Milk Bread

I keep making bread, and I keep getting better at it.  This one is a little odd, but it's delicious!  Not too sweet, but definitely sweeter than your average bread.  Not as fluffy as the bread in the asian bakeries, but definitely fluffier than most of my breads.

Based off of this recipe.  Note that it tells you to throw away half the starter or double the dough.  I'd recommend doubling the dough and using half of it for a bread loaf, the other half for rolls, and freezing whatever you don't want right away.

FOR THE STARTER
1/3 cup bread flour
1/2 cup milk (I actually used dairy milk this time around, but I suspect other milks would be fine)
1/2 cup water

FOR THE DOUGH
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup warm milk, plus extra for brushing
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for buttering bowls and pan

Mix the starter ingredients together in a small pot.  Cook over medium-low heat until thickened to be just a little thicker than gravy.  Make sure to continuously pull the bottom upwards -- it gets thick at the bottom & leaves the liquid on the top.  Put in a bowl, put plastic wrap touching the top, and set aside to cool.

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add 1/2 cup of the starter, the egg, and the milk.  Knead for 5 minutes.  Add the butter and knead for 10 more minutes.  I did this by spreading it over the top of the dough (with the spatula from mixing the starter), then folding the dough inwards (to store the butter inside), then repeating.  Your hands will be super gross; flouring them is helpful for the first round of kneading, but when the butter hits, it'll just grease your hands instead, which works great.  The dough will be not-at-all sticky by the time you're done.

Butter a bowl, butter the dough ball, cover with a damp cloth, and let rise until doubled, about an hour.  Punch down, reshape into a ball-ish shape, let rise another 15 minutes.  Generously butter your loaf pan -- I just buttered it normally, and the loaf stuck a bit & ended up tearing the bottom off.

Roll the dough out somewhat.  I did this by flattening it in the bowl it was rising it.  If making a single loaf, roll the dough up like you would for cinnamon rolls, fold the spiral ends underneath, and set in the pan seam-side down.  If making buns, either put a single ball in each cupcake cup, or make four small balls & set them in the cup together.  Cover with the cloth again & let rise until it's peeking over the pan, another 30-40 minutes.

Take all but the bottom-most rack out of your oven & preheat it to 350.  Putting it in the middle or bottom is important, or the top will cook too quickly.  Brush the top with milk.  Bake for 35-40 minutes or until it's slightly more golden brown than you'd expect, and you can knock on the top & hear it be somewhat hollow.  Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then let cool on a rack until you're ready to eat it.

Too excited to try it to take a picture before cutting it!

New Year's Pretzel

Happy new year!  We've always had new years pretzels at home, but they don't seem to have spread beyond Germany/Pittsburgh, so I had to make my own this year.  I mostly followed this recipe, but have some tweaks I'd make for next year.  In particular, this recipe makes two reasonably sized pretzels, or one comedically large one -- if you only want one reasonable pretzel, halve this recipe.

Pretzel:
1 1/2 cups milk (the recipe calls for scalding -- as far as I could tell from online, scalding does nothing to non-dairy milks, so I just microwaved my almond milk until it was pretty hot)
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup warm water (yeast-rising warm -- you should be able to stick your finger in & hold it, but only barely)
1 tablespoon yeast
6 to 7 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 eggs
vegetable oil
3ish tbsp cinnamon sugar

Toppings:
about 3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
water
chopped/ground walnuts
maraschino cherries

Put yeast, warm water, and a dash of sugar into a bowl; set aside for five minutes to get frothy.  In a separate bowl, combine milk, sugar, and butter.  Once the yeast is frothy, mix the milk mixture, 5 cups flour, and the yeast mixture together.  Keep adding flour 1/4-1/2 cup at a time until the dough holds together -- it shouldn't be as thick as bread dough, but it should be close.  Knead just a little to make sure it's well combined (1 minute maybe).  Put it in an oiled bowl, cover with oil, cover with a damp towel, and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

Punch down dough, then roll out into a long rope.  I made one gigantic pretzel this year; it would be able to serve 10-20 people, depending on the people.  Alternatively, you could split this into two.  Either way, roll it into a long rope, and see if you can make a pretzel shape.  There should be large gaps in the pretzel, since the dough is going to double in size again.  If you can't make a gappy enough pretzel, roll the rope longer.  Once it's the right length, lay it flat (not in pretzel shape yet!) and make a deep ravine (almost all the way through) down the whole length.  Fill with cinnamon sugar -- it should be deep enough that some of it is still dry & not touching the dough.  Now, roll the rope around the long axis to swirl the cinnamon sugar through & lock most of it in (so it looks like a real rope, with the twisty spiral around it).  Take your twisty rope & make a pretzel shape on the silpat-lined tray you're going to bake it on.  Cover with the damp cloth & let it double again, another hour or so.

Remove cloth & bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.  If you stick your finger into the pretzel, it should still feel moist but not sticky/doughy.  Let cool on a wire rack.

