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??”

I saw this recipe on Money Saving Mom‘s menu plan last week, and decided to give it a try.  As I said yesterday, I’m sort of a slacker when it comes to making homemade desserts (especially in the summer when I don’t much feel like turning on the oven), but this looked so easy, I thought even I could get motivated to make it.

The first batch I made was just ok…it had sort of a weird flavor, and after a bite or two, I realized that the problem was a super-strong vanilla taste.  The recipe called for two teaspoons and that much vanilla in an unbaked product produces a really unpleasant vanilla overload.

So, for the next batch I made, I reduced the vanilla to 1/2 teaspoon, and the results were waaay better (and cheaper, too!  Vanilla’s kind of expensive).

This recipe is fairly customizable…you can use any type of nut butter you like, and you can vary a number of the other ingredients too. And since these are so simple to make and don’t require any heat, they’re a great project to do with kids.

First, mix the nut butter, honey, and vanilla together.

As I’m sure you know, measuring nut butter is kind of a pain since it sticks to everything.  To make this simpler and less messy, I put 1/2 cup of water into a measuring cup, add peanut butter until the water level reaches 1 cup, drain the water, and dump the peanut butter into my bowl.

This process looks exceedingly unappetizing, but it’s very not messy.

Ok.

Moving on.

(I thought about not putting the picture in there but then I thought that you might forget the measuring trick if you didn’t actually see it.)

So! Add the coconut, chocolate chips, and oatmeal to the peanut butter mixture.  If you have mini chocolate chips, I’d use those because they distribute better.  Regular chips work fine too, though.

Stir until it’s all nicely combined.

Place the bowl in the refrigerator for a half hour to make the dough easier to handle.

Take a tablespoon of dough, compress it into a ball shape, and roll it between your hands until it’s smooth.

If your balls are still pretty sticky, or if you just want to make them look fancier, you can roll them in coconut or wheat germ.

And that’s it!  You just eat these unbaked…it’s sort of like eating peanut butter/oatmeal cookie dough, except without the worry of raw eggs.  My kids love them, and as far as desserts go, I feel pretty happy about them eating these.  They may not be health food, but they’re definitely more nutritious than a lollipop.

I store ours in the fridge, but I don’t know if that would be completely necessary in the winter or in a colder air-conditioned house.

No-Bake Energy Balls
printable version

1/2 cup nut butter(almond butter, peanut butter, sunflower seed butter or any other nut or seed butter)
1/3 cup honey (I use a scant 1/3 cup)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt if using unsalted nut butter
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (or wheat germ)
1-2 tsp your favorite spices or spice combinations(optional-I haven’t done this)
1/2 C other add-ins(whole or roughly chopped nuts or seeds, dried fruit, chocolate chips, etc.)

In a medium bowl, stir together nut butter, honey, vanilla, and salt (if using).  Stir in oats, coconut, and add-ins.

Refrigerate mixture for 30 minutes. To make the balls, scoop out about a tablespoon of dough, press to compact, then roll into a ball.  Repeat with remaining dough.

Store in the fridge.

(recipe originally from FoodDoodles)

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Today’s 365 post: Mr. FG laughed at me

Joshua’s 365 post: Joshua is at his friend Thomas’ house, but I think he’s going to update his blog from there.

Every Wednesday (make that “occasionally”) 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.

Hi.

It’s me, here with a Wednesday Baking post.

Remember those?

It’s been a while.

Wednesday Baking posts are a lot of work, and so to maintain my sanity, I’ve kinda let them fall to the wayside.  Plus, I’ve shared most of my regularly-used baking recipes, so I’m a little lower on material than I was several years ago.

I’ve got a new one today, though…it’s a recipe I recently got from one of my sister-in-laws, and it’s so yummy, I have to share it with you!

It’s a bit of a twist on the usual sort of Rice Krispy treat, but it’s not much more difficult.

(incidentally, I met a kid recently who was amazed that you can make Rice Krispy treats at home.  Apparently, he’d only ever had the packaged kind!)

And happily, just like Rice Krispy treats, these require no baking, which makes them a perfect summer dessert.

To make the cereal base, start by melting together 1/4 cup of butter and 10 oz. of marshmallows (I like to use the small kind since they seem to melt more quickly).

You can do this in the microwave or on the stovetop.

Stir 3/4 cup of creamy peanut butter into the marshmallow mixture.  It’ll take some mixing, but the two do eventually become homogenous.

Measure 5 cups of rice cereal into a bowl (I usually use a generic brand), and pour the peanut butter marshmallow mixture over top.  Stir to combine.

This is a little bit difficult to do with just a spoon…I ended up mixing it with my hands some as well.  This would never work with regular Rice Krispy treats (it’s way too sticky!), but the peanut butter makes this mixture much less sticky.

