Every now and then, I share a baking recipe with you on Wednesdays. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category.

This is bread, and it’s made with cornmeal, but it’s not cornbread.

No, this is a yeasted bread, and it’s quite different from the baking-powder-leavened variety. I think it’s a nice change of pace when you’re serving a meal that seems to call for cornbread (like maybe Tortilla Soup).

The dough is fairly sweet and it contains milk and two eggs, so the texture is soft, sort of like a sweet bread dough is.  Except this isn’t officially a sweet bread, so you can totally eat it at dinnertime. 

Like most of my favorite bread recipes, this one starts with flour and yeast in the mixer bowl.

Next, combine the milk, salt, sugar, and butter in a measuring cup and heat to 120° F.  I do this in the microwave, but you can also dump it all into a pot and heat it over medium-low heat on the stove.

Hi!  My name is Kristen and I take lop-sided pictures.  Also, I am too lazy to fix them sometimes.

Ok.  Mix the heated milk mixture into the flour mixture, add 2 eggs, and beat for 3 minutes.  This will produce a pretty soupy batter.

Beat in 1 cup of cornmeal.  You can use white cornmeal, but I like to use yellow for the color (I usually buy the Indian Head, which is stoneground whole grain cornmeal.)

Add in enough additional flour to make a soft dough. I never measure my flour at this step, instead relying on what looks right.  Turn the soft dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 3-5 minutes.

That will take the dough from this:      

(psst! See the bench knife over there? I think you need one.)

to this:

Place the dough back into the mixing bowl (I don’t even bother to clean mine), cover with a wet tea towel, and let it rise in a warm place for an hour.  If your house is cold, turn your oven on for 1 minute, turn it off, and then place the dough bowl inside.

Once the dough has risen, punch it down, turn it out onto a floured counter, and cut it in half.  Roll each half out into a rectangular shape, roll it up, starting from the short side, and place each loaf into a bread pan.

You can use 4×8 or 9×5 inch loaf pans for this recipe…the ones in the 4×6 pans will just be kind of tall.  I can never decide which I prefer!

Cover the loaves and let them rise 30-45 minutes, or until they look doubled in size.

Bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 25-30 minutes, or until they look browned and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Place the loaves on wire racks to cool.

Here you can kind of see the difference between the 4×8 inch loaf (on the left) and the 9×5 inch loaf.

Once it’s cool, slice with a serrated bread knife.  And spread with butter.

Cornmeal Loaves-makes 2
Printable Cornmeal Loaves Recipe

6-6 1/2 cups flour, divided
2 pkg. (2 1/4 teaspoons each) active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 tablespoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup yellow cornmeal

In a large mixer bowl, combine the yeast and 3 cups of the flour. Combine milk, sugar, butter, and salt, and heat to 120° F. Add to dry mixture in bowl; add eggs. Beat at low speed to combine, then beat at medium speed for 3 minutes. Stir in cornmeal and enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for 3-5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place dough into a bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Punch dough down; divide in half. Roll each half into a rectangular shape and roll up, starting with the short end. Pinch seams to seal and place each loaf into a 4×8 or 9×5 inch loaf pan. Cover and let rise 30-45 minutes, or until doubled.

Preheat oven to 350° F. Bake loaves for 25-30 minutes, or until browned. Cool on wire racks.

source: Better Homes and Gardens 1973 Bread Cookbook

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Today’s 365 post: “You made more applesauce??”

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

In our current culture, baking any sort of yeast bread will earn you impressed looks from most people, simply because yeast baking is something of a lost art.

But if you really want to surprise people, tell them you make your own pita bread.

Because everyone thinks that it surely must be too hard to do this at home.  But it’s totally not, and so you should add this recipe to your repertoire.

Besides being an impressive skill, pita-bread-baking will also allow you to eat pita bread that is far more tasty than the stuff you can buy at the grocery store.  In their defense, pitas from the store probably were tasty when they were first baked, but they’re obviously not super fresh by the time you buy them.  When you bake your own pitas, you can eat them hot from the oven, and that’ll beat anything you can buy at the store.

Though I’ve been making them for years, pitas always astound me.  The dough is nothing special, and there’s no special shaping technique either.  You just roll out rounds of dough, place them in a very hot oven, and somehow, they turn into hollow little loaves.

The dough-making process is nothing remarkable, so I’m just going to share step-by-step pictures of the shaping and baking part of things.

Here’s my lump of dough.  After your dough has risen, you’ll want to punch it down and let it rest for 10 minutes.  This makes the dough a little easier to shape.  At this point, you need to turn your oven on to 400° F because you need a fully preheated oven to bake your pitas.

