A couple of you have asked for cookbook recommendations (ha! I just spelled that word right, which is an accomplishment. Double letters are my one spelling downfall.), so I thought for today’s baking post, I’d share my favorite baking cookbooks.

Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Bread Cookbook

My very first bread baking cookbook is this one, published in 1973. I baked recipe after recipe from my mom’s copy of this book when I lived at home, so it’s like an old friend to me!  It’s obviously not in publication anymore, but I got my copy on Ebay, and I know I’ve seen them on half.com as well, so you might be able to snag one for yourself.

The whole wheat roll recipe I posted recently is from this book and so is my buttermilk biscuit recipe.

Fleischmann’s Bread Cookbooks

I dearly love my two Fleischmann’s cookbooks. They’re both freebies…my mom got one when she was a new homemaker, and I sent in for mine when I was a teenager. I’m quite sure neither of these books is available anymore, but given that I love both of them, I think I can recommend any bread cookbook from Fleischmann’s…those people know bread!

The list of recipes I’ve shared from these two books is pretty long…Apricot Coffeecake, Overnight Cinnamon Twists, Hamburger Buns, Braided Cheese Bread, and Challah all are from these books.

Baking Illustrated

My most recent baking acquisition is this enormous book from Cook’s Illustrated. My husband got it for me as a birthday present a few years back, and unlike my other baking books, this one is definitely still available for purchase.

This book is comprehensive in scope and in detail (the authors tell you exactly how they came up with each recipe and why they tweaked this or that), and though I’ve only scratched its surface, I’ve found several winners. The Deep Dish Pizza recipe came from this book and so did my Whole Wheat Bread recipe. In addition to bread recipes, this book also covers cakes, pies, tarts, and cookies, among other things (I made the Key Lime Pie recently, and it was delicious).

Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook

Though it’s not specifically a baking book, I do often use baking recipes from my basic Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. The recipes contained in this series of books are not gourmet and cutting edge, but in my experience, they’re reliable and uncomplicated. My basic dinner roll recipe and my cornbread recipe are both from the baking section in this book.

For the most part, I’ve found the recipes in most bread baking books to be fairly good, so I don’t really have an “Avoid This Cookbook” list.  I did own a really big James Beard book on bread, but I found it to be overwhelming in length, and the fact that it had exactly zero pictures didn’t help either.  I eventually got rid of it and haven’t missed it all.  I know some people swear by his books, though, so this is probably a personal preference kind of thing.

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Do you have a favorite baking book? If you do, please share. And if you happen to love James Beard’s bread book, please don’t hate me. 

Today’s recipe, like many of the previous yeast recipes I’ve posted here, comes from my 1973 Better Homes and Gardens bread cookbook (In case you’re wondering, I bought it on Ebay…I wasn’t even born in 1973!). I love this no-fuss, down-to-earth bread book.

If you’re looking for something hearty and a little more nutritious than regular dinner rolls, this is a recipe for you. We like to eat these with dinner, but leftover rolls are also tasty at breakfast and lunch. My kids like to split them open and spread butter and jam on them, or sometimes peanut butter, but they’re also good with more savory toppings like lunch meat, cheese, or chicken salad.

A combination of whole wheat and white flour is used in this recipe.  Though you could use nothing but whole wheat flour, the resulting rolls would not be as fluffy or soft as those made from a combination.  So, if you have reluctant whole wheat eaters at your house or if you are a new baker, I highly recommend sticking with the proportions specified in the recipe.

This recipe, like many of my others, starts with a combination of flour and yeast.

Combine the milk, sugar, butter, and salt together, and heat to 120 degrees F. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of sugar, but you can use less if you prefer, and you can substitute honey.

Add the milk to the dry ingredients, add 2 eggs, and beat for three minutes.

(please excuse the glare-y picture…do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture of smooth batter inside a reflective bowl on a cloudy day? I do.)

Add enough all-purpose flour to make a soft but kneadable dough. I kind of misjudged how soft my dough was this time around…I would not recommend trying to knead dough that is this gloppy if you are a beginner baker!

When I screw up like this, though, I just sprinkle some flour all around the dough and use my bench knife to help me knead until the dough is more organized.

Knead the dough for 3-5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. The dough should still be somewhat soft. This is what it looks like right after I finish kneading it:

It’s soft enough that after it sits for a moment or two, it flattens out some.

