Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread Dough

So the whole reason I started this blog a few months ago was because I joined a group that was cooking it’s way through the book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  Click here to see what other people are doing with this dough over at Big Black Dog.

  It’s time for another HBin5 post.  This month’s challenge was soft whole wheat sandwich bread and apple strudel bread.  Also on the menu were  hamburger or hot dog buns but I didn’t make those because we’re not big burger or hot dog eaters around here.  Instead I made cinnamon rolls out of it. 

The bread was good, soft and perfect for sandwiches.  It didn’t really rise that much, so I think next time I would fill the pan up further, my slices weren’t exactly big enough for a real sandwich.  My kids pretty much made it all into cinnamon toast.  I put it under some lentils (and so did my 4 year old) too.   I’ll be posting about that shortly.

The apple strudel bread wasn’t really my cup of tea.  It was fun to make though.   I’m not that into stuffed breads.  One of my kids picked all the apples out, ate them and left the rest of his slice.  I dropped the rest of it off at my parents house and my dad claimed to have thoroughly enjoyed it – he’s likes stuffed breads.  

This was pretty classic HBin5.  Five minutes of mixing one day and five minutes of shaping the next.  Wait for a rise and bake it.  Since there was no butter in the dough I formed my cinnamon rolls and put them in the pan then covered it and put it  in the refrigerator overnight.  When my 10 year old got up the next morning he put the cold pan in the cold oven and set it to 350.  They were nicely done in a half an hour or so.  I find this works with breads with no butter in them.  If there is butter it hardens and prevents the bread from rising slowly in the fridge (that’s not science, it’s just my experience).

Because this book is new I have been asked not to post the recipe online.  But you can buy it here.

Apple Strudel Bread

Sliced apples

Chopped apples

Rolled out dough with apples, raw sugar, cinnamon and raisins waiting to be rolled up and formed into a loaf

I keep rolling whole wheat dough on my counter and noticing how little contrast there is between the color of my countertops and dough.  When I chose the countertops I really didn’t take that into consideration.   Actually I never would have chosen differently I LOVE my new countertops.

The loaf of apple bread rising

a well filled slice. . . actually so well filled it was kind

of hard to eat

Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

2 loaves of soft whole wheat sandwich bread freshly baked

a few slices of bread

Cinnamon Rolls

I rolled the dough, spread it with softened butter and sprinkled it generously with brown sugar and cinnamon.  Rolled and cut it and put it in the fridge for an overnight rise.  After baking it at 350 in the morning I frosted it with a coffee flavored frosting and spooned some of the leaky cinnamon filling on the top.  These were quite good.

Biscuits

 

There are so many biscuit recipes around, and each one is ever so slightly different.  I have a kid who is wild about biscuits.  He is also the harshest biscuit critic around. . . frankly it can be annoying.  These are his (and our) current favorite biscuit recipe. 

People can be intimidated by making biscuits, they’re afraid of working in the fat, handling it too much, and I don’t know what else.  My advice is to try it, they’re not really as delicate as all that, and the results are so, so, so much better than those dreadful canned things.  They’re so fast to make too, you have to pre-heat your oven first, wait about 5 to 10 minutes (depending on how long your oven takes to preheat)  before you start on the dough – because the oven needs to be hot and the butter needs to be cold for all the magic to happen.

dump in the butter. . .

This is what it looks like after you’ve

rubbed the butter in

Pour the buttermilk over

Scoop up the dough

Into the flour

Into the pan

mmm. . . done

Ready to go

PRINTABLE RECIPE

BISCUITS

1. 2 cups all purpose flour
2. 1 Tablespoon baking powder
3. 1 Tablespoon sugar
4. 1 teaspoon salt
5. 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6. 4 Tablespoons butter, cut into 1/4” cubes
7. 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (shake it)
8. you’ll also need additional flour for forming the biscuits

Preheat the Oven to 450.  Spray a 9” round pan with cooking spray.

Mix the dry ingredients together with a wooden spoon.  Dump in the butter cubes and rub the butter into the flour with your fingers. . . just squeeze the butter into the flour. . . you can do this.   When you’re done it will be crumbly, and you’ll see some butter lumps – that’s a good thing.

Pour the buttermilk over, and stir briefly with the wooden spoon to combine.  It will not be “roll-able.”

Put some flour in a bowl (a cereal bowl is fine).  Using an ice cream scoop place a scoop of dough into the bowl of flour, gently coat the biscuit with flour and lay it in the pan, flattening ever so slightly.  You want the biscuits almost touching each other so they rise up not out.  Do this with the remaining dough.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned on top.  Invert onto a plate, flip them over and tear them apart, enjoy with butter and honey, jelly or whatever you like.

Whole Wheat Boule and Baguette

So as many of you know I am crazy about this bread baking technique that was introduced in Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  Basically you mix up the dough (or get your 4 year old to do it for you - it's that hard).  Let it rise, put it in the fridge and lop off a hunk whenever you want to bake some bread, make a pizza, calzone, anything you can make out of bread.  This year the amazing authors of that book came out with a new book. .  Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day.  This was my first attempt at making the master recipe. This link is to the recipe, just scroll down on the page and when they stop talking about releasing the new book you'll get what you want.

Click on this link to see how others are using this recipe.  Michelle at Big Black Dog is hosting our Healthy Bread in Five bake along.