The original recipe (from my Better Homes and Gardens bread cookbook) calls for cutting the dough into 32 pieces.  However, this makes very, very small pitas, and is too much work for my taste.  So, I cut my dough into 16 pieces.

Obviously, not all 16 of my dough balls are pictured.

I like to let the dough balls rest for 5-10 minutes so that they’re easier to roll out (resting relaxes gluten, the stretchy protein in wheat flour).

To make a pita, roll out a dough ball into a flat circle.  At first, it’ll seem like you can only make it stretch to a few inches.

But it is possible to make it thinner and larger, which is what you want to do.  A thinner pita is more likely to puff, in my experience.

To make this process easier, I often roll 8 balls into the smaller round, like in the first picture.  Then by the time I’m finished rolling 8 balls out, the first round I rolled out has rested and is easier to roll into a larger round.

I hope that makes sense.  Basically you’re rolling out several rounds of dough so that the smaller rounds have time to rest before you try to make them into larger rounds….sort of like an assembly line.

Some of my pitas are more round than others, but I don’t worry too much about the misshapen ones.  They all taste good, and since I’m not competing for a beautiful pita prize, it’s just not worth stressing over.

Pitas don’t need to rise at all after you shape them, so it’s time for baking!

My original recipe calls for baking these on an ungreased baking sheet, but when I’ve done that, my pitas have mostly refused to puff.  So, the solution I came up with back in my teen years was this:

It’s a frying pan splatter screen with the plastic handle insert removed (the plastic wouldn’t survive a 400 degree oven!).  Baking the pitas on this allows the heat from the oven to quickly hit the dough, and this blast of heat makes the pitas puff properly.  I don’t think I’ve had a single puff failure using this method.

When I made these last week, it occurred to me that a preheated pizza stone might work just as well, but I haven’t tried that yet.  Maybe I’ll do that this morning.

Anyhoo!  I just place the dough round straight onto the screen (I can fit two on at a time), put it into the oven, and bake the pita for 7-9 minutes.

The dough will start out flat, of course, and then after a few minutes in the oven, it will slowly start to puff up.  If you have children, they’ll probably be quite interested in watching this process.  I rather enjoy it myself.

Unfortunately, my oven light bulb is currently burnt out, so we didn’t get to see any of these pitas puff.  It was very sad.

Put the puffed pitas on a kitchen towel to cool.  Just so you know, the pita on the left there is ideally baked, whereas the one on the right there is a little over-baked.  It’s not awful to get the pita that brown, but the heavily browned ones will dry out more quickly.

So you should eat them right away.    Suffer for the cause, people!

You can split the pitas into rounds and top them with the usual bread toppings…peanut butter, butter, jelly, and so on.  Or you can cut them in half and use them to hold more substantial fillings like chicken salad, cheese and vegetables, grilled meats, and so on.

And you might find, as I do, that eating a plain one one hot out of the oven is pretty darn delicious too.

Pita Bread (printable PDF coming later today!)

5 to 5 1/2 cups flour
2 pkg. (4 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
2 cups milk
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons butter or oil

In a large mixer bowl, combine 2 cups of the flour and the yeast. Heat milk, sugar, salt, butter to 115-120° F.  Add to dry mixture and beat 3 minutes.  Stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough.  Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead for 3-5 minutes.

Place dough in bowl, cover, and let rise 45 minutes.  Punch dough down, cover, and let rest 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 400° F.

Divide dough into 16 pieces and form each into a ball.  Let  balls rest 5 minutes, then roll each into a 7-8 inch round (this is easier if you roll the balls into a 4-inch round, let them rest a few minutes, and then roll them to a 7-8 inch round).

Place pitas on a baking screen in the preheated 400° F oven, and bake for 7-9 minutes, or until puffed and lightly browned.  Cool on cloth-covered surface.

Today’s 365 post: Speak softly…

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

Somehow, I thought today was Thursday. I sat down with several post ideas milling about in my brain, and then I realized that today is Wednesday. And that I promised to share the new coffeecake recipe with you.

So, here I am!

This recipe has been in my to-try pile for a while, but I just haven’t gotten around to making it.  Lisey spied it, though, and decided she’d like to have this for her birthday breakfast.

This is not an overnight kind of recipe, which is a bit of a bummer, considering it’s best to eat it at breakfast.  On the other hand, I do think that cream cheese filling is probably more tasty when it’s cool, so it might be best to make the day before after all.

I may do some experimenting, though.

Ok!  To make the dough, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Stir in sour cream, egg, butter, sugar, and salt.  Add enough flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead about 20 times, just enough to make the  dough smooth.