By the way, I only have white wheat on hand at the moment, as opposed to hard red wheat, so I used that when I ground the flour for this recipe (I have a grain grinder that I use to make all my whole wheat flour).  Because of this, my dough looks a little lighter than it would if I used regular whole wheat, so don’t worry if your dough is darker in color than mine.

Put the dough back into the mixing bowl (I don’t even bother to wash mine), cover with wet tea towel, and let it rise in a warm place for an hour, or until it’s doubled in size.

Punch the dough down and divide it into 36 pieces. If you prefer for your rolls to be a little larger, you can cut the dough into 30 pieces. You can shape the dough however you wish, but here are three suggestions.

To make cloverleaves, cut each dough piece into 3 pieces, shape each piece into a ball, and place three into each cup of a greased muffin tin.

To make rosettes, roll each piece of dough into an 8-10 inch rope and tie a loose knot. Tuck one end of the rope into the middle of the knot and tuck the other end underneath the roll.

To make swirls, roll each piece of dough into a 8-10 inch rope, and coil the strand into a snail-like shape.

Cover pans with a wet tea towel and let the rolls rise for 30-40 minutes, or until doubled.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

I highly recommend eating them warm from the oven, spread with butter.  Really, I think that’s the best way to eat any bread!

Printable Whole Wheat Roll Recipe

Whole Wheat Rolls

3.5 cups whole wheat flour
2 pkg. (4.5 teaspoons) yeast
2 cups milk
½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs
3-3.5 cups all purpose flour

In a large mixer bowl, combine whole wheat flour and yeast. Heat milk, sugar, butter, and salt together just till warm (115-120 F). Add to dry mixture; add eggs. Beat at low speed until combined, then beat at medium speed for 3 minutes. By hand, stir in as much of the all-purpose flour as necessary to make a soft, but kneadable dough.

Turn out onto a floured counter and knead for 3-5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled.

Punch dough down. Divide into 36 pieces.

To make cloverleaves, divide each piece into 3 pieces, shape each into a ball, and place three balls into each section of a muffin tin.

To make rosettes, roll each piece into a long strand, about 8 inches long. Tie into a loose knot and tuck one end into the top of the roll and one end under the roll.

To make swirls, roll each piece into a long strand, about 8 inches long. Coil the strand into a snail-like shape.

Cover rolls, let them rise for 30-40 minutes, or until doubled, and bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool on wire rack.

(the bread pictured here is Challah)

Next Wednesday, I’ll post a recipe (Whole Wheat Dinner rolls, if you’re impatient to know!), but today I thought I’d take a stab at helping those of you who have written me about your yeast baking troubles.

My bread didn’t rise at all!

If your bread dough didn’t change in size at all during the rising period, this probably means that your yeast is dead. There are several reasons this could happen.

• Your liquids were too hot, so they killed the yeast.  For recipes where you add the liquid directly to the yeast, 110 degrees F is about right, and for recipes which combine the flour and the yeast before the liquid is added, 120-125 is right.  I use a digital instant-read thermometer to test the temperature of my liquids, though a non-digital one works fine too.
• Your yeast is old.  If you’ve kept your yeast at room temperature for a really long time, it might have lost it’s potency.  Keeping yeast in the refrigerator or freezer will prolong its shelf life greatly.  I keep mine in a screw-top lid in the freezer just to be safe.  I could probably keep it in my cabinet, though, given how fast I go through a two-pound bag of yeast!

My bread rose, but not enough.

Again, there are a couple of causes for this.

