#FunnyFriday

Bread Talk

Practically all the things that I bake, I love! I love the way they taste, I love the process involved in making them, and you really can't wrong with the smell either.

But, bread? Man!! Don't get me wrong, I have a mad sweet tooth and I love making sweets,  but, bread holds a special place in my heart. I love how involved in the process you have to be. I love (ok, I hate it sometimes) how one single thing can change the way a loaf will turn out. I love how it's so simple, yet so complex. Also, I'm pretty sure I love it because it's an excuse to get a whole section of the kitchen counter messy. :-)

I have no clue why I decided to go on a bread speech. Aw well. I needed something to write about.

Sourdough

I'm rather pleased that I can add Sourdough to the list of breads that I can make! 

Sourdough is one of those breads where it's a process. You have to be involved and take it step by step. It's also one of those breads where it takes an attempt or two to get it just so.

attempt #1

The frisbees

My first attempt missed the mark a little bit. It didn't smell quite right and it didn't rise very much, which lead it to be dense. I thought I knew dense before this loaf, but oh no! This loaf was so dense my brother really, really wanted to use it as a target for shooting. Pretty sure he still wishes we did...

Anyway. The results of attempt 1 were only fuel to my fire. So, the next day, I looked at more recipes and I found one. Before I found it, I was wondering if you could use a regular bread recipe and add some of the Starter to it for flavor. The recipe I found did just that. I used the recipe. It was magic bananas! The classic sourdough smell was there, it rose, and it looked gorgeous. But as good as it looked and smelled, it tasted even better!

Attempt #2

So, the next time I make Sourdough, I'm going to use my  go-to bread recipe with some of the sourdough starter. And then I'll post an official So Easy My Cat Could Bake It Sourdough recipe.

For now, you'll have to wait! 

Crusty Flat-bread

Looking for a flat-bread recipe was interesting and challenging mainly because most of the results on Pinterest that came up didn't look like flat-bread. They looked more like tortillas and pitas, which I suppose, are flat-breads. But not what I was looking for. And then my Mom found this recipe. It turns out that I should have searched for "Crusty Flat-bread"

For this recipe you will need:

• 11/2 cups warm water
• 11/2 teaspoon yeast
• 1 packed cup of cooked mashed potato
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 41/2 cups flour 

Topping (If desired)

• 1 to 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoon fresh rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

The first thing you need to do is activate the yeast. Add the yeast to the water in a bowl, be sure to let it stand for 2 minutes. 

In a separate bowl, combine the mashed potatoes and olive oil together. Then add the flour and salt. Next, you add the water/yeast mixture and combine it all together until its just starting to come off of the sides of the bowl.

The next step is to turn the dough onto a floured counter, and knead it about 30 times with lightly oiled hands. Once you've done that, place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl to let it rise. You want to let it rise is a safe place, a cool oven is a good place - just make sure that you advise everyone that your dough is in there so they don't accidentally turn on the oven and bake your dough. This dough needs to rise for 3-4 hours.

After it has risen, you want to divide it in half.

The next step is to shape each half into a ball.

Once that is done, the next step is to flatten out the dough on a cookie sheet, press dimples into it and lightly oil it.

After that, you sprinkle the rosemary and salt. You could experiment with other herbs on it, as well.

This bakes at 425° Fahrenheit, for 25 minutes or until golden. When the flat-bread is done, it should sound hollow when you tap on it.


This flat-bread was delicious! It was good by itself and it was good as the bread for a sandwich. I am going to try this recipe again sometime, but I am not going to flatten it out so much because cutting the flat-bread in half, proved to be difficult, since it was so thin.

5 out of 5 cat whiskers.
Mom found the recipe here.

Meatball Subs (French Bread Pt.3)

For my third experiment with the French Bread dough, I made buns for meatball subs. I think it's safe to say that this bread dough is quickly becoming a favorite recipe of mine. You could also call the buns mini loaves of bread.

I did everything like the recipe, up until the shaping part. Instead of dividing the dough into to two, I divided it into four.

Then I stretched it the long way, folded it over, stretched it again, until it got to a shape I was happy with. Then I pinched the ends, put the seam on the bottom and let it rise for 5 to 10 minutes. Mom suggested next time to roll the dough after it was shaped, that way the top gets domed.

After they had a chance to rise again, I cut the slashes on the top. And then put them in the oven preheated to 450°F for 20 to 25 minutes.

Once again the way to tell when they are done is to check the bottom. Keep in mind that the longer they're in, the harder they're going to be.

Homemade Calzones (French Bread Part. 2)

Forget about pizza, bread sticks and bread... everyone talks about those a lot. What about Calzones? In my opinion calzones are the best of the best, they are like a pizza burrito!

So, guess what awesomeness we concocted in our kitchen over the weekend? Homemade calzones.

We used the FrenchBread recipe for the crust and made two batches. We made the bread like it says, except after the dough was made and put in the bowl, we just left it in the cool oven until we were ready to make the calzones.... yup, we left it where it was safest, away from dog and cat hair.

When we were ready, we put the dough on a round cooking sheet that was greased with olive oil. We cut the dough in half and kept one half on the sheet and the other went back into the bowl. Then we spread the dough over the cooking sheet, like you would for pizza crust. 

After that, we put the ingredients on half of it, then we folded the part of the dough with nothing on it on top of the other half. Next, we tucked in the crust, making sure it was sealed. We sprinkled some garlic salt the crust once in was sealed, and I put some cheese on my crust. We each made our own calzone... which was probably too much. Next time we will just make two or divide the dough in four.

