Breadmaking, take 1

After getting used to things fresh from the oven, like the pizza dough earlier this week or the drop biscuits that have gone with various things, we’ve decided to extend this to bread for sandwiches.

I found this recipe and followed some advice from previous bakers to adapt it for sandwich rolls. The original recipe even states that it’s versatile, and can be made to work with dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, or whatever.

I reduced the sugar, since these are intended for sandwiches, and replaced 1 3/4 cups of A.P. flour with strong brown bread flour.

Not having a breadmaker, I stuck mostly to the steps described by summer_lover in the reviews (2nd from top as of this posting).

I also shaped them into 8 round balls instead of the crescents described in the original recipe, as other bakers had done this without damaging the finished product.

As it turns out, one additional step is needed that isn’t mentioned by anyone – re-shape the dough after the $%^&* cat walks across the pan. Luckily, I’d already covered it, so I didn’t have to waste any of the dough.

The bread is on its second rise right now, the cat has been banished outside until they’re finished, and with luck, Fraser will be taking a sandwich on homemade bread for lunch tomorrow.

I hope they’re good, since this was an easy recipe, and could potentially save us a little money, since the recipe probably cost a third, if not less, than the cost of a loaf of the bread we usually get.

– Heather

Tomato Galette

Link: Tomato Galette

We cut this recipe out of the newspaper a few weeks ago (click the title above to get the recipe from the Guardian website), and it’s one of the few times we’ve had to buy special things that we wouldn’t ordinarily include in our shopping. It was worth it, though! We did end up using the entire jar of sundried tomatoes, because as written, the recipe didn’t make nearly enough of the paste (at least, to our thinking). I think the only other modification we made was in using a lower fat puff pastry, instead of an all-butter one. It went together really quickly and easily, and we’ll probably make it again, but on a pizza crust next time, since we’ve recently discovered a really good, quick, and easy dough recipe (see previous post).

Homemade Pizza x2

We made pizza last night, and it was so good, we made it again tonight. Okay, in reality, today was supposed to be grocery shopping day, but we didn’t feel like going out. Luckily, Annika’s pizza sauce recipe made enough for 2 pies and we’d frozen half of it, and the crust could not be easier. When making the sauce, we just used a potato masher to crush the tomatoes, since we totally do not have a food processor. Note for fellow Americans, since the recipe only has metric measurements, that’s 3 cups of flour for the crust.

Yesterday, we added some oregano, thyme, and basil to the crust and substituted 1 cup of the all purpose flour for wholemeal flour. We topped it with mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, and onions. As you can see in the comments of the crust recipe, it’s fine if you go ahead and use it without letting it rise, but better if you do. We let it rise while the sauce cooked (about 45 minutes), punched it down, then let it rise again and kneaded it while the oven preheated.

Today, we were nearly out of all purpose flour, so we substituted 2 cups of wholemeal flour. We left out the herbs, but added some chili powder to the sauce, mixed in some caramelized onions left over from yesterday, and topped with cheddar cheese. We didn’t bother with letting the dough rise this time, and the recipe was right – it was still really good.

Both times, the pizza baked perfectly in 20 minutes at 375F/190C. We used a shallow 9 x 13 inch pan (because that’s what we have), and got a more Chicago-style pizza with a nice, thick crust. Someday, we’ll try it on a baking stone.

We’ve had the thought that this dough would also be good for making sandwich rolls, so we may try that after more grocery shopping.

The Witchy Kitchen: Gluten Free

Link: The Witchy Kitchen: Gluten Free

Sharing for the GF friends. Lots of these look awesome, and most (if not all) are also vegetarian.

Chocolate Chip Yogurt Muffins

Link: Chocolate Chip Yogurt Muffins

While my friends in So Cal are melting under record-breaking heat, it’s really strange to me to be shivering and searching for something to bake so I can use the oven to heat up the flat a little (According to the Star Wars weather report, Glasgow is currently a lot like Endor – low 50’s, temperate, but gray & cloudy, with a chance we’ll get our own cartoon series). Also, I found our lack of baked goods disturbing.

I made the recipe almost as written (click on the title above), but with these changes:

I substituted 1/2 cup of the all purpose flour with wholemeal flour.

I accidentally used the 1/3 cup measure for the sugar, oil, and yogurt, and therefore added 2 TBSP more all purpose flour at the last minute.

I used plain white vinegar instead of the apple cider vinegar just because it’s what I had on hand.

I added about a tsp of cinnamon because we like cinnamon in everything, especially this time of year.

As far as I can tell, they didn’t suffer at all for any of this. They do tend to stick to the muffin papers, but as long as you don’t mind looking a little silly when you eat them, that’s not a major problem.

– Heather

Update: For some reason, the next day, they’re not sticking to the paper at all, as long as you peel it off carefully!

The Meaning of All This

In the past month or so, we’ve discovered that we really like cooking and have been collecting various recipes and learning methods and figuring out what we like (see Heather’s blog post on this here). It seems there are lots of you out there who like it when we share the recipes we find or tell stories about our culinary adventures, so it seemed like a good idea to collect them all in one place, where both of us can post and leave it up to you whether you want to follow or not.