• Your yeast is old. Sometimes old yeast does work a little bit, but not enough to lift a batch of dough correctly.  Make sure you have new yeast, and store it in the fridge or freezer if you don’t bake a lot.
• Your dough was too stiff. Generally speaking, when I’ve helped people learn to make bread, they’ve been surprised at how soft the dough should be.  Most novice bakers err on the side of adding too much flour, so if your bread isn’t rising properly, this is the most likely cause.  Yeast raises dough by producing air bubbles, which in turn lift the dough.  If the dough is very stiff, the yeasty air bubbles won’t be strong enough to lift the dough.  The dough should be soft and fairly pliable…like the recipe books say, it should feel kind of like a baby’s bottom!
• You didn’t knead properly/sufficiently. As I explained in my post about gluten, kneading stretches and develops the gluten in the flour.  Proper kneading produces stretchy gluten strands that are strong enough to hold and enclose the yeasty air bubbles.  I wrote a post on kneading that might be helpful to you, and there’s also a little bit of video of me kneading in the CBN TV spot…one of my readers played it in slow-motion so she could see better.
• Your house is too cold. My house is actually a little too cold for bread rising in the wintertime.  To combat this difficulty, I turn my oven on to 350 for 1 minute (I set a timer so I don’t inadvertently leave the oven on) and then put the dough inside the oven to rise.  This provides just enough heat for the yeast to do its work.  (incidentally, your bread dough will eventually rise in a cold house…it just will take longer for the dough to double in size.)  Just don’t forget to remove the dough before heating your oven!

My bread is crumbly.

This is probably caused by insufficient kneading.  Properly kneaded dough is stretchy and produces bread that is more chewy then crumbly.  See above for solutions to this problem, and also check out my post on kneading and gluten.

My bread was undercooked/doughy inside.

Obviously, this is sometimes caused by simply not baking the dough long enough, but there are a couple of less obvious things that contribute to this problem.

• Your dough didn’t rise enough. Dough that hasn’t risen properly tends to be on the dense end of things, and thus takes much longer to bake than properly risen dough does.  See above for solutions to rising difficulties.
• You didn’t preheat your oven. Bread that starts out in a cold oven will obviously take longer to bake than bread that starts out in a hot oven.  You might also be surprised to know that starting with a cold oven will also produce bread that is not as light and fluffy.  The initial blast of heat from a preheated oven gives the bread a little bit of a last-minute rise (bakers call this “oven spring”).  I always, always preheat my oven before I bake bread.  To help me remember to do this, I set a timer to go off about 10 minutes before the dough will be ready to bake.
• Your oven temperature sensor is not calibrated properly. This is a fairly uncommon cause of underbaked bread, but if you’re still having difficulties after fixing the previous two problems, you might want to get an oven-safe thermometer and check to make sure that your oven really is 350 degrees when you’ve set it to 350 degrees.

If you’d like a concrete way of testing your bread for doneness (I don’t think that’s a word, really!), you can insert an instant-read thermometer into the side of a loaf.  Most breads are done when they reach 190 degrees.  I rarely do this myself, but you might find it to be helpful if you’re new at baking.

If you’ve never tried yeast baking before, you might feel very overwhelmed by reading this list!  Yeast baking is really not as scary as it seems, though, and many of my readers will attest to that.  If you want to give it a try, here are a few recipes that are fairly simple.

Garlic Breadsticks-These are so small, it’s easy to get them to rise and bake all the way through.

Glazed Honey Pan Rolls-This dough rises very easily, which is why I included it here.  You can leave off the glaze if you prefer to keep things simpler.

Easy French Bread-These loaves are not as tall as regular loaves of bread, which means that it is not as difficult to get them to rise and bake properly.  And the loaves are so handy for panini sandwiches, garlic bread, Beef au Jus sandwiches, and the like.

Thin-Crust Pizza -This dough is almost entirely kneaded in the food processor, which makes it almost fool-proof.  I just use my normal food processor and my normal blade…nothing special is required. You’ll need a pizza stone for optimum baking results, though.

English Muffin Bread-This is a batter bread, which means it uses a very soft dough that is just mixed in a stand mixer…no kneading necessary!

And if you are one of those people who is just not interested in messing with yeast, you’ll be pleased to know that there are a number of no-yeast baking recipes in the Wednesday Baking archives.  There’s even a recipe for no-yeast sandwich bread.
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I hope that this helps to solve some of your yeast-baking problems.  I’m sure some of my readers who are experienced bakers will be by to share some of their solutions as well. And of course, you can always email me if you have a problem I didn’t address here. Happy Baking!

You who fear kneading and yeast can rejoice today, as this week’s Wednesday Baking post requires absolutely no yeast or kneading.  And it doesn’t require a stand mixer either!  Our recipe today comes from a Taste of Home magazine.

If you’ve ever made a Texas sheet cake before, you’ll notice that these cupcakes are made in a similar fashion (and they have the same wonderful texture as a Texas sheet cake).