Press the cereal into a greased 9×13 inch pan.

(I apologize for the boring picture…tan food on a tan table.  Yawn.)

Now for the frosting! You’ll need 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1 cup of butterscotch chips.

Microwave the chips, stirring often, until they’re melted. Actually, you could do this on the stovetop too…just take care to use low heat.

In my experience, butterscotch chips are a little stubborn when it comes to melting, so make sure you’ve got your frosting mixture thoroughly melted and mixed before you dump it out onto the bars.

Spread the frosting evenly over the bars.  If your house is cooler than mine, you can just let the frosting set up at room temperature.  At 78 degrees, though, I find that the frosting is a little too soft, so I’d recommend putting the bars in the fridge.

If you dislike butterscotch, I’m quite sure you could just frost these with 2 cups of chocolate chips instead.  The butterscotch does add a yummy flavor dimension to these bars, though, and that’s coming from someone who’s not normally a big butterscotch fan.

If you want more no-bake summer desserts, you’re in luck.  Here are a few from the archives (just click on the photo and the recipe will open…make sure to ctrl-click if you want it to open in a new window).

And here’s today’s recipe, with a printable PDF version.  Happy Un-Baking!

Peanut Butter-Butterscotch-Chocolate Cereal Bars
printable version

1/4 cup butter
10 oz. marshmallows
3/4 cup peanut butter
5 cups crisp rice cereal
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

In a saucepan or in the microwave, melt butter and marshmallows together. Stir in peanut butter.

Combine marshmallow mixture and cereal in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly and press into a greased 9×13 inch pan.

Melt chocolate chips and butterscotch chips together (on the stovetop or in the microwave) and spread over top of cereal bars.

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Today’s 365 post: Just life

Joshua’s 365 post: Angry Birds

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.

I know that on my blog plan, I had written that Oatmeal Pancakes were the topic of the day. But, as so often happens, I’m deviating from my plan.

Even though this happens on a regular basis, I still feel like planning my blog posts helps me to be a slightly less stressed blogger…if I want to deviate from my plan, I can, but if no deviations occur to me, the plan is always there as a backup.

This recipe came into my life when I was a teenager and received a mini Bundt pan as a Christmas present (yes, even back then I liked practical gifts!). The pan came with a few recipes, and this was one of them. My family was quite fond of these little muffins, and we actually served them (in a mini version) at my wedding reception.

I hadn’t made these in ages, but I saw a box of pudding mix on my laundry room pantry shelf and remembered that I’d bought a bottle of poppy seeds on clearance, and this recipe came to mind.

The lemon flavor in these comes from a pudding mix, and when I made this batch, I used an off-brand.  I didn’t think the lemon flavor was as good this way, so I’m going to say that I recommend going brand-name here.

Also, make sure your poppy seeds are fresh.  Poppy seeds contain oil, which can get rancid and yucky-tasting (safe to eat, but yukcy).  My bottle was not expired, but I don’t think mine tasted as fresh as they should have.  I’m going to see if I can get some from the bulk bins at my organic market next time.

You “I’m scared of baking with yeast!” people will like this recipe.  If you can operate a spoon, you can totally make these.

Before you do anything else, turn your oven on to 350° F.  That way it’ll be hot by the time your muffins are ready to bake.

To make the muffins, first combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Next, beat in the shortening and softened butter (this is easier to do in a mixer!).

Combine the milk, eggs and vanilla.

Stir into the dry ingredients until your batter is smooth.

Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins.  This is the sort of batter that tends to stick to the sides and bottom, so don’t be stingy with your greasing or you’ll regret it later. 

You can make mini-muffins with this batter if you want.  A typical mini-muffin pan will make 24 mini muffins out of 12 regular muffin-cup’s worth of batter.

Gosh, I can’t seem to get that out in a less-confusing way.

Let’s try an equation.

12 regular muffins=24 mini muffins.

Yes, that’s much better.

(that’s a mini-muffin tin.  But because I am brain-dead and didn’t put anything in the photo for comparison, it’s mini-ness is less than obvious.)

Bake the muffins for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Run a knife around the edge of the muffin tins to loosen muffins.  Remove from the pan and serve, or let them cool on a wire rack.

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
Printable Lemon Poppyseed Muffin recipe

2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 small package instant lemon pudding
1/4 cup poppyseed
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, pudding and poppyseed in a large bowl. Add crisco and softened butter and mix until blended. Combine milk, eggs, and vanilla together and add to dry ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Spoon into greased muffins cups and bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 15-20 minutes (10-12 minutes for mini muffins).  Remove muffins from tins and cool on a wire rack.

Today’s 365 post: When eating leftovers is no hardship

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!