bake 52: cheddar cheese bread

A cheesy quick bread.  Mmmm.

 Parmesan, grated on the large side of the grater.  Cheddar cut into cubes.

Sprinkle half of parmesan on the bottom of a loaf pan.

Dry ingredients.  That red stuff is cayenne pepper.  Interesting.

Add milk, sour cream and melted butter.

Fold together until just combined.  Batter should be thick and heavy.

Put in pan and top with the rest of the parmesan.

Bake.  Allow to cool slightly in pan.

Doesn't that look yummy?  Love that melted, toasted cheese top.

Look at those cheese pockets.

Mmm.

I really loved that it was a quick bread, so no need to wait for it to rise.

For the full recipe, hop over to Betsy's blog.

bake 52: cinnamon swirl bread

Cinnamon.  Bread.  Win.  Win.  I think I could eat this everyday.

Combine white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon.  That's 4 tsp of cinnamon.  That's a lot of cinnamon.  mmmm.

Set aside 2 Tbls. of this mixture to sprinkle on top of the bread.

In a mixer bowl, combine flour, yeast, salt, and 1/4 cup of cinnamon sugar mixture.

Didn't get a picture of the milk mixture.  That's milk, melted butter and egg yolks.  You can just see it in this picture, being poured into the flour mixture.

The dough is kneaded until it comes together nicely.  Knead the ball on the counter until it forms a smooth round ball.  Place in a greased bowl.  Cover.  Let rise.

Risen.

Press the dough into a rectangle.  Spray lightly with water.  I thought this was a good tip.  I've always used melted butter and then put the cinnamon sugar on top.  The "test kitchen" said that to keep the cinnamon sugar glued to the dough, water is the secret.

Then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the water and dough.  Lightly spray with water again.

Roll-up and place in a greased loaf pan.

Let rise.  (I probably could have let it go longer, but I was getting anxious.

Brush lightly with melted butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, then spray lightly with water.  Bake.

Here it is just out of the oven.  Wish you could smell that cinnamon through the screen.  Heaven.

The recipe said to let it cool for 2 hours before serving.  We didn't wait that long.

Swirls.

Yum.

We toasted it the next morning for breakfast.  So good.  My cinnamon swirls separated a bit, which was supposed to be remedied by the water spritzing, but I think that was probably my fault.  Maybe I didn't roll it tight enough?

Give it try!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Makes one 9-inch loaf

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cups warm whole milk (110 degrees)
3 Tbls unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for brushing
2 large egg yolks
3 1/2 - 4 cups all-purpose flour
1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp) instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt

1.  Mix the sugars and cinnamon together in a small bowl.  Measure out 2 Tbls and reserve for the topping.  Whisk the milk, melted butter, and yolks together in a large liquid measuring cup.

2.  Combine 3 1/2 cups of the flour, yeast, salt, and 1/4 cup of the cinnamon sugar in a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook.  With the mixer on low speed, add the milk mixture and mix until the dough comes together, about 2 minutes.

3.  Increase the mixer speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.  If after 4 minutes more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/2 cup flour, 2 Tbls at a time, until the dough clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom.

4.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball.  Place the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl an cover with greased plastic wrap.  Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

5.  Grease a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and press into a 20 by 8-inch rectangle with the short side facing you.  Spray the dough lightly with water, then sprinkle evenly with the remaining cinnamon sugar, leaving a 1/2-inch border at the far edge.  Lightly spray the cinnamon sugar with water until it is damp but not wet.

6.  Loosen the dough from the counter using a bench scraper (or metal spatula), then roll the dough into a tight cylinder and pinch the seam closed.  Place the loaf seam side down in the prepared pan.  Mist the loaf with vegetable oil spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in size and the dough barely springs back when poked with a knuckle, 45 to 75 minutes.

7.  Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Brush the loaf lightly with melted butter, sprinkle with the reserved cinnamon sugar, then spray lightly with water.  Bake until golden, 40 to 60 minutes, rotating the loaf halfway through baking.  Cool the loaf in the pan for 15 minutes, then flip out onto  a wire rack and let cool to room temperature, about 2 hours, before serving.

Bake 52: Multigrain Bread

Always like to try a new bread/roll recipe.  We LOVE bread around here.  This was a good one.

