Mile High (almost) Club - Cinnamon Bread

Mile-high (Club) Cinnamon Bread

This past weekend I took a trip to Denver to attend a wedding with Megan, so I thought it would be a great time to try out a new cinnamon bread recipe – Mile High Cinnamon Bread!  What makes it Mile-High?  A lot of yeast and a lot of flour crammed into a plus size bread pan along with a fun swirl wrapping technique allows the bread to expand directly up to nearly twice the height of the bread pan while baking (at least in theory).

High Expectations:

There are two keys to making the mile high cinnamon bread a success.  The first is patience (although this is a common necessity with most breads).  Patience to wait until the dough has risen enough.   The second key is to score the bread carefully with a very sharp knife.  Once the bread rises up over the edge of the bread pan and you are ready to put the bread in the oven, you must score the bread along the edge of the bread pan – all the way around.  And then score the bread along the top of the bread parallel with the long edge of the bread pan.  The scoring is necessary to control the bread rising in the oven, otherwise the dough will split and rise in a random direction.

Know When to Fold ‘em:

After the ingredients have been combined and the dough has had a chance to rise (1.5x to 2x in size), you need to roll it out.  After lightly flattening the dough, fold over opposite sides to meet in the middle, and then do so for the other two sides.  This should create a square.  Roll this square out into a 12”x22” rectangle. 

Brush on the vanilla water and evenly sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar/cocoa/nutmeg mix over this square.  Now fold the long sides in to touch each other in the middle.  So all the coated parts are now inward facing!

Mile high rollers:

Carefully roll the dough.   Make sure that the dough width is that of the pan so that you can simply and neatly set the rolled dough into the pan to rise! (about 7” in width).

Patiently wait for the dough to rise.  Remember the normal temperature for dough rising is at 71 degree Fahrenheit.  For every 7 degrees warmer you double the rate of rising (until you kill the yeast – I think at 160 degrees).  For every 7 degrees cooler you halve the rate of rising.  The bread usually takes about an hour to rise at this point at 71 degrees.  I was ‘rising’ at 64 degrees and I forgot this so I ran out of time (and my bread did not quite get to a mile high – more like a half mile high…)

What is fancy sounding and comes in 4's? Spinach Pancetta Pizza.

To celebrate Easter weekend, and to provide the Brews Brothers in attendance with something good to eat with their 'religiously themed beers' I decided to whip up some pizza.  After flipping through my many (ok, like four) bread books, I came across a very synergistic recipe.  Spinach Pancetta pizza.

Megan had kindly donated pancetta from Trader Joe's (only one of the greatest grocery store chains on Earth) when she returned from Atlanta and I just had it sittin' in the fridge...plus I had the rest of the ingredients already (usually a strong force it determining what to bake...going to the store when its jsut 'ole H.E.B. can be more effort than its worth.  To top it all off this recipe wanted me to make four 'little pizzas' which would be perfect to dice up for the Brews Brothers crew.

The first thing the recipe calls for is to strain and drain some diced canned tomotoes and sprinkled in a couple of cloves of diced garlic, and to salt and pepper liberally.  After than layer it time to add some greenery (baby spinach leaves)

Finally the shredded mozzarella, because I'm lazy, because the recipe called for real mozzarella slices, and the KEYS to making this all worth it, the pancetta and the sun dried tomatoes in olive oil (so good)

Remember to save some cheese to sprinkle over the sun dried tomatoes because those suckers will dry out on top of these mini pies if not 'protected' by cheese.  Bake for 15-20 at 425 and cut and consume.

Not the healthiest way to make pizza, but its fancy and delicious, makes about 30-36 small slices.

Delicious Spiral: Pecan Chocolate Bread

So this past Saturday the weather in Austin was perfect, Megan was in Vegas, and we (roommates) were recovering from Friday's Brews Brothers (http://scotchbourbonbeer.blogspot.com/p/brews-brothers.html) Extreme Beer theme...which means it was time to grill out.  We had a couple of leftover beers, grilled up some chicken, bell peppers, some "corn" (You know they call corn-on-the-cob "corn-on-the-cob" right? But that's how it comes out of the ground, man. They should call that "corn." They should call every other version "corn-off-the-cob." It's not like if you cut off my arm you would call my arm "Mitch." But then reattach it and call it "Mitch-all-together!" - the late Mitch Hedberg)....and I decided to cook up a new bread recipe.  I looked in my baking pantry (yes, I have one just for baking stuff) and I had pecans, I had nestle chocolate chunks. I had the recipe. Boom! Pecan Chocolate bread.  Kevin was double-fisting it.  He was very hungry.

...now seriously considering how to combine my law degree and breadmaking to make a living...

Advice?

Feta and Spinach Pine Nut Rolls - Who wants Kings Cake now?

So earlier this March I had the opportunity to stop in New Orleans by way of Birmingham and Hattiesburg on my way back to Austin, accompanying Megan back from Atlanta, and I thought it would be a good plan to make her favorite bread to snack on during the car ride back. I have made the Feta Spinach Pine Nut bread before, but it was as a twist.  This time I decided to do them / it as rolls

 

Well we eventually arrived back in Austin, but it was a good thing we had those rolls (and Megan's excellent collection of assorted Trader Joes snacks...) because crossing into New Orleans we hit literally a wall of water. No, the levies were still up, but the sky dumped rain down so hard we had to put on the emergency lights like all the other drivers in order to see, regular lights were actually impossible to see without the flashing...after that, and after a crazy night in New Orleans, we were stuck in hours of extra traffic thanks to TxDOT deciding to close a key bridge on I-10 near Beaumont down to 1 fricking lane the Sunday before Mardi Gras.  But we had our food and our bread so no one got too cranky.

