yeast – Oven Love

Honey Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Natalie — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:16:00 +0000

I am always on the search for the best recipes out there. I know that doesn’t sound strange- who isn’t looking for great recipes? (Hopefully that’s why you’re here reading Oven Love.) But I mean I’m looking for the perfect recipes- the recipes you finally keep after months or years of looking. The recipes that you come back to again and again.

This roll recipe is the best I’ve found to date. It is exactly what I want when I think of a whole wheat dinner roll. I have tried others before- they came out too dry, or didn’t rise, or just tasted like cardboard. I eventually found this recipe through Saving Naturally and haven’t looked for another recipe since.

These rolls are soft and dense, not airy. I love to slather them with honey butter right after they come out of the oven. They are just as tasty at room temperature- I recommend using them to make sandwiches with leftovers, too. These rolls do not last long in our house.

The recipe below makes two dozen rolls (two of the pans pictured). If you only need one pan of rolls, you can freeze the second one (fully baked), you can form them into larger buns, make a loaf of bread, or even use it for pizza crust.

If you’re looking for a trustworthy roll recipe made with healthy, whole grain flour, you should give this one a try. You can feel good about feeding these to your family and I can guarantee they’ll enjoy them. This one’s a keeper.

Honey Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

http://savingnaturally.com/2010/11/honey-whole-grain-dinner-rolls/

Author: Saving Naturally

Recipe type: Bread

Ingredients

¼ cup very warm (not hot) water
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
½ tsp honey or sugar
2 cups filtered hot water (not boiling)
⅓ cup melted butter or coconut oil
½ cup honey
2 tsp sea salt
7-9 cups whole grain flour (Whole wheat, kamut, spelt, etc. With wheat, you’ll need a little less flour, so don’t put it all in at once.)

Instructions

Proof the yeast, by mixing the ¼ cup warm water, yeast and ½ tsp honey/sugar in a small bowl. Let it sit for 5 minutes while you move on to the next step.
In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 cups hot water, melted butter/coconut oil, honey and salt. Then add 3 cups of the flour and mix well. Lastly, add the yeast mixture and mix well again.
Add some more of the remaining flour, until dough is thick enough to turn out onto a well-floured surface. Begin kneading, using more of the remaining flour as needed to keep it from sticking. Knead for about 10-15 minutes, until the dough is smooth and begins to resist your kneading (a test is this– if you push the dough in with your fist or finger, it will begin to spring back out at you).
First rise. Lightly grease a large bowl (I usually use extra virgin olive oil), shape dough into nice ball and turn it a few times in the bowl, to cover it with oil. Let it sit there, covered with a cloth, in a warm place until it doubles in size. Usually takes about 1 to 1½ hours, but it’s fine if it takes longer.
Second rise. Punch the dough down gently, turn it around and re-shape into a ball, then put it back in the bowl and cover it with the cloth. Allow it to rise again until doubled, about 45-60 minutes.
Punch dough down gently once again, then take out and place on counter (with flour under it) and cover with a cloth. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare your pan by greasing it (a 8×8 square pan works well, but you can also use a 9×13). I like to save my butter wrappers in the fridge to use for greasing baking pans.
Shape the buns. First, divide the dough in half. Each half will make about 1 dozen buns, depending how big you make them. Smooth your dough and turn begin to pinch off small pieces of dough, about the size of a mandarin orange. Literally push the dough between your forefinger and thumb, closing your fingers until the dough is actually pinched right off of the larger piece. Continue to do this until you fill your pan.
Cover pan with a cloth and allow to rise again, until buns are just a little bit smaller than desired size (remember that they will rise again slightly with the heat of the oven). I will let mine sit anywhere from 10 minutes to another 30-40 minutes.
Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, until just golden on the top. Remove from oven and flip buns onto wire racks to cool.
Another option if you don’t need that many rolls for your dinner is to make only half of the recipe into buns. The other half can be made exactly the same but shaped into a bread loaf and baked for 35-45 minutes instead. You can also use it as a pizza crust (see the Saving Naturally post for baking details.)

Jim Lahey’s Stecca Bread

Natalie — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:23:00 +0000

I mentioned in my last post that we love great bread at our picnics. Sometimes we just tear it up and eat it in chunks with cheese and fruit and sometimes we’ll do sandwiches. For some reason, great bread just makes a picnic more memorable (and obviously more delicious).

This recipe is a perfect picnic choice, whether you’re tearing or sandwiching. It’s from Jim Lahey’s book, My Bread. (Yes, the no-knead bread Jim Lahey!) You’ll have to plan ahead a little for the dough to sit, but there’s little effort involved. The bread is the best on the day you make it, so plan to pop it in the oven on the morning before your picnic. My favorite thing about this bread is the coarse salt on top. I could eat it all day (which sometimes I do).

Two of our favorite sandwich pairings we’ve enjoyed on Stecca bread are Caprese (tomato, basil, fresh mozzarella) and Ham with Gruyere. You can put anything on these loaves, whatever you like. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite sandwich pairings are.So, tell me. What are your favorite sandwiches? What sandwiches do you order out that you wish you could recreate at home?