Take about a dozen maraschino cherries out of the jar and let them dry off a bit.  A paper towel under them for about 5 minutes should do it.  I'm not crazy about this glaze -- it tastes too sugary for me -- so consider adding some extra extract or lemon zest or something to make it less like sugar.  I also added too much water, so I added ~2 tsp corn starch to try to fix it -- I'm not convinced they did anything, so I've excluded them here.  In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, extracts, and just enough water to make it into a glaze.  It should be thick enough that it holds onto a spoon for a few seconds, but thin enough that it still drips off.  Drizzle all over the pretzel.  It'll keep flowing a little bit after you finish, so try to keep most of it on the top -- the pretty drip marks will appear on their own.  Place the cherries along the top, then sprinkle with walnuts.  Let dry a bit, then mostly cover until New Years Day.  Don't completely cover, or the glaze will get too moist and flow off; don't leave totally uncovered for more than ~12 hours, or the pretzel will get stale.

This is my comedically large pretzel.  It was delicious, though!

Banana Cookies

I had some bananas that were getting too ripe.  I didn't want banana bread.  Behold, cookies!  They're the fluffy kind, like pumpkin cookies.

Based on this recipe.  Makes about 18 cookies, maybe 20 if you don't eat any dough.

1.5 cups flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
scant 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened but not melted, and whipped
1.5 eggs (I used 1 egg and a half egg's worth of egg replacer)
2 bananas (mine were small)
3/4 tsp vanilla

Mix together the dry ingredients.   Add the butter.  Add everything else.  Put them on cookie sheets -- they'll roughly double in size.  Bake at 400 for 5-8 minutes.

I frosted half of them and left the other half plain.  I haven't tried the frosted ones yet because I'm waiting for them to dry.  For the frosting, I used 2 tbsp butter, 1/2 tbsp half-and-half, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and powdered sugar until it came together.  It covered 8 cookies.

They're very basic when they're plain, but I like them.  You could add raisins, pineapple, nuts, cherries, peanut butter frosting...

Frosted above, unfrosted below.

Monkey Bread

I was looking for a breakfast recipe before, and while I've never had monkey bread it looked delicious, and it turned out better than I expected!  The dough was perfect, but the goo between the dough balls needs some work -- I have ideas.  I based it on this recipe, but only made 1/4 of the original recipe, which was perfect for two people.

If I were making it again, I would:
- Use butter instead of margarine in the goo
- Add more flavor to the goo -- cinnamon & other spices, or nearly-applesauce apples
- Maybe follow some of the comments on the recipe, particularly rolling the balls in just butter, then brown sugar, so they get more on them

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon white sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons margarine, softened

3 tbsp margarine
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp raisins

Heat up the water in the microwave -- warm enough to stick a finger in it & feel it's warm, cool enough to keep the finger there.  Mix in the sugar in, then the yeast.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes until there's some amount of froth (I didn't get much froth -- I think the water was slightly too cool -- but it worked out anyways).

Mix flour, cinnamon, and salt together.  Add liquids and margarine.  Knead it just enough to mix everything together.  Cover with a damp cloth & let rise until roughly doubled, about 45 minutes.

Melt the remaining margarine in the microwave.  Mix in the brown sugar & raisins.

Squish the dough back down.  Tear off chunks & roll into 1 inch balls.  Roll those balls in the brown sugar goo.  Set them into a greased pan on top of each other -- I used pyrex & it turned out well.  Let rise for another 15-20 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until it's golden brown.  Flip pan over onto a plate & eat.

We ate this too fast for me to take pictures of it.  It didn't stay together, because it stuck to the pan & didn't have enough goo between the doughy bits, but it was very tasty.

Notes from making it a second time:
- The rise depends a LOT on temperature.  I left the dough out on the (cool) counter for 45 minutes, and it didn't rise at all.  I then moved it into the oven (slightly warmed then turned off), and it doubled in about 10 minutes.
- This time, I changed the goo.  First I peeled, halved, and boiled half of a small apple (the kind you get in the big bags) for 20 minutes until it was very soft.  Then I heated the butter, brown sugar, raisins (only 2 tbsp), and mashed up apple in a saucepan until it got slightly caramel-like.  This seemed to stay between the dough bits better.  I'd also recommend tending towards smaller dough bits -- the bigger ones were multiple bites, which isn't what I was going for.

Oatmeal raisin cookies

Everybody makes oatmeal raisin cookies.  But I want to make good oatmeal raisin cookies.  So here's an attempt at that.  Based on this recipe.

1/2 cup (8 tbsp) butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cup oats
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
2/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 shot spiced rum
2 shots water

Mix raisins, rum, and water in a pot.  Put on medium low heat so it steams & smells delicious.  If I were doing this again, I'd only use 1 shot of water so more of the rum goes in the raisins, or I'd plan ahead enough to just soak the raisins in pure rum without heat.  Meanwhile, mix together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a small bowl.  Mix together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon in a big bowl.  Once the raisins have absorbed most of the liquid, drain them and mix everything together in the big bowl.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes or so, just until the bottoms start to brown a little.  Use a silpat so they don't stick and an airbake pan so they don't get crunchy.  They don't really change shape in the oven, so squish them into cookie-like shapes before baking.