On a side note:  bought a box of beignet mix after my trip to Cafe DuMonde.

Not Shown - side of insulin.

The (bis)quick and the bread part 2 - Honey Mustard Bacon Garlic Muffins

Every once in a while I get a last second improvisational urge to bake something with dinner, and do not have the time or patience to knead or breadmachine something out, wait for it to rise, etc etc etc

Bisquick is the answer.  This time I started playing around with the ratios of bisquick to milk and adding some new awesome ingredients.  My parents, who I love mind you, think its hilarious to respond to the question "What's in this?"  My dad: "ingredients, really good ingredients"  He's so funny. ahem. so.....

but there is a kernel of truth in that.  who can resist honey mustard, bacon, and garlic in a recipe?  so this is an approximate sketch of what I ended up doing.

the new ratio of more liquid makes the batter smoother and less 'tacky' therefore harder to shape onto a piece of parchment paper to be free standing so I employed some muffin tins.

1 1/2 cups bisquick (the heart healthy kind)
2/3 cups milk
2 strips turkey bacon, cooked then crumbled
1 tbls honey
1 tbls smokey brown mustard
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper

mix the batter together, spray a muffin pan (i used a 6 muffin pan, but 12 would work, you'll only fill 7-8 at the most...this batter doesn't rise much so you can fill all the way up to the top)

then bake at 450 for 10 minutes.  again I used a stone to retain heat in the oven and placed the muffin tin right on top of the stone.  bake until the muffins look like this (below) and are 'hollow' sounding when you tap the tops.

Feel free to perhaps add more honey, mustard, or garlic salt depending on what flavor you may want to feature more...just be aware the more honey or mustard you add you may need to add a little more bisquick so as to not make the batter too soupy!

UPDATE: Added new information to the Troubleshooting your Bread Machine page

Boom. Posted. and happy Thursday.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Bread - to all the fussy eaters out there

FUSSY EATER (George Carlin)
I was what my parents used to call a fussy eater, which is, of course, a euphemism for big pain in the ass... I would say "I don't like that.  Did you make that? Is there a picture of it in the cookbook? I bet it don't look like that!"


I was certainly a fussy eater for a couple of what must have been frustrating years to my parents.  All I would eat was peanut butter and jelly and cheerios.  I have a feeling even my fussy eater self all those years ago would've put down a good amount of this bread.  Chocolate Cream Cheese Bread is by far the most well-loved recipe I have ever baked.  My friend Jill (she loves books like I love bread  http://abookofadifferentcolor.blogspot.com/) gave me my first bread book and this was the first recipe I made out of it.

I have probably made this recipe at least two dozen times since, and because I opened my big mouth at work  and people wanted something to try...I went back to it.

LOGIC
"How do you know you don't like it?"  They wanted reasons.  Sometimes you don't always have a reason.  "I know I don't like it, and if I ate it I'd like it even less.  You like it? YOU eat it." - George Carlin

The downside to chocolate cream cheese bread is that it is very hard to get to present correctly.  The recipe calls for folding and joining strips of dough across the top (pictured below)  and the problem is the dough doesn't always meld and then the bread looks like an alien chest-buster just exploded out of it (but still tastes delicious - the bread, not an alien chest-buster thing, come on now).  Fortunately after two dozen attempts or so I figured out that gently wetting the ends of the strips with a little water almost always prevents this!  I know I know, after twenty some odd times I finally catch on?  I'm not as clever as I look sometimes.

Fortunately with this bread recipe I don't need to be clever - I mean its got cream cheese in the dough.  

And to add to the Video Techniques section (the videos are ready I'm just having trouble converting them to mpeg format and posting them) I'm going to start  How Do They Do That and Troubleshooting your Breadmachine pages as well.  More posts and page updates to follow!

Southern French Rosemary Rolls and Oscar Hosts - Very Disappointing

I suppose it is sad when the best thing about an Oscarcast is the Oscarcast pick'em pools (not to brag or anything but I made out like a bandit with dinner and free movie tickets - thank you Tom Hooper for winning Best Director and putting me over the top!).

But for the most part it was a night of disappointments...Ann Hathaway stayed clothed (although I noticed she changed outfits plenty), James Franco still had an arm (no wonder he didn't win Best Actor for 127 hours...total lack of commitment to the role) and the always 'wild and crazy' Brits picked up the lion's share of the significant Oscars.

To celebrate the Oscars I made a honey mustard encrusted/braised pork tenderloin.  (two parts honey to one part French's mustard and one part smokey mustard with healthy dashes of cayenne pepper and garlic salt thrown in for good measure).  To go with the pork tenderloin I made Southern French Rosemary Rolls.

The pork was to the nominees at the Oscars as the rolls were to the hosts.  Solid and excellent to bland and very disappointing (boom. analogy. eat your heart out SATs...)

I thought the rolls would be a bit more robust, after all the recipe called for rosemary and a good dash of hotsauce!  But instead they pulled a Social Network - it looked like a sure winner before it all started, but in the end fell short.  Couldn't taste any of the favor enhancing ingredients. So instead of posting the recipe (unless I get a specific request because it was really poor) I brief discuss finishing a roll by brushing on egg.

Brushing an egg wash onto dough before baking it will cause the dough to look more golden brown and appear 'slick' and 'shiny'  The secondary function of an egg wash is to hold down some poppy seeds or other topping you are sprinkling over buns or rolls.  I used liquid egg here in these pictures, but a regular egg and add a little salt or just a little milk and the shine/color will be even more pronounced!  This is a great technique to get your bread to look like 'bakery quality stuff

Brushed on the left, non brushed on the right

Nonbrushed after baking

Brushed after baking!