These are really easy to make, so easy that I think these are just as fast as a boxed mix (and much tastier).

Here’s how.

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl.

Combine the cocoa, water, oil, and butter in a saucepan, and bring to a boil.

Combine the buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla.

Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine.  Then add the buttermilk/yogurt/vanilla mixture, and stir well.

Line 24 muffin cups with cupcake liners, or if you don’t have any liners, you can grease your muffin tins.  This makes it more difficult to removed the finished cupcakes, though.  Pour the batter evenly into the muffin cups.  I find this to be much easier when I pour the batter into a measuring cup first, like so.

I do still end up with drips on my pan, though!

Bake the cupcakes in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

These are still very soft when they first come out of the oven, so let them sit in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool.

Now, here’s the part where I should show you how to make the frosting.  However, I made these on a very busy day. See what all I baked that day?

And so  I didn’t manage to take any pictures of the frosting process.  I’m sorry.  But, the directions for making the frosting are below, and next time I make the frosting, I’ll try my best to capture the process with my camera and update this post.

Because this recipe is already printable on Taste of Home’s site, I didn’t bother uploading a PDF here.  Just go to the cupcake recipe page and click on “print” (and please enjoy their photo of a frosted cupcake, which is much more beautiful than mine!).

This recipe makes two dozen cupcakes, but you most certainly can cut the recipe in half if you prefer.

Texas Cupcakes with Caramel Icing

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup butter, cubed
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

CARAMEL ICING:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1/4 cup milk
* 2 to 2-1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions

1) In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking soda. In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring cocoa, water, oil and butter to a boil. Gradually add to dry ingredients; mix well. Combine eggs, buttermilk and vanilla; gradually add to batter and mix well (batter will be very thin).
2) Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

3)  For icing, in a heavy saucepan, combine the brown sugar, butter and milk. Cook and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to medium. Do not stir. Cook for 3-6 minutes or until bubbles form in center of mixture and syrup turns amber. Remove from the heat; transfer to a small bowl. Cool to room temperature. Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar. Spread over cupcakes. Yield: 2 dozen.

I’ve been teasing you mercilessly with pictures of this bread since Sunday, so I figured it would be a good choice for this week’s Wednesday Baking post.

I should probably say right off the bat that I’m not so silly as to think the addition of 1.5 cups of oatmeal turns cinnamon bread into a highly nutritious food. Really, if I’m looking for health food, cinnamon bread is not the first thing I turn to. But, I figure that oatmeal does make a not-so-healthy treat slightly more healthy. The original recipe is from an old Taste of Home magazine, and I altered it ever so slightly.

Here’s how to make this tasty bread.

Start the dough by dissolving the yeast in some warm water.  Let it sit for a few minutes, while you’re gathering the rest of the ingredients.

Add oats, milk, butter, 1/2 cup sugar, eggs, salt, and 2 cups flour.  Mix on low speed until combine, then mix on medium speed for 3 minutes.

Add enough additional flour to make a soft, but kneadable dough. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic.

Place in bowl, cover, and let rise one hour.

Punch the dough down and divide it into two pieces.  Roll each piece out into an oblong shape (don’t you just live for the preciseness of my directions??).

Now it’s time to add the cinnamon.  Mix 1/2 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon together.

Before you sprinkle this mixture on the dough, though, you’ll want to moisten the dough so that the sugar will stick.  I use water for this purpose.  You can use butter, but if you do, it’s much more likely that your bread will end up with a gappy swirl, like so.  It’s not the end of the world if it does, but sometimes a gappy swirl causes problems with baking (the part that sags tends to be under-done).

Butter keeps the bread dough from sticking to itself, which means that when the top part rises, the bottom part is loathe to rise with it.  Water makes it much more likely that your swirls will stay neat, tidy, and gap-less.

So, use a pastry brush to spread a thin layer of water over the dough…just enough to make the dough tacky.

Then sprinkle half of the cinnamon sugar over the dough rectangle.

Starting from the short end, roll the dough up, pinch the seam to seal, and place it in a greased 9×5 inch loaf pan.

Repeat with the other half of the dough, cover both pans with a wet tea towel, and let them rise 30-45 minutes, or until doubled (y’know…approximately!).

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 35 minutes, or until golden brown.  Turn the loaves out of the pan, and cool them on a wire rack before slicing.