Place the dough into a bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Punch the dough down, divide in half, and roll each half into a 12×8 inch rectangle.

Beat cream cheese, egg, sugar, vanilla, and salt until smooth.

Also, you’ll need 1/2 cup of raspberry jam for the filling.  I used jam from Aldi, since my homemade raspberry freezer is sadly all gone.

Spread cream cheese mixture over each dough half to within 1/2 inch of the edge.  Spread raspberry jam over half of the filling.

Yup, I do actually measure the dough with a ruler when I’m making a recipe for the first time.  I majorly stink at estimating!

Carefully roll the dough up lengthwise.  To seal the seam at the bottom, I like to brush the dough with a bit of water.  It works a lot better than pinching the seam.

Place the dough rolls, seam side down, on a greased baking sheet. (‘scuse the blurry picture.  I had a focusing fail.)

Cover and let rise 30 minutes. Using a sharp knife, cut several small slashes across the top of the dough.

Bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Remove from the pan (I use two spatulas to do this) and place on a wire rack to cool.  Incidentally, some of the filling leaked from my rolls, but it wasn’t a huge problem, and the coffeecakes were still delicious.

To make these more beautiful, you really should add the glaze, which is made from powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk.

Drizzle the glaze over the tops of the coffeecakes.

It’s wise to place the rack on top of the baking sheet to catch glaze spillage, because glazing is a messy business.

If you’re planning to eat the coffeecakes the next day, I’d recommend waiting to apply the glaze, as it tends to get sticky if it sits overnight.

At least, mine did.  And that may have been caused by me storing the loaves in the fridge overnight.  I’m not positive that was necessary, but given that they have cream cheese filling, I didn’t think leaving them out overnight was a good idea.  What do you guys think?

Oh, did you want to see the inside?

Here you go.

The kids and I thought that this recipe was super delicious, and if you love a cream cheese/raspberry combination, I’m quite sure you’ll be in love after the first bite.

Normally I type up the recipe here in the post, but I’m running kinda late this morning, so I’m going to be lazy and simply refer you to the recipe on Taste of Home’s site.  Oddly enough, though, the dough mixing directions online are different than the mixing directions in the printed recipe I used from the magazine.  So, I can’t vouch for how well the recipe works that way, as I mixed it up in the way described above (I added the sour cream, egg, butter, sugar, and salt together, and then the flour).

If I get some time later today, I’ll type up the recipe and add it to this post. 

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Today’s 365 post: “Who took the scissors out of the drawer??”

Joshua’s 365 post: Lisey’s Birthday Loot

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

If you’ve been a Frugal Girl devotee for long at all, you probably are well aware of Sonia’s turtle obsession. For her birthday last week, she requested that I make snake rolls, so that was the plan.

But around lunchtime, plans changed because somehow, I remembered that in one of my Fleischmann’s Yeast cookbooks there was a recipe for turtle-shaped rolls.  Sure enough, I looked it up, and there was a photo of turtle rolls!

The original recipe was for a peanut butter yeast dough, though, which kind of squicks me out.  I suppose it’s possible that the recipe is delicious, but I’m skeptical.

Peanut butter + chocolate?  Yes.

Peanut butter + jelly/honey? Mmm-hmm.

Peanut butter in most non-yeast baked goods? I’m totally open.

But for some reason, the idea of peanut butter bread is just…weird.

So, I made my usual Basic Roll recipe and use the Fleischmann’s directions for the shaping.

One recipe of Basic Roll dough will make 16 turtles.  I’m going to warn you, though, they do take some time to shape.  I was in a bit of a hurry the day I made them, so I made 8 turtles and used the rest of the dough to make simple rosette rolls (directions and photos are included in the basic roll recipe).

Ok!  So, you’ve got your risen batch of roll dough.  Divide it into 16 equal pieces.

You can shape your turtle using any proportions you want, but here’s how I did it.

Take one of the 16 portions of dough, and remove 2/3 (this will be the body). Divide the remaining third in half. Use half to make 4 legs, and use the other half to make a head and a tail.

Here’s a labeled version, in case you like more detail.

Shape the body and head portions into a ball shape and place on a greased baking sheet.  Roll the tail and leg portions into small, stubby rope shapes (I made the tail portion more pointy), and tuck under the turtle’s body in the appropriate places.

Once your baking sheet is populated with turtles, cover them with a damp tea towel, and let them rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes (45 if your kitchen is chilly).

Before the turtles bake, cut raisins into small pieces, and push into the turtle’s head for eyes.

Using a kitchen scissors, make cuts on top of the turtle’s back for texture and on his flippers to make them look webbed.

Your turtles are now ready to bake!