Jim Lahey’s Stecca Bread

Prep time

20 hours

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

20 hours 30 mins

from the book, ‘My Bread’ If you want to keep the baguettes plain like I did, just skip the step of embedding the garlic, olives and cherry tomatoes.

Author: Jim Lahey

Recipe type: Bread

Serves: 12

Ingredients

3 cups (400 grams) bread flour
½ teaspoon table salt
¾ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon instant or other active dry yeast
1½ cups (350 grams) cool 55-65F water
additional flour for dusting
20 pieces of the any combination of following: whole garlic cloves, whole olives, halved cherry tomatoes (optional)
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¾ teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt

Instructions

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, table salt, sugar and yeast. Add the water and, using a wooden spoon, mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough is more than doubled in size, 10 to 18 hours (24 hours if you have a cold cold home.)
When the first rise is complete, generously dust a work surface with flour. Use a bowl scraper or rubber spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl in one piece. Fold the dough over itself to her three times and gently shape it into a somewhat flattened ball. Brush the surface of the dough with some of the olive oil and sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon of the coarse salt (which will gradually dissolve on the surface).
Grab a large bowl (large enough to hold the dough when it doubles in size. you could also use a large pot) and brush the insides of the bowl with olive oil. Gently place the dough, seam side down into the bowl. Cover bowl with a towel. Place in a warm draft free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours. The dough is ready when it is almost doubled. If you gently poke it with your finger, it should hold the impression. If it springs back, let it rise for another 15 minutes.
Half an hour before the end of the second rise, pre-heat the oven to 500F, with a rack in the center. Oil a 13″ x 18″ x 1″ baking sheet.
Cut the dough into quarters. Gently stretch each piece evenly into a long, thin, baguette shape approximately the length of the pan. Place on the pan, leaving about 1 inch between the loaves. Embed the garlic cloves, olives or cherry tomatoes into the loaves, about five pieces per loaf. Drizzle, tab or brush olive oil on each loaf. Sprinkle sea salt or kosher salt over each loaf, remember to go light on the olive loaf since the olives are salty.
Bake For 15 to 25 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. Cool on a pan for five minutes, then use a spatula to transfer the baguette to a rack to cool thoroughly.
Note: The baguette may become a bit soggy in just a few hours because of the salt on the surface. If that happens, reheat the loaves in a hot oven until crisp.

Cinnamon Sugar Baked Doughnuts

Natalie — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:25:00 +0000

Back in January, when I started this whole great adventure, I promised you doughnuts during Brunch Month. It took me all month, but I can finally deliver!

Here’s my deal with doughnuts. I usually don’t eat them. I don’t work in an office these days, and I don’t make a habit of driving through Krispy Kreme (only once in my life while I was pregnant, don’t tell!). They just aren’t my usual breakfast fare. But I still think they’re a fantastic treat.

Here’s my other deal. Why are they always fried? Come on, America. Let’s get it together.
I decided to search for a good looking baked doughnut recipe that didn’t require a doughnut pan (like lots of baked doughnut recipes out there do).
I think this one is just perfect.

And also- how good are doughnut holes? I think they’re my favorite (higher cinnamon sugar to doughnut ratio). I ate about a million.

Try not to overbake these little yummies. You don’t want the insides to be dry, okay?

And try to make them to order if you can. I had a group of my girlfriends over to taste test for me (thanks, girls!), and I made sure to plan ahead so they were ready to pop in the oven upon their arrival. You just need about two hours ahead of time for the rising (so if brunch is at 10, start them at 8).

I think you’ll find that these are just as tasty as those Krispy Kremes (in their own way).
Did I mention there’s white whole wheat flour in these babies?
You have my permission to call them healthy. Go get your brunch on!

Cinnamon Sugar Baked Doughnuts

Prep time

2 hours 30 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

2 hours 40 mins

only slightly adapted from 101 Cookbooks- http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001561.html

Author: Oven Love

Recipe type: Breakfast, Dessert

Serves: 18

Ingredients

1⅓ cups warm milk, 95 to 105 degrees (divided)
1 packet active dry yeast (2¼ teaspoons)
2 tablespoons butter
⅔ cup sugar
2 eggs
5 cups flour (I used 3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups white whole wheat flour)
A pinch or two of nutmeg, freshly grated
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
1½ cups sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions

Place ⅓ cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn’t too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt – just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. This is where you are going to need to make adjustments – if your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry? Add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.
Transfer the dough to a buttered (or oiled) bowl, cover, put in a warm place (I turn on the oven at this point and set the bowl on top), and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.
Punch down the dough and roll it out ½-inch thick on your floured countertop. Most people (like myself) don’t have a doughnut cutter, instead I use a 2-3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes out any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.
Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes – start checking around 8. While the doughnuts are baking, place the butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.
Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl. Eat immediately if not sooner.