Most breads are difficult to slice when they’re hot, and cinnamon swirl bread is especially difficult to manage when it’s hot.  So, be patient and let it cool to room temperature before you try to slice it up.

Hopefully when you slice your loaf open, you’ll see a nice, tight swirl.

This bread is delightful as is, but it also makes really good toast.

And it freezes nicely, so you can eat one loaf now, and freeze another one for later.

Printable Oatmeal Cinnamon Bread Recipe

Oatmeal Cinnamon Bread-makes 2 loaves

2 packages active dry yeast (4 ½ teaspoons)
½ cup warm water (110° to 115°)
1 ½ cups quick-cooking oats
1 2/3 cups warm milk (110° to 115°)
½ cup shortening
½ cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons salt
5 to 5-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Cinnamon Sugar

½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. In a bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add oats, milk, shortening, 1/2 cup sugar, eggs, salt and 2 cups flour; beat until smooth (if using stand mixer, beat 3 minutes). Add enough remaining flour to form soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

2. Punch dough down. Divide in half; roll each portion into a 16-in. x 8-in. rectangle. Brush with water. Combine cinnamon and ½ cup sugar; sprinkle over each dough half to within 1/2 in. of edges. Roll up jelly-roll style, starting with a short side; pinch seams to seal.

3. Place loaves seam side down in two greased 9-in. x 5-in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 30-40 minutes. Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. Cover loosely with foil if bread browns too quickly. Remove from pans to cool on wire racks. Yield: 2 loaves.

Today’s offering is yet another recipe from my handy-dandy Fleischmann’s Yeast cookbook (their yeast is way too expensive, but their cookbook is great!). I’ve modified it a bit to fit my preferences, but the bones of the recipe are from Fleischmann’s.

Because 6 ounces of cheese is required for two medium-sized loaves, this is perhaps not the most frugal bread ever, but it is really tasty. Since the cheese is not standing on its own, I do not find it necessary to use really high dollar cheese (not that I really ever buy high dollar cheese), so this bread doesn’t have to be exorbitantly expensive. The $1.50 block of cheddar from Aldi works just fine.

And though the recipe calls for sharp cheddar, I’ve also had good success with mild cheddar cheese, and even Colby cheese. You could even combine the random bits of shreddable cheese hanging around your fridge and use them up in this loaf.

As with most of my recipes, this one starts with flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.

Add warm water and milk, and beat for several minutes.

Add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft but manageable dough. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead in cheese, 1/2 cup or so at a time. By the time you get the cheese thoroughly incorporated, the dough should be sufficiently kneaded.

(Alternatively, you can stir the cheese into the dough before you turn it out onto the floured surface. This will break up the cheese a bit more, but it’s an awful lot easier.)

This dough feels really, really strange when you knead it, thanks to the cheese, and it looks kind of funny too.

Cover the dough and let it rise for about an hour, or until it’s doubled in size. After the dough has risen, punch it down, divide it into six pieces, and roll each piece into a 12-14 inch rope.

Braid three strands and place on a greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining three strands.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30-45 minutes.

If desired, sprinkle with additional cheese. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, or until lightly browned.

And here’s a peek inside the bread…you can see all the little flecks of cheese.  It’s tasty as is, but the cheese flavor is especially good if you toast your slices before eating them.  And toasted, buttered slices make a lovely accompaniment to a pot of homemade soup.

Printable Cheese Bread Recipe

Braided Cheese Bread-makes 2 loaves

3.5 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) grated sharp cheddar cheese

In mixer bowl, combine 1.5 cups flour with the sugar, yeast, and salt. Heat water and milk to 120 degrees F, and add to dry ingredients. Beat for 3 minutes, and add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead in cheese, 1/2 cup at a time. Place kneaded dough into a bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled.

Punch dough down and divide into 6 pieces. Roll each piece into a 12-14 inch rope. Braid three ropes together and place on a greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining three ropes. Cover braids and let rise until doubled, 30-45 minutes.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack.

Recently, several of you have submitted questions related to baking, so instead of sharing a recipe today, I’ll answer those questions.