Bake them in a preheated 350° F oven for 12-15 minutes, or until they’re lightly browned.

Let them cool on a wire rack.  I think they’re at their yummiest served warm, but then again, leftover rolls never linger long at Chez Frugal Girl, so they must not be terribly inferior when completely cool.

Now, some of your turtle’s eyes may pop out during baking, but never fear!  Blind turtles are easily healed.  Just cut up a new raisin, use a paring knife to make two slits in the turtle’s head, and tuck the raisins in.  No one will ever know. 

Incidentally, the roll-shaping possibilities are nearly endless….I’ve made bears, bunnies, and snakes before(as you can see above!), so if turtles aren’t your thing, try something else.  As long as your shape isn’t too big and can lay down flat on the pan, it should work.

You know what I just realized I haven’t made?  I did snakes for Joshua, Peep bunny rolls for Lisey, and turtles for Sonia, but I have not made any aquatic creature rolls for Zoe.  I need to rectify that…I bet I could make whales or fish.

And of course, when I do, I’ll report back on how it works out.

Today’s 365 post: Love, Hate, and Broccoli

Joshua’s 365 post: Sorry!  and I’m back!

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

I’ve been wanting to share this recipe with you for a while now…I made these in December, took pictures, and just haven’t gotten around to posting the recipe!

I don’t know if any of you happen to have winter squash around at the moment (if you garden, you probably had more of an excess a few months ago!), but around here, winter squash is still available in stores, and I believe frozen, cooked winter squash inhabits the freezer section of the grocery store year round.

My children think that winter squash is far from a delicacy, but they all love these rolls, especially if they’re split, toasted, butter, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

This recipe is a pretty heavily modified version of a recipe I got from one of my aunts.  The original recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar (which is a pretty hefty amount for a roll), but I’ve often used 1/2 cup with good results, so feel free to play around with that.  Also, if you prefer to use butter or coconut oil instead of the vegetable oil, just melt and cool it before adding it to the batter.

To start, dissolve the yeast in warm water.

Stir in the oil, salt, squash, and dry milk.  Add 2 cups of flour and beat for 3 minutes.

Add only enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough,

and turn it out onto a floured surface.

That dough is pretty goopy…it’s not necessary to leave it QUITE that soft.  If you’re new to kneading, I’d recommend making your dough a bit stiffer before turning it out.

Knead the dough for 3-5 minutes, or until it’s smooth and elastic. After kneading, the dough should look something like this.

Place the dough into a bowl (I just use the messy mixing bowl), cover, and let rise for an hour.

Punch the dough down, divide into 36 pieces (48 if you want smaller rolls), and shape into rolls.  You can do bowknots (the process is outline in the basic roll pictures) or simple dough rounds, and you can place them on baking sheets,

or in a greased round cake pan.

Cover the rolls and let them rise about 30 minutes.

(cue loss of natural light)

If you’d like, beat an egg white with 1 tablespoon of water until frothy and brush the mixture on top of the rolls.  This will give them a shiny appearance.

Bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 12-15 minutes, or until browned.

These are good fresh from the oven, and if you’ve got any leftover, they’re delicious toasted for breakfast.

Squash Rolls-makes 36-48

Printable Squash Roll Recipe

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 pkg. (4 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 cup sugar (can use less if you prefer)
4 tablespoons oil
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup powdered milk
1 1/2 cups cooked winter squash
7 1/2 cups flour

In a mixer bowl, combine water and yeast. Let stand for a few minutes. Stir in sugar, oil, salt, powdered milk, and squash. Add 2 cups flour, and beat for 3 minutes. Add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 3 minutes. Place dough in bowl; cover and let rise 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Cut dough into 36 pieces (48 if you want smaller rolls), and shape each into a roll. Place on greased baking sheets or in greased cake pans. Cover and let rise 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 12-15 minutes.

Today’s 365 post: I love that man of mine.

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

Almost every year, I make a pan of monkey bread for our Christmas breakfast. And almost every year, I use the same recipe. But this year, I decided to try something slightly more decadent…caramel monkey bread.

Yum.

I used a recipe from Taste of Home and I could just link you there and be done with it.  But in case you need a little more convincing in order to make this yourself, I’m going to do a regular baking post about this recipe.

Also, I modified the recipe slightly in order to make it more morning-friendly.  The original recipe called for refrigerating the dough overnight, but then that leaves you making the caramel sauce and shaping the bread, and letting it rise in the morning, and to me, that’s no good.

I want to do as little as possible to get this ready in the morning.

So, I changed the recipe so that the buttered, sugared, caramel-sauced bread rises in the fridge overnight so that the only step left for the morning is the baking.

