Archive for the ‘yeast bread’ Category

There are a few frequently asked questions that I frequently . . . get asked . . .

Can I share my favorite with you? Can I just get this off my chest? Okay.

Q: Oh LaChelle, how come you’re not 500 lbs, with all these treats and goodies you eat all day long?

A: *facepalm*

I love this question. See, people come to this blog and assume that my family and I subsist on cake and cinnamon rolls. I think that’s pretty hilarious.

Honestly, I eat very little of the goodies I make. They’re usually for an event, or to give away to someone. And when I do make something just for fun, I send 98% of it away with my husband to work. He puts it in the break room for all of his office buddies to consume. And good grief, they do.

Now, take a moment and read over that last paragraph. Got it?

Good. See, that’s actually the answer I would have given you, if you had asked before I made these sweet rolls.

I made a whole bunch of these rolls for that Return of the Jedi party I mentioned earlier. Did I send the leftovers with my husband to work? Good heavens, no. I kept them home and had inhaled at least four of them by 10:00 a.m. Yeah, not one of my finer moments. But ooooohh, they were good.

I’ll be honest, if I were forced to choose only one baked treat for the rest of my life, there would be none of that wishy-washy “oh-I-could-never-choose-just-one” bunk. The winner would easily be fluffy, sticky, chewy, yeasted sweet rolls. Heaven. Just, heaven.

I’m not sure what else I can say to convince you to go make these. Just . . . go make them.

Promise me you will.

Orange Cranberry Sweet Rolls

recipe for dough adapted from Lion House Bakery

2 cups warm water

1/3 cup nonfat dry milk

2 tablespoons Instant yeast* (such as SAF)

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1/3 cup butter, room temperature

2 eggs

5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour

filling:

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon orange zest

1/3 cup melted butter

Dried cranberries

glaze:

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar

3-4 tablespoons orange juice

Directions:

Prepare the filling first by creaming together the sugar and cinnamon with the orange zest. Set aside.

Next make the dough. In a large bowl, combine the water, dry milk, yeast, sugar, salt, butter, eggs, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix just until smooth. Add two more cups of flour, and mix until incorporated (I do this by hand with a wooden spoon). Then mix in just enough of the remaining flour to make a very soft dough. Don’t go by the exact amount in the recipe — go by the feel of the dough. The dough shouldn’t be so sticky that you can’t knead it, but just barely manageable. The less flour you add, the softer the rolls will be, generally. Knead for about 6-8 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangular shape, roughly 20″ x 12″. Brush dough with the 1/3 cup of melted butter, and sprinkle evenly with the sugar/orange zest mixture. Sprinkle with dried cranberries. Carefully roll the rectangle up lengthwise and cut into 1-inch slices using thread or floss. Place rolls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size. Halfway through rising, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Bake for 14-16 minutes, or until golden brown. While the rolls are baking, prepare the glaze by mixing together the butter and powdered sugar, and stirring in enough orange juice to make it “drizzling” consistency. Stir briskly until smooth. As soon as the rolls are removed from the oven, drizzle or brush the glaze over the hot rolls.

*Note: If you want to use active dry yeast instead of instant yeast, I can’t make any promises, but you should make these adjustments:

• Dissolve 2 tablespoons active dry yeast with the warm water and sugar for about 5 minutes before you add it to the other ingredients to make the dough.
• Once you are done kneading the dough, place it in a large greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow it to rise until doubled. After it’s risen, punch it down and roll it into a rectangle, resuming the recipe as written.

So… October’s over… I’m sure you’ve noticed…

It just occurred to me that I haven’t shared any pumpkin recipes with you. At all. And here we are, staring November down already. It’s a crime, really.

Not that there’s any great shortage of pumpkin recipes sitting in your Google Reader these days… and not that pumpkin cookies and muffins and breads haven’t been spewing forth from my kitchen in the past four weeks… because, good grief, they have.

But I won’t let you down. Can I show you some wonderfully fluffy, sticky pumpkin rolls that will make all your troubles melt away? That’s not a bad deal, if you ask me.

Again, the secret ingredient here is the Instant Yeast that I’m in love with. So, so so so easy. One rise! Count ‘em, ONE. Cinnamon rolls just got that much faster. Throw in some pumpkin and a few spices, and they just got that much tastier. And cream cheese icing? Good heavens, somebody knock me out.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

adapted from Bakers’ Banter

Ingredients:

for dough:

4 to 4-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup canned pumpkin

2 eggs

2-4 Tablespoons lukewarm milk

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) soft butter

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon cloves

4 Tablespoons brown sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons Instant yeast (such as SAF)

for filling:

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1-2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon

1/4 cup melted butter

raisins, optional

chopped pecans, optional

for icing:

1 Tablespoon butter, room temperature

1 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar

Milk, enough to make it drizzling consistency (about 3-4 Tablespoons, or more)

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups of the flour with all the rest of the dough ingredients. Mix until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft, slightly sticky dough. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Set dough aside to rest about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix together the cinnamon and sugar for the filling, and melt the butter on low.