Started off softening a 7-grain hot cereal.  This is where the "multi-grain" comes from.  Softening in water.

Flour, whole wheat flour, yeast and salt set aside in mixer.

After it's soft, add honey and melted butter.  What's not to love here?

Then add that "multi-grain" mixture to the flour, with the mixer on.

Allow to mix.  It's a sticky dough.  I added about 4-5 Tbls extra flour.

Turn onto floured counter and knead...

into a nice ball.

Place into a greased bowl to rise.

After rising, back onto a floured counter it goes, and it's patted into a 9" square, roughly.

And then rolled, and pinched to stay together.

Place in a greased bread pan.  I felt like it was too much dough for just one pan, so I cut some off, and cooked that in another pan.

Let rise again.  Then brush with melted butter and sprinkle oats on top.  Just like store bought.

Bake.

Slice and enjoy!

I thought it was really yummy.  I'm sure I'll make it again, since I still have 7-grain cereal left.  Great pick Jennifer O.  Hope over to her blog for the full recipe.

Bake 52: Ciabatta Bread

An Italian white bread.  This recipe required first that a "sponge"be made.  A sponge is part of the flour, water and yeast from the regular recipe, that are allowed to sit out, covered, for 6-24 hours.  It helps in developing the taste, texture and chemistry in the bread.  But, also means that this is a two-day recipe.

Here's the beginning of my sponge, before it's all stirred together.

And there's the sponge.  It was then covered and allowed to sit all night, and most of the next day.

The next day I first made the dough, (no sponge yet).  I combined more flour, yeast and water in a stand mixer, and mixed until the dough came together.  There it is... all together.   Isn't it nice when things really come together?!

That dough is then covered to rest for about 20 minutes, then the sponge is added.  Gloppy, glop, glop. Oh, along with some salt.

Mix until it's all uniform and "together".

The dough is then put in a large oiled bowl, and covered with plastic wrap.  Rise for 1 hour.

Then we dust the dough with flour, and "turn" it.  There were some great pictures in the book that really illustrated how this was supposed to be done.

Basically you should have a plastic bench scraper to really do this well, I think.  It said a rubber spatula would also work, but I found it a bit tricky.  I don't think it worked quite as well.  One-third of the dough is supposed to be folded into the center, and then the other side, folded over the first.  Then, the whole thing is supposed to be folded in half, perpendicular to the first folds.

It said after all the folding, the dough should look roughly like a square.  Did NOT get that quite right.  The dough is then covered again, and should rise until tripled in size, about 1 hour.

The dough is turned onto a floured counter, and dusted with more flour... it's a REALLY wet and sticky dough, if you can't tell from the pictures, hence all the flour, dusting.

Divide dough in half and quickly lift each half onto a parchment lined, upside down rimmed baking sheet.

The dough is folded, each side into the middle.

And then stretched with fingers to 10 by 5-inch rectangle, and allowed to rise for 1-1 1/2 hours.

There is is, risen.  Then it's baked in a 500 degree oven on a stone.  You leave it on the parchment paper for the first 20 minutes of baking, then get rid of the paper, and turn it over so the bottom can get nice and crisp.  It continues baking for another 15 minutes.

There's the bottom of my first loaf.  Can you see that black around the edges.  Yep, slightly burned.

There's the top.  Lovely.  (There's a bit of sarcasm there.)

And there's the inside.  It was pretty.  And some nice big air holes/pockets developed, thanks to all that gluten development.

Here's my second loaf.  After my first one came out so dark, I read a tip in the book, that said to cook it for the first 10 minutes at 500 degrees, and then turn it down to 400 degrees for the remainder of the cooking time.  That's what happened here.  Better.

And still a nice crumb.

Ok.  So, even the slightly burned one tasted good.  It had a really crispy, almost cracker-like crust, and a chewy inside.  The flavor was good.  I was curious to see if it had a sourdough flavor, since the sponge is a somewhat similar idea.  I don't think it was sour, just really developed and nice.

It was a long process.  But it was also a yummy bread.  I don't know, I may try it again... there are some things I'd like to perfect and play around with a bit.  There is a version for a one day deal in the book, too.  So maybe I'll give that a go sometime.

For the complete recipe, go to Emily's blog.