Ok!  This particular bread recipe starts out with dissolving yeast in warm water.

While the yeast is getting comfy, heat the milk, butter, sugar, and salt together.

Add the warm milk mixture to the yeast mixture, along with 2 eggs.

I happened to have 3 egg yolks sitting in my fridge because I made an egg white wash for chicken the night before.  So, I used those along with a little bit of extra milk (because 3 egg yolks equals 1 1/2 eggs, not 2 eggs).

Be not envious of my scratched Formica countertops.  I know they are breathtaking to behold. 

Where were we?

Oh, right.  So, you’re adding the eggs and the milk mixture to the dissolved yeast, along with 3 cups of flour.

Beat that all together for about 3 minutes.

Add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.  The recipe calls for 5 cups altogether, but after the initial 3, I only needed another cup and a half or so to make a kneadable dough.  Your mileage may vary, depending on how you measure flour, what type of flour you have, and even the atmospheric conditions where you are.  Go by look and feel and not by cups.

I was going to be all helpful and take a picture of what the dough should look like when you dump it out onto the counter, but habit took over and I just started kneading.  So all I have is a picture of the kneaded dough.

My apologies.

Put the kneaded dough back into the mixing bowl, cover it with a wet tea towel, and let it rise for 45-60 minutes.

When you’re ready to shape the dough, you’ll need to make the caramel, which is super easy.

Simply combine butter, brown sugar, and half and half (the recipe calls for cream, but I had none.  I suppose you could substitute milk and save a few calories, but hello!  If you’re concerned about 1/4 cup of half and half, why are you even making Caramel Monkey Bread??).

Anyway, cook and stir this over medium heat.

Once the mixture comes to a boil, cook and stir it for 3 minutes, and voila!  You will have caramel sauce.

Pour half of the caramel sauce into the bottom of a greased Bundt pan.  This needs to be a seamless pan…a springform pan or the type of pan you use for angel food cake will not work (caramel sauce will leak all over your oven!). If you’re using pecans, sprinkle half of them over the sauce.

Melt 1/2 cup of butter (see?  Using milk in the caramel is pointless!) in a bowl, and in a separate bowl, mix a cup of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Divide the dough into 40 pieces, and roll each into a ball.

Dip each ball into the butter and then into the cinnamon sugar.  Place 20 balls into the prepared bundt pan, and pour the remaining caramel sauce over top (plus the remaining pecans if you’re using them).

Finish dipping and rolling the remaining 20 balls, and place those in the pan on top of the caramel sauce.

If you’ve still got any butter, cinnamon sugar, or caramel left, just dump it on top of the dough balls.  No sense in wasting it, I say.

You’ll need to cover your pan somehow in order to keep the bread from drying out in the fridge overnight.  Plastic wrap works for this, as does a shower cap (assuming you’ve dedicated one to kitchen duty only!).  I had neither of these, though, so I took apart a cereal bag and placed it over my bread.

You can use a dinner plate to keep the bag on top.

Or if you have a really stretchy rubber band, that works even better.

Let the bread sit in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, take it out, loosen the covering (to let some warm air in) and let it sit on the counter for 20 minutes.  While the bread is warming up, heat your oven to 350º F.

Place the pan in the oven.  In case the caramel sauce leaks over the top edge, I recommend putting a rimmed baking sheet underneath the Bundt pan.  Otherwise you risk some serious smoke and stink.

Bake the bread for 40-45 minutes, or until golden brown.  Remove from the oven and let the bread sit on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate.

We always eat our bread by pulling pieces off, but you can let the bread cool a bit more and then slice it as you would a pound cake.

Monkey bread is definitely at its best when fresh from the oven, but if you’ve got leftovers, never fear…they’re still quite edible.  And if you pop them into the microwave for a few seconds, they’re almost as good as fresh.

Caramel Monkey Bread
A printable version is available at Taste of Home

1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1/4 cup water (110° to 115°)
1-1/4 cups warm milk (110° to 115°)
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
5 cups all-purpose flour

Caramel
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Assembly
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted

In a large mixer bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, butter, sugar, eggs, salt and 3 cups flour. Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes. Add in enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes. Place in bowl, cover, and let rise 45-60 minutes, or until doubled.

For caramel, in a small saucepan, bring the brown sugar, butter and cream to a boil. Cook and stir for 3 minutes. Pour half into a greased 10-in. fluted tube pan; sprinkle with half of the pecans.

Punch dough down; shape into 40 balls. In a bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon. Place melted butter in
another bowl. Dip balls in butter, then roll in sugar mixture.