Kneading
Some of you have expressed concern that your kneading technique isn’t quite up to snuff, and requested a video of me kneading. I have good news and bad news on that front. The bad news is that I don’t currently have the technology necessary to shoot and upload a video of that (though perhaps when I upgrade my camera body, I’ll have video capability). The good news is that the when the TV producer was here a few weeks ago, they shot some footage of me kneading. I have no earthly idea how much of that will make it into the TV segment, but hopefully a little bit of it will (I should have a link to the show on Feburary 8th).

In the meantime, let me point out a post on kneading that I did a while back. In that post, there is a link to a Picasa slideshow of me kneading. If you click on “slideshow” and go throug the pictures really fast, it’s almost like a video.

Also, you may not have noticed it, but in all the yeast recipes I post, I usually make the word “knead” a link to the post on kneading, so if you ever need a refresher, there it’ll be.

In case you are too uninspired to click on over to the kneading post, here are a few quick pointers.

• The point of kneading is to stretch the dough. Whacking it with a rolling pin and throwing it against the counter (seriously, I have seen these methods advocated on other blogs!) is not going to efficiently accomplish the goal of stretching the gluten.  You’ll want to use a turn, push, turn, push motion.

• Don’t add too much flour. A stiff dough will resist rising (the yeast is not strong enough to push through really hard dough) and will be really difficult to work with.  Only add enough flour to keep the dough manageable, and only sprinkle flour on the counter, not onto the dough itself.

• Try to keep the flour on the outside of the dough.  This is why I suggest only sprinkling flour onto the counter, not onto the dough.  It doesn’t matter if the side of the dough facing you is somewhat sticky…it only matters if the side touching the counter is sticky.

Gluten
On a related note, in order to understand why bread dough should be kneaded and why muffin batter should only be mixed gently, you might find it helpful to read my post on gluten.  It explains what gluten is and how it should be handled in varying baking recipes.

Again, here are a few pointers for those of you who aren’t interested in reading the whole post.

• Gluten is a protein in wheat that can develop into long, stretchy strands if it is moistened and mixed.

• Gluten development is very important for yeast breads, because a stretchy dough will hold the air bubbles the yeast makes as it grows.  This is what causes bread to rise.

• Gluten development should be very minimal for breads that don’t use yeast (muffins, pancakes, biscuits, cornbread, pumpkin bread).  Thus, these batters/doughs should be mixed or kneaded as little as possible to ensure a soft, fluffy end product.

Beginner Yeast Baking Recipes
If you’re a little nervous about your kneading techniques, here are a few recipes that are fairly easy.  None of them are full-sized loaves, which means that they should turn out well even if you aren’t the world’s greatest kneader (full-sized loaves are more prone to rising/baking issues if the gluten is not developed well).

Easy French Bread

Basic Dinner Rolls

Honey Glazed Pan Rolls (this is what is pictured at the top of the post)

Garlic Breadsticks

If you have any other burning questions about baking, do feel free to leave a comment or send me an email (the frugal girl {at} gmail {dot} com). And if you have a helpful tip about learning to knead, please do share in the comments.

I originally got this recipe from an old Taste of Home magazine, and since the other two pull-apart bread recipes I’ve posted have been so popular, I thought I’d share this one too.

Like the others, this isn’t particularly nutritious, but it is really tasty, especially if you use real butter to make it. Though it is similar to the Pull-Apart Garlic Bread, the dough for this is much richer, due to the use of butter, sugar and an egg. I’ve reduced the amount of fat called for in the original recipe, and if you prefer, you can also use less sugar than is called for.

Here’s how to make this delightfully buttery bread.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Add the sugar, butter, egg, salt, and a cup of the flour, and mix until combined.

Add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead for 5-8 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.

Cover with a wet tea towel, and let the dough rise for an hour.  Punch it down, and divide it into 1 1/2 inch pieces (I divide mine into 48 pieces).  Roll each into a ball.

Dip each ball into melted butter, and place into a greased tube pan.  Drizzle any remaining butter over top.

Cover the pan with the wet tea towel, and let the dough rise 30-45 minutes, or until doubled.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned.

Let the bread cool in the pan for a few minutes, and then turn it out onto a plate or serving platter.

The bread is at its best when warm from the oven, but it’s quite good leftover as well.