Edit:
Another attempt, this one turned out great.  Based roughly on this and this.

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/8 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of ginger
scant 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups oats
2/3 cup raisins, soaked in hot apple juice

Microwave some apple juice in a bowl until it's steaming.  Put in all the raisins (they should be covered) and set aside for a while.  In a smallish bowl, cream together butter & sugars.  Mix in egg & vanilla until well combined.  In the big mixing bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients except the oats & raisins.  Barely combine the dry ingredients and the butter mixture; add oats, strain raisins (discard liquid) and add raisins.  Mix together & stick in the fridge for 15+ minutes.  Then form into balls and bake at 350 for about 6 minutes.  These ones also don't reshape much in the oven, so shape them accordingly before baking.

Cherry Almond Muffins

I wanted to make muffins this morning and hand to work with what was around the house.  This is what came out.  If I were doing it again, I'd want them to be slightly more moist (they were about the consistency of a cornmeal muffin -- slightly crusty outside, which was good, but also a slightly dry & crumbly inside once they cooled, which was less good), but otherwise they were very tasty.  The comments on the site suggested using sour cream or applesauce to make them more moist, so maybe I'll try those.  Based on this bread recipe.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup dried tart cherries -- I used 1/4 cup whole and 1/4 cup chopped, and I liked the whole better
• 3/8 cup milk
• 1 eggs
• 3 Tbs. butter, melted
• 1 Tbs. oil (this was an attempt to make them moister, use all butter if you want)
• 1 tsp. almond extract 

Mix the four dry ingredients together.  Add the cherries & mix to cover them.  In a separate bowl, mix the 5 wet ingredients.  Pour them into the dry mixture and mix until just combined (mine had streaks of egg still in it and it was fine; next time I'll try mixing it even less, still trying to get the hang of the muffin mixing method).  Butter six muffin cups & split batter between them; if you want muffins with tops, butter only five muffin cups -- these don't rise very much, so you can fill the cups basically to the top.  Bake at 350 until a knife comes out clean from the middle (or just before that would happen) -- I don't remember how long this took, but it was somewhere between 20-40 minutes. 

Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies

I checked a gluten-free Christmas cookie cookbook out of the library.  Most of the recipes had ingredients I didn't have (particular flours) and/or were just normal cookie types, gluten freed.  These ones caught my eye though -- they weren't like cookies I'd seen recipes for before.  They're delicious.  Like little bites of cornbread, with a crispy outside & a fluffy inside.  I tweaked the recipe to work with what I had around.

3/4 cups dried cranberries
1/4 cup Southern Comfort
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 1/2 cups corn starch
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter
2 eggs (or egg substitutes)
4 tbsp milk (I used almond milk)
1 tbsp orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla

Put cranberries & SoCo in a bowl together so the cranberries can soak it up.  When I did this, I accidentally put in a half cup of SoCo -- when it came time to add the cranberries to everything else, I fished them out with a fork & left behind some cranberry infused SoCo (which you could use for mixed drinks).  I think this resulted in the cookies having slightly more than a quarter cup of SoCo.

Put the dry ingredients (cornmeal through salt) into a food processor; process until they're mixed & the cornmeal's as finely or coarsely ground as you want in the final product.  I didn't have a big enough food processor, so I put in everything except the corn starch & mixed in the corn starch afterwards.

Add the chopped up butter to the food processor; pulse a couple times to chop it in.  Again, I have a small food processor, so I did this by halves.  Pour into a bowl.  Add wet ingredients (eggs through vanilla); mix until it makes a nice dough.  The recipe as written above is what I made; it includes 2 more tablespoons of milk than the original recipe, because my dough didn't come together well with just 2 tablespoons.  I also didn't realize how much moisture the cranberries would add -- if I were making them again, I might just do 3 tablespoons at this point & only add the 4th if there was still dry mix after adding the cranberries.

Add in the cranberries & mix to combine.  If you only used 1/4 cup SoCo, add any remaining liquid in the bowl to the cookies as well.

Form cookies on a silpat lined cookie sheet.  These cookies don't really grow much, so you can put them pretty close together; they also don't change shape much, so if you put them in with little spiky bits of dough sticking off, the spikes will still be there when they get out.  Bake for 20 minutes or so at 350 until they get a little golden brown around the edges.  Best as dough (note: boozy dough) or when fresh & warm out of the oven.

The original recipe calls for rum rather than SoCo, but I was lacking in the rum department, so I ate a couple cranberries and sniffed different liquors while I was chewing them so I could imagine what the final result would taste like (rejected possibilities: Fireball whiskey & cinnamon spice Kahlua, because I felt both would overpower the other flavors).

This was also my first use of fresh orange zest -- I happened to have an orange around, so I zested it then ate the rest.  I ended up with slightly less than a full tablespoon, but I feel like the cookies had enough orangeiness to them with just that.  And it made the kitchen smell very fresh.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

This is the second batch -- the first batch had those little spiky bits I mentioned.