Place 20 balls in the tube pan; top with remaining caramel and pecans. Top with remaining balls. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, remove the bread from the fridge, loosen cover, and let stand at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Placed a rimmed baking sheet on the lower rack of the oven, and then bake the bread in a preheated 350°F oven for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. (Cover loosely with foil if top browns too quickly.) Cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate. Serve warm.

Today’s 365 post: Now I can sleep in peace

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

My apologies to those of you who dislike nuts…today’s post won’t be very much fun for you!

For a lot of years, I strongly disliked nuts, but in recent times, I’ve come around quite nicely. I’m still not an enormous fan (I’ll choose Apricot Coffeecake over Nut Roll any day!), but I do enjoy eating nuts and nut-filled baked goods these days.

When I make a nut roll, though, it’s usually because I’m wanting to bless someone who IS a huge fan of nuts. My father-in-law and my dad are both nut-lovers, and I’ve made this for both of them.

Nut roll is a fairly rich baked good, but it is not overly sweet, especially if you opt to leave off  the confectioner’s sugar frosting.  I personally think the frosting adds just the right touch of sweetness, though.

I made this on Christmas Eve Day when I was in the midst of a big old baking fest, so I don’t have step-by-step pictures of the whole process. I think I’ve got enough to make you feel like this is do-able, though.

I use a recipe from Taste of Home to make my nut rolls, and the dough-making process is very similar to the Cherry Danish process.  And like the Cherry Danish dough, this one does not need to be kneaded.

To make the dough, dissolve yeast in warm water in a large bowl.  Add the butter, milk, egg yolks (reserve the egg whites for the flling!), sugar, salt and flour; beat until smooth.

Cover and refrigerate the dough overnight.  This will firm the dough up and make it much easier to roll out.

To make the filling the next day, beat the egg whites and vanilla until soft peaks form, and gradually add in the granulated sugar.  It’s important to add the sugar slowly, just like you would if you were making a meringue.

When you’re done, the egg white mixture should be glossy and stiff.

Gently fold in the chopped nuts.  I usually use walnuts, but I think this would be SO good with pecans.

Divide the dough into thirds, and roll one third out into a large rectangle.  Spoon a third of the nut filling onto the dough.

You’ll think there’s no way you will ever be able to make the filling cover all that dough, but you can.    I like to use a plain old table knife to manage this.

Roll the dough up, jelly-roll style.  To make sure the dough stays rolled up, brush a bit of water onto the seam.

Place the roll, seam-side down, onto a greased baking sheet, and repeat the process with the remaining dough portions.

Cover the rolls with a wet tea towel and let them rise in a warm place into they’re soft and puffy-looking.  I wouldn’t say that these actually double in size.  It seems like mine always take at least 45 minutes to become soft and puffy, especially if I’m baking in cold weather.  Allow plenty of time for this step!

Bake in a preheated 350º F oven for 20-25 minutes or until the rolls are golden brown.  Remove rolls to a wire rack to cool (I use two wide cooking spatulas to manage this).

Mix the frosting ingredients and drizzle over top of the rolls.  If you’d like to make them look a little more fancy, sprinkle a few chopped nuts on top of the frosting before it sets.

As with the cherry danishes, the frosting process here will be much less messy if you place the rolls and wire rack on a baking sheet first.  That way all the dribbles will be on the sheet, not on your counter.

I wish I’d take a picture of a sliced nut roll, but I wasn’t that forward thinking.  I’ll try to rectify that next time I make these! There is a photo of the sliced roll on Taste of Home’s site, though.

Nut Roll Coffee Cake
A printable version is available at Taste of Home

1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110° to 115°)
1 cup butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup warm milk (110° to 115°)
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour

FILLING:
3 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
2-1/4 cups ground walnuts

ICING:
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 to 4 teaspoons milk

Directions
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the butter, milk, egg yolks, sugar, salt and flour; beat until smooth. Do not knead. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

For the filling, in a small bowl, beat egg whites and vanilla on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, on high until stiff glossy peaks form and sugar is dissolved. Fold in walnuts; set aside.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Let stand for 10 minutes or until easy to handle. Divide into thirds. Roll each portion into a 15-in. x 13-in. rectangle. Spread filling over rectangles to within 1/2 in. of edges. Roll up jelly-roll style, starting with a long side; pinch seam to seal.

Place seam side down on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool. Combine glaze ingredients; drizzle over coffee cakes.

Today’s 365 post: My towel drawer WAS getting a little empty!

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

The cherry danishes I showed you in a recent 365 post were made from a Taste of Home recipe that’s been in my to-try pile for a while.  I have a ridiculously large pile of yeast-dough recipes that I want to try because every time I flip through a magazine, all of the yeast recipes look delicious!

