Breads and Muffins

Cinnamon Rolls in Durango

cinnrolls1These cinnamon rolls began their life in Amarillo, Texas and will see the end of their days in Durango, Colorado.  My family,all 13 of us, are spending the week in Durango.  My brother-in-law’s family has about 80 acres of land just outside of the city that backs up to National Forest which means that we are completely isolated in peaceful, beautiful, glorious nature…well, I still have internet access and cell phone service.  It is incredible out here and I am going to really enjoy the next 7 days of vacation.

My parents, my sister, her husband and my nephew all drove up to Amarillo on Friday evening to stay the night.  I decided to make cinnamon rolls for Saturday morning before we left for Durango.  I found this recipe for “Overnight Cinnamon Rolls” on the Food Network website, from Alton Brown.

I started the rolls on Friday night.  The dough was nice and soft after mixing it up, and so I set it aside to double in size which, according to the recipe, should have taken between 2 and 2 1/2 hours.  Not so, Alton!  I let the dough sit, covered, in my kitchen for almost 3 hours and it increased a little, but not near double.  I was ready to admit defeat and I was prepared to make a trip to Donut Stop on Saturday morning.  I decided to keep going with the rolls and see what would happen.  Maybe there was still some hope.  I rolled out the dough, brushed on some melted butter, sprinkled the cinnamon sugar filling, rolled the dough into a cylinder and cut the rolls into 11 pieces (it should have been 12, but 11 would have to do).  I placed the rolls into a 9×13 pan, covered the pan in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for the night.

In the morning, there was no change in the size of the rolls.  Ok, so now I was REALLY thinking we’d have store bought donuts for breakfast.  But I continued with the recipe, letting the rolls sit in the oven with a tray of boiling water for 30 minutes.  No rising occurred in this time either.  But I was determined to finish this recipe to the bitter end, so I baked the rolls for 30 minutes…a miracle!  They finally spread out, rose nicely, turned a golden brown, filled my house with a warm cinnamon aroma and were practically begging for some cream cheese icing.  I spread the icing on the warm rolls, and they were ready to be eaten.  We did not finish the pan, so we brought them in the car up to Durango and just finished them off.

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Blueberry Focaccia

I never would have tried this recipe had it not been for one of the partners at Bens firm.  During a recent flight (with an apparent lack of reading material) he saw the recipe in this months Woman’s Day and the recipe found its way to my email inbox.  Thanks, Sam!

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I love blueberries.  I like them cool from the fridge, but there is something about them after they’ve cooked that is spectacular.  They pop in your mouth and release all the warm sweet juices in a completely different way than a raw berry.

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Strawberry Bread

So many strawberries!  I used up the rest of them in this strawberry bread.  I liked this bread.  I made 4 mini loaves with this recipe and baked them for a little less time.  The tops of the loaves got nice and crunchy.  The bread is wonderfully moist.  The strawberry pieces are not too sweet and perfectly tart.

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I usually grease and flour my bread pans, but I tried something different with this bread.  I greased and floured 2 of the pans and greased and sugared the other two.

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Soda Bread: So easy a monkey can do it

What do you do when you need bread for dinner and it’s 6:oo, and your husband doesn’t have his cell phone, so you can’t make him pick up a loaf on his way home?  Make this soda bread!

soda_bread

I made this last night for dinner, and it was delicious.  A nice crunchy exterior with a soft interior.  I had to make a few changes to the original recipe since my kitchen is pretty far from being well stocked at the moment.  I added some dried thyme to make the bread a bit savory.  If you leave out the thyme, this bread would be great plain with a spread of butter and some honey.  Raisins would make it a nice breakfast bread.

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No-Knead Bread

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I’ve seen more than one blog in the past few weeks with a no-knead bread post.  I read one recipe around 11 AM the other day and thought, “This sounds great!  I will make it tonight!”  but then I saw that it has to rise for 12-18 hours.  Well.  Unless I wanted to eat fresh bread at 2AM, it wasn’t going to happen that day.  So, I got up with Ben at 5:45 the next morning and made bread dough.  I didn’t have any bread flour, so I used a recipe that calls for all purpose flour.  I used this recipe from motherearthnews.com, and substituted 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour for 1/2 cup of the all purpose.  

The dough is so easy is mix up.  4 ingredients in a bowl.  

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Mix.  Cover with plastic wrap and forget about it for half the day.  It doesn’t get much easier than that.  After the 12 hour rise it looked good.

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After a bit of kneading, a sprinkle of cornmeal and an additional hour, it looked unchanged…hmm.  I decided to move ahead with the baking even though possible failure was in my future.

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Ta-da!  It isn’t the prettiest loaf of bread, but it tasted good.  I loved the nice crunchy exterior and even ate just the crusty goodness of one piece with some butter.  Yum.

bread

No Knead, Dutch Oven Bread

  • 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. You may use white, whole wheat or a combination of the two.
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting
  1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
  2. The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
  3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Generously coat a clean dish towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
  4. At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that’s OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes.
  5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.