Pumpkin Beer Bread

modified from Nugget Markets

It's fall and time for pumpkin foods! Yay!!! We were at Nugget yesterday. (If you don't know Nugget, it's an awesome local grocery store chain.)  And we saw this recipe. I got so excited. I had made a beer bread last March, and it was good so I wanted to try another one. This one's got pumpkin, cheese, and beer! This bread did not disappoint!! It is delicious! The pumpkin flavor is very light- there's only ½ a cup! But I would say the flavor is going to be dependent on the flavors of your cheese and beer choices.

2 cup flour

½ cup corn meal

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp salt

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp ginger

⅛ tsp nutmeg

½ cup pumpkin puree

½ cup melted butter

2 eggs

3 leaves fresh sage, thin sliced

3 oz cheese, diced into 14-inch cubes

8 oz beer

¼ cup raw pumpkin seeds

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Grease a loaf pan.
3. Combine flour, corn meal, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a mixing bowl and whisk together.
4. In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, butter, eggs, sage, and cheese.
5. Create a small well in the center of the flour mixture and add beer and pumpkin mixture to the well. Stir until dough comes together- as with all quick breads be careful not to over mix!
6. Pour the mixture into prepared loaf pan.
7. Top with pumpkin seeds.
8. Bake until done, approximately 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
9. Remove from pan and allow to cool.

Grandma Ruth's Buttermilk Biscuits

These are my grandmother's biscuits. I had never made them before, but this morning I had a hankering for biscuits. I could use a standard cookbook recipe (I've done that before), but this time I thought- Grandma's!!! :) Her recipe didn't have a time on it, so I consulted a cookbook and settled on 8-10 minutes. Also, since I had decided that I wanted to roll them out, but didn't have a circular cookie cutter, I would use the ring of a canning jar lid to cut them out. Worked perfectly!!

3 cup flour

½ tsp baking soda

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

½ cup shortening

1 cup buttermilk

1.  Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
2.  Add the shortening and buttermilk.
3. Roll out or drop as desired.
4. Bake on an ungreased pat at 425° for 8-10 minutes.

Easy Egg Bread

I wanted to try a new bread so I thought I'd try this egg bread. It is huuuuuuuuge, easy, and yummy. 

4 to 4½ cups bread flour

2¼ tsp yeast

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp salt

½ cup water

½ cup milk

2 tbsp butter

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 egg yolk and 1 tsp milk, whisked together (egg wash)

1. In large mixer bowl, combine 2 cups flour, yeast, sugar and salt; mix well.
2. In saucepan, heat water, milk and shortening/butter until warm (120-130°F; shortening/butter does not need to melt).
3. Add to flour mixture.
4. Slowly add slightly beaten eggs.
5. Blend at low speed until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed.
6. By hand, gradually stir in enough remaining flour to make a firm dough.
7.  Knead on floured surface until smooth and elastic, 5 to 8 minutes.
8. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and turn to grease top.
9. Cover; let rise about an hour.
10. Punch down dough.
11. Divide into 3 parts.
12. On lightly floured surface, roll each third to a 15-inch rope.
13. On greased cookie sheet loosely braid from center to ends.
14.  Pinch ends and tuck under to seal.
15. Cover; let rise in warm place until indentation remains after lightly touching, about 30-45 minutes.
16. Brush with egg wash.
17. Bake at 400°F for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown.
18. Remove from cookie sheet; cool on wire rack.

 

Oatmeal Toasting & Sandwich Bread

I've been looking for a new bread to try. I was thinking that it would be good to do an oatmeal bread, and this one sounded like a good one to try. I thought I found this one on Honest Cooking, but I couldn't find it when I looked again. 

3 cups flour

1 cup rolled oats

2 tablespoons butter

1½ teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons brown sugar or honey

2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (dissolve it in the warm milk before combining with the remaining ingredients)

1¼ cups lukewarm milk

¾ cup raisins or currants (optional)

1. Combine all of the ingredients, mixing to form a shaggy dough. Knead the dough until it's smooth.
2. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and allow it to rest for 1 hour; it'll become quite puffy, though it may not double in bulk.
3. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and allow it to rest for 1 hour.
4. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled surface, and shape it into a log.
5. Place the log in a lightly greased 9" x 5" loaf pan, cover the pan, and allow the dough to rise for 60 to 90 minutes.
6. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
7. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes. If the bread appears to be browning too quickly, tent it with aluminum foil for the final 10 minutes of baking.
8. Remove the bread from the oven, wait a couple of minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool.