If only it were that easy to find such inspiring main dish recipes.  Somehow, meat and vegetables just aren’t as exciting as flour, sugar, butter, and yeast.

At least, not to me.

I don’t usually take photos and plan on posting a recipe the first time I try it, but for some reason, I did when I was making these, and I’m glad, because all of us thought these were ridiculously good.

A lot of the sweet yeast recipes I post here are moderately unhealthy, but this particular recipe may very well take the cake, if only because the dough requires 6 egg yolks.

Dear me.

If you’re a little concerned about that, you can do like I did and make them when you’ve got company who can help you eat them. 

Two handy things about this recipe:

• the dough is made ahead of time and rests in the fridge overnight.  You do have to shape the rolls and let them rise in the morning, but that doesn’t take tons of time, and it’s certainly faster than starting from scratch in the morning.

• no kneading is required.  This is happy news for those of you who are terrified of the kneading process.

To start, dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup of warm milk.

While the yeast is percolating away, combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  Cut the butter into chunks and then use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.

If you have a really big food processor, you could use that to cut the butter in, I suppose.  I thought I did a pretty thorough job of cutting the butter in, but later on I noticed some large-ish chunks of butter in the dough.  So, I suggest being more thorough than you think you need to be.

Next, stir in the yeast mixture, 6 egg yolks (!) and the warm milk.  The recipe called for half-and-half, but I substituted milk because that’s what I had on hand.

It’s not like the dough was lacking in fat, after all.

Stir it all together until you have a sticky, kind of shaggy dough.

Oh, I should tell you that I did not put the full amount of flour into the bowl initially.  I was worried that it might end up being too much and I wanted some control.  I think I put 5 cups into the bowl and set the remaining cup aside.  I ended up only adding about 1/2 of that remaining cup.

Next time, I’ll try using the full six cups and see how that works out.

Cover the dough, and put it in the fridge to sit overnight.

In the morning, divide the dough into quarters and roll each quarter out into a rectangle that’s about 18×4 inches.

Use a pizza wheel to cut the dough into 18 strips.

Twist two strips together, and then coil the twisted strips into a roll shape, like so:

Repeat with the remaining strips and remaining portions of dough.  Cover the rolls with a damp tea towel and let them rise for 30-45 minutes.

When they’ve risen, make a little indentation in the middle and spoon about a tablespoon of cherry pie filling into the center.  You could use any filling you wanted, I’m sure, but cherry is what I used this time.

Bake the danishes for 14-16 minutes, or until they’re lightly browned.

Remove them from the baking sheet, and let them cool on a wire rack.

The icing is very simple to make, but I didn’t happen to take any photos of the process.  Basically, you beat the butter until it’s fluffy and then mix in powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk/half-and-half/cream (I used milk).

Drizzle the icing over top of the rolls (if it won’t drizzle neatly, add more milk).  I like to place my wire rack on top of a baking sheet so that the extra icing lands on the sheet instead of on my counter.

The original recipe says that these freeze well, un-iced, but I didn’t get to try that out because all of mine were gone within 24 hours. 

I should have taken a photo of the inside of the danishes, but the photo below is the only one that comes close to showing that.

These aren’t flaky like croissants or phyllo…they’re more like a very soft, very fluffy sweet roll dough.  And they are very delicious.

Since you can print this recipe out from Taste of Home’s site, I won’t bother making and uploading a PDF for you this time.

Overnight Cherry Danishes-makes 36

2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm milk (110° to 115°)
6 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup cold butter, cubed
1-1/2 cups warm half-and-half cream or milk (110° to 115°)
6 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling

ICING:
2 tablespoons butter, softened
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dash salt
4 to 5 tablespoons half-and-half cream (or milk)

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in milk.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter, using a pastry blender. Stir in cream (or milk) and egg yolks to form a sticky dough. Cover dough and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, divide the dough into quarters. Roll each quarter to an 18×4 inch rectangle and cut into 18 1-inch-wide strips. Twist two strips together and coil into a roll shape. Place on a greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining strips.

Cover and let rise for 30-45 minutes.

Using the end of a wooden spoon handle, make a 1/2-in.-deep indentation in the center of each roll. Fill each with about 1 tablespoon pie filling.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 14-16 minutes, or until lightly browned.

For icing, beat butter until fluffy and stir in sugar, vanilla, salt, and cream. Drizzle over top of danishes.

Today’s 365 post: Note to self: Next time, check the lid BEFORE you turn the switch

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

Since most of you are probably kind of baked out by now (I know I am!), I thought that I’d talk about some yeast bread troubleshooting instead of sharing a new recipe.