On a lightly-greased surface, roll out the dough into a 14″ by 20″ rectangle. Pour the melted butter onto the dough and spread around with a spoon or pastry brush. Leave one of the long edges free of butter for about 1 inch. Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar over the butter, and sprinkle on the pecans and raisins, if desired.

Starting with the long end that’s covered with filling, roll the dough into a log. Cut the log into quarters (you may want to trim off the edges) and cut each quarter into thirds, making 12 rolls total.

Place the rolls into a lightly greased 9 x 13″ baking dish, and cover with a damp cloth. Let the rolls rise in a warm place until they are fluffy and nearly doubled in size (about 40-50 minutes). Near the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Bake the rolls uncovered at 375 degrees for about 25-30 minutes, or until they are lightly browned and feel set. Remove them from the oven and set them on a rack. Turn them out of the pan, and allow them to cool for 10-15 minutes. During the cooling time, make the icing.

To make the icing: Cream the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add the powdered sugar, and mix until smooth. Stir in the milk, a tablespoon at a time, until the icing reaches a good drizzling consistency. When the rolls have cooled for about 15 minutes, drizzle the icing over them, or brush it on with a pastry brush. Let the rolls sit for another 5 minutes, and then dig in!

Anne of Green Gables? Anne of Avonlea? You know what I’m talking about, right?

Seven hours (seven hours!) of romantic red-headed fun, culminating in a glorious final five minutes, when Gilbert (after 7 whole hours, poor boy) finally wins Anne’s love. And then there’s a sweet little 2-second kiss, and then the credits roll. Lovely!

Right before Gilbert goes in for the kill, Anne spouts out a little gem of wisdom that has become a sort of credo for me: “It’s not what the world holds for you, it’s what you bring to it.”

So, can I get a little personal here? Okay. We just moved. We bought a wonderful little house in Orem, Utah. And we love it here. Moving by itself is pretty taxing, but when you add third-trimester pregnancy and a curious toddler into the equation… well, heh. Yeah, taxing.

I’ve been thinking about Anne lately. Surely… surely… being worn out isn’t all that’s in store for me as I transition to a new home and finish the end of this pregnancy. I don’t want to sit around and let circumstances happen. Part of the beauty of life is that we have the power to act, not be acted upon. Anne could back me up here.

This is why I put together a loaf of braided bread in the middle of a stressful week — lest you think I’m crazy. I may not have control over my little boy’s bloody nose, or the spiders in our new basement, or the Braxton-Hicks, or the piano movers forgetting to give back the apartment key and then going off to Disneyland (good one, guys).

But bread! Yes! I can bring a pretty loaf of delicious bread into my world. So life is sweet.

This bread actually comes together much faster than you’d think. So, no intimidation allowed. I used SAF Instant Yeast. It’s a different animal than active dry yeast, which is what most people use. So, be aware of that. Instant yeast is slightly more expensive, but you don’t need to proof it first, and it only needs to rise once before baking. I don’t have to tell you that that’s awesome.

Apricot Cheese Braid

Adapted from The Taste of Home Baking Book

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon SAF instant yeast

1/2 cup lukewarm milk

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 egg

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 - 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup apricot preserves

3 ounces cream cheese, softened

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup turbinado sugar

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast, milk, butter, sugar, egg, salt, and 1/2 cup of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough, and knead until it’s smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. You may need to grease your hands for this.

Roll the dough out into a 15- by 9-inch rectangle. Place on a greased baking sheet. Spread the cream cheese filling lengthwise down the center third of the rectangle. Spread the apricot preserves evenly on top of the cream cheese.

On each long side, cut 1-inch width strips, about 1/2 inch from the filling. Starting at one end, fold alternating strips at an angle across the filling. Seal the ends. Cover and let rise in a slightly warm place until doubled in size (about 30-40 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush the bread gently with milk, and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the pan to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing. Store in the refrigerator.

***This is me just being a little nit-picky. You can probably tell the formatting is wonky in this post. That’s because I imported it from Blogger, and the Blogger Fairies did something weird to the fonts that I haven’t been able to fix. Okay, I’m done.***

Every year I’m fascinated with Valentine’s Day. You know why?