Double Cheese and Rosemary Pull Apart Bread

from: http://honestcooking.com/double-cheese-rosemary-pull-apart-bread/

I've always wanted to try to make a pull-apart bread, and this is the one I decided try! Mine didn't come out as beautiful as the one on Honest Cooking, but it was tasty all the same!

Dough:

2 tablespoons sugar, divided

2¼ tsp active dry yeast

¼ cup hot water

3 cups flour

½ tsp salt

¼ cup butter

⅓ cup milk

2 eggs

2 tablespoons finely chopped rosemary

Filling:

¼ cup butter, melted

2 garlic gloves, minced

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

⅓ cup grated parmesan cheese

1. In a small bowl, mix ½ tablespoon of sugar, yeast, and hot water. Stir and set aside for about 10 minutes to allow yeast to activate. It should get nice and puffy.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the rest of the sugar, salt, milk, and melted butter, eggs, rosemary, and yeast.
3. Use a wooden spoon to gradually stir in the flour, 1 cup at a time. Keep stirring until the dough comes away from the edge, at least a good 2. The dough will be a bit sticky.
4. Place the ball of dough in a large greased bowl, and cover it with a clean dish towel.
5. Let rise in a warm place for an hour, or until doubled in size.
6. Deflate the dough, and knead in a tablespoon or two of flour depending on the stickiness of the dough.
7. Let rest for 5 minutes.
8. Mix together melted butter and garlic, and set aside.
9. Roll dough out on a floured surface to create a rectangle about 12"x20" This will be a bit hard since the dough doesn't want to stretch easily. You'll get there!
10. Spread garlic butter mixture onto the dough, be generous with the butter. Sprinkle evenly with cheeses.
11. Cut dough into 6 short strips (a pizza cutter is a good idea).
12. Stack them on top of each other, and then cut into 4 or 5 more strips depending on how wide you rolled your dough.
13. Carefully stack strips into a greased 9"x5" loaf pan. If it's a really tight fit, then leave out a few strips, and bake them in a mini loaf pan.
14. Let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.
15. Sprinkle a bit of extra cheese on top if you'd like.
16. Bake at 350° degrees for 30-35 minutes.
17. If your loaf starts getting super brown before the 30 minutes are up, place a piece of tinfoil over the top of the loaf to keep it from getting any darker.
18. Let cool slightly, and serve warm!

Homemade Soft Pretzels

from: the Fresh Loaf

When I was a kid, I lived in Philly, and one of my fondest memories is getting fresh pretzels from vendors around town. In my memory these vendors were everywhere and the pretzels were amazing! I haven't been back to Philly in a million years, and on the West Coast, you just can't get a fresh pretzel on the street. Sigh... You can go to a mall and get something there, and frankly they don't and never have lived up to my memories of Philly pretzels. So we were in Germany for ten minutes one time years ago, and I wanted a pretzel! We could only find them in the train station, and while totally different from my Philly memories, they were amazing! So how does one satisfy this itch? Well, I decided that this might be the way! I didn't actually think that pretzels would be so easy to make, and I thought the boiling water thing would be scary, but it was fun! Now, these pretzels were good! Way above a mall pretzel! But not quite as great as my famed Philly (or Germany) pretzel experiences but good! Definitely worth it! Pair these with an amazing mustard and you're set!

2-3 cups flour
1 tsp yeast
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm milk

1. Combine 2 cups of flour, yeast, brown sugar, salt, and warm milk to form a thick batter.
2. Add the remaining flour as needed until a nice smooth ball of dough is formed.
3. Put the dough in greased bowl, cover with a towel, and let it rise in a warm place for an hour.
4. Roll out the dough and let it rest for 5-10 minutes.
5. Cut the dough into 6 pieces.
6. Roll each one into a short log and cover with a towel.
7. Let the logs rest for 5-10 minutes.
8. Roll each log out again.
9. Let the logs rest for 5-10 minutes.
10. By the third roll they should each be about 15 inches long and about as big around as your index finger. They’ll nearly double in width while baking, so it is okay to roll them out quite thin.
11. Preheat the oven to 425°.
12. Bring a large, wide pot of water to a boil.
13. Take each rope of dough, holding an end in each hand, loop the dough away from you, and bring the ends back toward your stomach, crossing them about an inch above the rope.
14. Apply a little bit of pressure to make the loops stick together, but not too much because you don’t want them to flatten out.
15. Drop each pretzel into the boiling water until they float up, which should be about 5 seconds.
16. Place them onto a baking sheet and sprinkle with coarse salt while still wet.
17. Bake until golden and brown, about 15 minutes.