Printable Bubble Bread Recipe

Buttery Bubble Bread

1 package (2 ½ teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 ¼ cups warm water (110-115 degrees F)
½ cup sugar
¼  cup melted and cooled butter (or vegetable oil)
1 egg
½ teaspoon salt
4 to 4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Add the sugar, butter, egg, salt, and 1 cup of the flour.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough.  Turn out onto floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.  Place in bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise for 1 hour, or until doubled.

Punch dough down.  Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide dough into 1 ½ inch balls.  Dip the balls into the 6 tablespoons of melted butter, and layer in a greased 9-inch tube pan.  Drizzle with remaining melted butter.  Cover and let rise in a warm place until double, about 45 minutes.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool for 5 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate.  Serve warm.

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Wednesday Baking archives

Today is the day to use c’s in blog titles, apparently.  It’s also a non-yeast day here on Wednesday baking.  Although I made this recipe and took pictures a few weeks ago, coincidentally, I am completely out of yeast at the moment (boo!).  So, it’s appropriate timing.

I received this recipe as a newlywed from not one, but two women at my church, and I’ve used it here and there over the last 12 years when I need a coffeecake but don’t have time to mess with yeast.

You may have noticed that yesterday, I managed to upload a printable PDF version of the Tortellini Soup recipe (woo!).  I’m doing the same thing today, and I plan to continue that every time I post a recipe.  Thanks for all the free PDF writer suggestions…I’m most appreciative!

Because this coffeecake uses no yeast, the preparation is about as simple as that of muffins.  You mix the dry ingredients together:

Cream the butter and sugar, and add an egg and some milk.

Combine the two, and spread into a greased 8×8 pan (or a 9×13 if you’re making a double recipe, as I was this particular day).

Now, that boring-looking white blob of dough is a coffeecake, but it’s not a cinnamon crumble coffeecake.  So, to lift it out of the boring realm and into the heavenly, mix the brown sugar, butter and cinnamon together.

and dump it all on top of the coffeecake.

Using a fork, swirl the cinnamon mixture all through the coffeecake dough.

Then, bake it and enjoy the cinnamon-y goodness.

Here’s a printable Cinnamon Crumble Coffeecake Recipe, and for those of you who don’t have a PDF reader, here’s a regular version.

Cinnamon Crumble Coffeecake

Coffeecake Ingredients
3/4 cup sugar
¼ cup softened butter
1 egg
½ cup milk
1½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Cinnamon Crumble Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350.

2. Cream butter and sugar, and mix in egg and milk.

3. Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl.

4. Gently mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients just until moistened, and spread into a greased 8×8-inch baking pan.

5. Combine cinnamon crumble ingredients and sprinkle atop coffeecake dough.  Using a fork, swirl cinnamon mixture through dough.

6. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.

Yesterday, the kids and I baked cookies (with cookie cutters that were bought for pennies in Januarys past).

This was always one of my favorite Christmas activities when I was young, and my kids are like me in that regard.

They enjoy the whole process from cutting the cookies out….

to decorating.

They’re all quite fond of liberally using sprinkles (which were, naturally, purchased post Christmas on deep discount).

We always end up with a table full of very colorful cookies.

And a LOT of mess.

Oddly enough, the mess is conspicuously absent from my childhood memories of cookie baking.  

(Joshua was there with us…he just managed to stay out of almost all the pictures!)

This year, I used a Christmas Cookie recipe from the Girl Talk blog (I omitted the nutmeg and added a teaspoon of vanilla, though) because the one my family traditionally uses calls for a small amount of Crisco, and I had none.  I did, however, use our traditional frosting recipe, because I think all good frostings should include butter.

I usually make 1.5 times the frosting recipe for one recipe’s worth of cookies because some of my children are fairly,  um, generous when they spread the frosting.

Christmas Cookie Frosting

1/4 cup softened butter
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk or cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

Whip the butter until soft and fluffy. Mix in half the powdered sugar, the milk, and the vanilla. Add remaining cup of powdered sugar and beat until smooth, adding more milk if necessary.

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If you have kids of your own or if other people’s kids are in your life (our neighbor’s daughter joined us yesterday), I highly recommend baking cookies with them. Though it requires an investment of time (and a lot of cleaning up!), kids take such delight in being allowed to participate in the baking and decorating process. I think you’ll find yourself thinking, even in the midst of the sweeping and wiping, that it was an awfully good use of your time.

Happy Baking!