift from heaven.

The Kiddo’s Aunt Burgle was in town, and we have a tradition: our weekends together always include shopping (probably shoes), Cracker Barrel, Krispy Kremes and wine. Our days after our weekends together are spent wondering why our jeans are suddenly tight. But I digress.

So this weekend we thought we’d branch out and try something new with our KK donuts. We bought two dozen, leaving one to eat plain, just in case the pudding wasn’t great.

Our fears were unwarranted.

I looked at this recipe at Recipezaar, and this recipe from Paula Deen. The first one looked a little more involved, and we had to keep an eye on our assorted children, so we were hoping for super easy. The second recipe was easier, but Aunt Burgle’s sprouts weren’t fans of fruit cocktail or raisins, and we didn’t really think it appropriate to dish up rum butter sauce for a bunch of kids (we had grand delusions of sharing at the time). So in the end we winged it and went with:

• 1 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, cut into chunks
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 7 oz (1/2 can) sweetened condensed milk
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

To assemble:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Cut donuts into chunks and put in a large bowl
3. Beat the eggs and add condensed milk, salt and cinnamon
4. Pour egg mixture over donuts and let it sit about 30 minutes, stirring every so often
5. Butter a small casserole dish (or a cast iron skillet — it’s amazing in that!) and put donut mix in dish, uncovered
6. Bake for 30 minutes or so until custard is mostly set

We wanted more donut than custard, and this was just that. Enough custard to hold the donuts together, but not so much that it overwhelmed the yummy KK flavor and texture.  This would be awesome served warm with vanilla ice cream!

We ate it warm that night. And then room temp later that night. And then cold for breakfast the next morning. Purely for research, of course, and I’m happy to report it was fabulous at all temperatures. I do hope you understand the sacrifices our hips we made for this research.

This. Is. Heavenly. This is without a doubt the softest, best-tasting bread that has ever come out of my oven. And part of it is whole wheat! I was a little intimidated by the recipe, never having attempted such a thing, but it came out great. I’ve been having this with my coffee every [...]]]>

This. Is. Heavenly. This is without a doubt the softest, best-tasting bread that has ever come out of my oven. And part of it is whole wheat! I was a little intimidated by the recipe, never having attempted such a thing, but it came out great. I’ve been having this with my coffee every morning, and I can’t WAIT to make french toast with it! This is adapted just a bit from the King Arthur flour recipe.

You will need for the bread:

• 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 7-9 ounces lukewarm water (use more or less depending on humidity where you are)
• 4 ounces KAF white whole wheat flour
• 8 3/4 ounces KAF all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 ounces sugar
• 3 ounces butter at room temperature
• 5/8 ounce dry milk
• 1 1/2 ounces instant mashed potato flakes

You will need for the filing:

• 1 3/4 ounces sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons AP flour
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon water

Now put it all together:

1. If you’re using anything other than instant yeast, dissolve the yeast with a pinch of sugar in 2 Tbsp. of your lukewarm water; I use instant yeast, so I skip this step
2. Mix instant yeast (or dissolved yeast) with the rest of the bread ingredients. Knead everything together until dough is smooth. I plop it all in the bread machine set to the dough cycle. Easy! If you knead with a stand mixer, knead for about seven minutes on the second speed; it’s okay if it sticks at the bottom of the bowl a bit. We don’t want dry bread!
   
3. If you’re using a bread machine, let the dough cycle run all the way through the first rise. If you’re hand- or mixer-kneading, put the dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover it with a tea towel. Let the dough rise at room temperature till it’s almost doubled in bulk — about an hour, but may take longer if you hand-kneaded
4. While the dough is rising, use a fork to mix together the sugar, cinnamon and flour for the filling mix
   
5. After it’s risen till it’s nice and puffy, move the dough to a lightly greased work surface or a silicone mat and pat the dough into a 6″ x 20″ rectangle
6. Beat together the egg and water, and brush it onto the rectangle
7. Sprinkle the cinnamon/flour/sugar mix evenly over the dough
8. Starting with a short end, roll the dough into a log, and pinch to seal at the ends and along the seam
9. Put the bread, seam-down, into a greased loaf pan and cover with greased plastic wrap
10. Let it rise till it’s just above the rim of the pan while you’re preheating your oven to 350F
11. Bake the bread for 15 minutes, then tent lightly with aluminum foil
12. Bake for an additional 30 minutes or so, until inside of loaf reads 190 degrees
13. Loosen sides of pan with a knife if needed, and turn bread onto a rack. Brush the top of the loaf with butter and let that soak in while the bread cools. Then slice and enjoy!

Oh that’s just me?

Anyhoo…

I bought Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. And it’s awesome. Great concept, especially for those of us who are prone to thinking, at 5:00 in the evening, [...]]]> I know, I know. You’re thinking, “Artisan monkey bread??” And now you’re humming “One of These Things is Not Like the Other.”

Oh that’s just me?

Anyhoo…

I bought Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. And it’s awesome. Great concept, especially for those of us who are prone to thinking, at 5:00 in the evening, “Ooh fresh bread with supper would be great!” Poor planning = no bread. Or it did, but not now. NOW I have bread dough in my fridge, ready at a moment’s notice. Ready to become chewy pizza dough, or a crusty loaf for supper or… monkey bread.

My gorgeous baby sister got married this weekend, so our very dear friends came to stay the weekend with us. I was scooting out in the morning before everyone was up, but I wanted to have something ready for everyone for breakfast anyway. So I did this:

I rolled little balls of my refrigerated artisan dough and plunked them into a cake pan. I – wait for it – do not own a Bundt pan. I know — how is that possible?! But I don’t. So silicone cake pan. I melted some butter and drizzled it over the dough, then covered it and stuck it back in the fridge overnight. Then I melted half a stick of butter in a measuring cup and stirred in a tsp. of vanilla and 1/2 cup of brown sugar; I covered that and put it in the fridge too:

I left instructions to let the pan sit out on the counter while the oven was preheating to 350, then bake for 15 minutes. At that point, nuke the topping until it’s pourable, then pour it over the bread and bake for 15 minutes more.

Now, want to know what happens when you do such things but forget to ask for a picture of the pretty finished product? You come home to this:

I love it! Reckon it was good, huh?

So, to recap:

• Roll chunks of artisan bread dough, about donut hole size; I made around 40
• Drizzle with a couple melted Tbsp. melted butter
• Melt 4 Tbsp. butter and stir in 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla for topping
• When ready to bake, leave on counter to puff a bit while oven preheats to 350F
• Bake for 15 minutes
• Drizzle on topping
• Bake for 15 minutes more
• Don’t burn your fingers