We put them in the oven without a timer and just kept and eye on them. If I had to guess they were in for about 30 minutes. The oven was preheated to 350°F when we started, but about halfway through we increased it to 400°F. In my opinion, the oven should be preheated to 400°F degrees from the start, because that's when the calzones started to brown. And it would probably take less time to bake, as well. 

It was perfect! 

French Bread

          

The recipe I found called it french bread, and boy was it good!

This bread was not only delicious, but it smelled fantastic... which is a sure sign it's a good bread recipe! Seriously, if I could capture the smell and put it here, I definitely would!

 

To make this you need 4 cups of flour, 1 1/2 cups of warm water, 2 Tsp (one packet) of active yeast, 2 tsp of salt and 2 to 3 tsp of sugar. I find it amazing that it uses just five ingredients.

I combined the warm water, sugar and yeast in a measuring cup to test if the yeast was alive. The water absolutely has to be warm, it can't be too hot or too cold, because it will kill the yeast. The reason the sugar is mixed in with this mixture is because it helps the yeast. 

Dough with the paddle attachment

Dough with the dough hook.

Once you see bubbles, pour the mixture in a mixer with 3 3/4 cups flour and the salt. The remaining 1/4 cup of flour is for dusting the counter. Mix the dough for one minute with the paddle attachment, then let it rest, and then resume mixing it with the dough hook for 2 to 3 mins. One thing to note: when you make bread you must pay attention to the weather. If it's humid, you'll most likely need more flour. If it's less humid outside, you'll most likely need more water. If you decide that you need more of either, add it a tsp at a time, but keep in mind that this is a slightly wet dough. It sticks a bit to the sides of the bowl, but is easy to work with.

Next, knead it a couple times, until it can be formed into a nice compact ball. The recipe said to use as much flour as you need to knead into the dough to make it nice and compact, but I honestly didn't use that much.

Once the dough is in a nice ball, lightly grease a bowl and place the dough in the bowl so the dough may rise. While it was rising I put the bowl in the oven (the oven was off). The oven is a nice calm place for the dough to rise. The dough needs to rise at least 11/2 hours, or until it's doubled in size. You can also put plastic wrap over the bowl if you want.

Look at it! It rose!

Now is time for the best part... The shaping. Before you can shape it though, you have to  punch the dough. Once you've punched the dough, cut the dough in half, leaving one half in the bowl and put the other on the counter. At this stage of the game, you can't knead the dough again, or you'll lose all the air you created. So, you pick it up one end in each hand, and stretch it to the length you want. I stretched it 2 to 3 times, stretching it and then folding it over, stretching and folding over... until I got this. 
 

Once it is to the shape of your liking, pinch the ends. This traps the air in it, so it doesn't end up lop sided. And then repeat with the other loaf.

Now put these back in the oven that's off, or a safe place, for 30 minutes, or until you are almost ready to bake them.

When it's time to bake them, take them out of the safe place and preheat your oven to 450 degrees. It's time to make the slashes. The slashes help release the steam, but they also give the bread a traditional look. To make the slashes, some people use a knife and others use scissors, either way works. Before the loaves went in the oven, I put a little olive oil on them because I was afraid they wouldn't brown properly. But this may not be necessary if you don't want.

Bake them for 20 to 25 minutes. It took 25 minutes for mine to bake.

 The way to tell if they are done is to look at the bottoms. If the bottoms are nice and golden too, they are ready for consumption.

Next time I would...
The next time will probably be in spring, because Mom had a cool idea of adding a little rosemary into the dough. I mean can you imagine that? That would smell amazing.    

The thoughts are... 
Yum! This was fantastic! It was good with butter, by itself, and it was good with my brothers idea: a little olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl and dip the bread in that:) Definitely 5 out of 5 whiskers! 

Adapted from this recipe

Bread Sticks

 

 I've done it. I've tried a recipe with yeast. Bread Sticks to be exact. But the dough didn't rise.

I was watching the cooking channel, and I saw the way they activated the yeast. It was different from the way I did it, so I think I activated it wrong... thus the reason it didn't rise. This recipe was sort of a spur of the moment recipe, so the next time I try this recipe I will watch some videos on activating yeast, and bread stick dough.

Before the oven

They still turned out alright, but they were just a bit dense... Not fluffy.

After the oven

   
 But you know what, They still taste good... And that's what matters, right? 

Apple Cranberry Pumpkin Bread and Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

A couple of weeks after making the Cranberry Pumpkin Bread, my brother and I experimented with the recipe by  adding different things instead of the dried cranberries. We came up with two very tasty results.  

               

The first one is... Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread!

Have you ever had a Spice Cookie? Because that is what this combo reminds me of. And let me just add that you get a chocolate chip in just about every single bite, which I think is how you know you've put the perfect amount of chocolate chips in your batter. Another awesome thing about the chocolate chips is, when they came out of the oven and cooled I don't think that the chocolate chips completely re-hardened which made it messy, but so tasty!

The other combo is... Apple Cranberry Pumpkin Bread!

This combination was more like the Cranberry Pumpkin Bread... Just with the added kick from the apples. I have to say that this one was my favorite  out of the two, which is a little odd for me because I usually go for anything that is sweet and has chocolate. Two things to note with this combo... 1) my mom recommends Granny Smith apples for this because they are tart rather than sweet...which should kick it up a notch! and 2) the Apple Cranberry Pumpkin Bread had to bake longer than the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread due to the moisture that the baking apples pieces added.

Both of these combos were awesome! I think these were 4 and a half stars. Soon I will post the recipe and I will be sure to include the measurements of the substitutions.