First, if you’re having trouble getting your yeast bread to rise, my very first recommendation is to use less flour. 99% of the time, yeast bread trouble is caused by too much flour, not by bad yeast.

Yeast is pretty powerful, but it has its limits, and it struggles to lift a really stiff dough. A softer dough has much more “give” and the yeast will be able to lift it more easily.

If your dough isn’t at all sticky, you’ve probably added too much flour.  If you can make your dough into a ball, put it on the counter, and have the dough stay in a round ball shape, you’ve probably added too much flour (when I mound mine into a ball, it flattens out some as it sits on the counter).  Your dough should feel soft and squishy, not firm.

The flour measurements in yeast bread recipes are almost always approximate, so don’t get stuck on those.  The amount of flour your need can vary, depending on the humidity level in your air and in your ingredients.  I actually never measure my yeast bread flour…I just add flour until the dough looks right.

So, if your recipe calls for 6 cups of flour, don’t just blindly dump the six cups in.  Start with 3 cups, mix the dough up well, and then gradually add flour until the dough reaches the proper consistency.  Always, always start with less than the total amount of flour.  You can always add more flour, but you can’t take it out!

(please note that I only recommend using this loosey-goosey flour “measurement” style with yeast bread.  With most any other kind of baking, you should measure your flour precisely!)

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Secondly, a reader sent me these pictures to ask if I could help her figure out what’s going wrong here.

My thought is that these loaves look over-risen.  When I let my dough rise too much, the tops look lovely and round while they bake, but then settle into this unhappy looking shape as they cool.  If I saw the inside of these loaves, I’d guess the texture would be very open and airy because the yeast was allowed to grow for too long.

It also looks like these loaves might be a little too big for the pans they were baked in.  A properly risen loaf in a properly sized pan should not be overflowing the edges, before or after it’s baked.

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Thirdly, let me tell you about my favorite bread pans.

The reader that sent in the pictures uses glass plans, but I have to tell you guys, glass pans are really not my favorite thing for baking yeast breads.  I’ve had such trouble getting my loaves to come out of those pans neatly, and I’ve had difficulty getting even browning and cooking with those pans.

My very favorite loaf pans are Williams-Sonoma’s GoldTouch pans. They’re pricey, but so worth it.  They cook breads evenly, and the nonstick coating is incredibly durable.  I’ve owned a lot of nonstick bread pans in my lifetime, and the finish has always worn off.  I’ve used my GoldTouch pans over and over and over, and the finish is in perfect shape.  Not only that, the finish is incredibly non-stick…I don’t use any grease or baking spray when I use them for yeast bread (I do grease them for quick breads) and my breads pop out with nary a problem.

If you’re wanting to do any serious amount of yeast bread baking, do yourself a favor and save up for these pans, or ask for them as birthday and Christmas presents (that’s how I’ve gotten most of mine).  I’m certain you’ll be happy with them!

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If you’ve got yeast baking troubles or questions, feel free to email me  (the frugal girl at gmail dot com) or leave me a comment here, and I’ll try to troubleshoot your problem in a future post.  If you email me, including a picture of your bread or dough would be really helpful.

Today’s 365 post: Squeaky

Instead of posting a new baking recipe today, I thought a roundup of all my yeast rolls recipes would be helpful, especially for those of you who haven’t decided what variety you’ll be baking for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal.

(I include myself in that crowd!)

For those of you outside the U.S., my apologies.  Just take notes for your next large family gathering! 

Basic Yeast Rolls-I think these are the ones I’m making tomorrow.

(note to self: Please remember to take a new picture to replace this blurry one from 2.5 years ago).

Honey-Glazed Pan Rolls -These are the other contender for tomorrow’s baking.  I think I like them a little better than Basic Rolls, but my hesitation is that the glaze on these is most delicious when the rolls are hot out of the oven.  So, I’m loathe to transport them elsewhere. Decisions, decisions!

Whole Wheat Rolls-If I had lots of time, I’d be very inclined to make a batch of Basic Rolls and a batch of these to mix up in the bread basket.

Potato Rolls-A ring of these is quite lovely to behold, so they might be a good choice if you have space to leave the ring intact when you serve the rolls.

Cornmeal Buns-I forgot I’d even posted this recipe until this morning!  These look a lot like a traditional dinner roll, but they’ve definitely got a different texture and flavor.

Cheddar Twists-Granted, these aren’t exactly a traditional choice for a Thanksgiving meal, but if you don’t mind changing things up a bit, these are a delicious option.

Happy Baking!

I’ll be back tomorrow with my annual thankful list. 

Today’s 365 post: When no one is particularly hungry at dinnertime…