I dragged out my flour mill and tried to figure out which barrel in the basement had which kind of wheat in it. . . I think I used white wheat.  You definitely don't have to mill your own wheat to make this bread, but like I said I had buckets of the stuff pining away in my basement. . . Then I dumped everything into the bucket.  This new book gives weights, and since home-milled flour is often not as packed as store bought, I threw the bucket on the scale and weighed my ingredients.  That was pretty much the first time I had ever done that.  I would definitely do that again, very easy. My 4 year old mixed up the dough.  This dough has a "batter-y" feel to it when it's mixed up.  I am assuming that's because whole wheat absorbs more water than white flour, many whole wheat doughs are slacker than their white counterparts.

 I shaped the dough into a boule, then got all motivated and dug out my old banneton (which is just a willow basket) that hadn't been used in a year or so, floured it up and dumped the dough in.  Then I made a baguette just to have a little more bread on hand. 

Well a little later all the kids at my house demolished the baguette in about 5 minutes. . . This was good.  The bread was not at all dense or heavy, and had a fresh clean flavor.  Really good.  We're having the boule with dinner tonight.  I'm sensing my grain mill might get used a little more now. . .

This Is the wheat. . . unlike Little Red Hen,

 there were far too many people willing to help me

This is one of them, he's mixing up the dough

Finished dough (that's a dough whisk, in case you're

 wondering.  No, you don't need it, but it's fun and pretty)

see how "batter-y" the finished dough it? 

You couldn't knead this if you tried. . . good thing you don't have to.

It rises so high

look at all the beautiful air

dump the flour in the banneton (or just shape the dough into a ball

and let it rise on parchment on the counter. . .

once again it's fun and pretty.. . I'm sensing a theme with me)

Press the flour into the creases or it will never come out.

It still won't want to come out and you might panic for

a minute. . . but don't worry it will all turn out alright

dump the dough boule inside

You can also go this route: a shaped baguette. .

. kind of like using playdough,but gentler please or you'll have no air

Freshly baked baguette

Inside yummy crumb. . . quickly disappearing baguette

inside the boule. . . and of course the salad I can't stop eating

Skillet Sizzled Cornbread

This is really good cornbread.  The recipe is adapted from Crescent Dragonwagon's (I know. . .) Dairy Hollow Hose Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread from the Passionate Vegetarian.  It's the cornbread recipe I had been searching for my whole life, we love it.

You will need an 8 or 9 (or maybe 10, whatever) inch cast iron skillet.  If you don't have one you should get one - it will be your best friend, I promise.  Don't be afraid of cast iron, it's so great to cook on, virtually non-stick, even heat, makes things really crispy, also instead of teflon leaching out into your food you get iron (which is good for you).  You can buy pre-seasoned cast iron anywhere these days (but my favorite place to get it is at auctions - I got my 3 griswolds at auction, for cheap.  They had a lifetime of seasoning already on them, they're beautiful).  They're easy to care for too. . . just wash with water, rub with oil and dry over heat.  You'll hand them down to your kids.

 Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread

Printable Recipe

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1-3 Tablespoons sugar (I use 3 because I'm a yankee who likes her cornbread sweet)

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

1 large egg

1/4 cup canola oil

2 Tbsp. butter

1. Preheat your oven to 375.  It is important that it reach the temperature before you start mixing anything.
2. Combine the dry ingredients: cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and sugar.
3. In a small bowl whisk together the buttermilk, egg and oil.
4. Place the skillet over medium heat and melt the butter until it's sizzling, swirl to coat the sides.
5. As the butter is melting quickly combine the dry and wet ingredients, give them a turn with a wooden spoon and pour it in the pan.
6. Scrape the batter into the hot and buttery skillet
7. Leave it on the burner for 1 min (no need to time it)
8. Pop it in the oven and bake 20 - 25 minutes until it's golden brown on top.
9. invert onto a plate, cut in wedges and serve while hot.

Spinach and Feta Braid

This was pulled directly from the great Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Blog.  I like to make it and bring to brunches or as an appetizer for dinner.  It's so easy and impressive.  You need the ABin5 brioche dough.  This beautiful dough is so great.  You literally just mix it up with a spoon,  let it rise, throw it in the fridge and use it within a few days or freeze it, that 's it.  I am begging you to try it.  Then you jut defrost a package of spinach (or sautee some fresh with olive oil), spread it down the middle, pile on some feta cheese, some toasted pine nuts, "braid" it up, egg wash and bake for 30 minutes at 350.

What to do with leftover Tassie filling

I made up another batch of Pecan Tassies yesterday. . . mostly due to a certain 4 year old who feels that tons of cookies in the house means you can eat them whenever your mother is not looking. . . but I digress.  This time I put less filling in them, and they were so much easier to get out of the pan, so that's good.  I had about 1/3 of a cup of leftover filling, and I am far too thrifty to throw that away.  I also had about  a canteloupe sized ball of brioche dough in my fridge that needed to be used, so I rolled a little of that out and braided it over the filling..  . wish I had taken a picture of how easy that is because it sounds hard, but really there's not even any braiding involved.  I'll take a picture when I do it again.  Then I baked it.  It is soo good, reminds me of really good Polish nut bread.  I used the rest of the dough to make brioche rolls, which the kids subsequently slathered in Nutella and ate for breakfast.  Now that I put the pictures up you can really see how lame the braid is, it can actually look quite good if you're not making it for no reason early in the morning and don't really care what it looks like.  Also, don't be lazy like me - use egg wash on brioche. . . the shine will make all the difference.  The brioche is from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Brioche Recipe.  This is a wonderful and versatile recipe, I'll put up a bunch of other things to do with the dough later.  It's so easy to make that my 4 year old usually does the mixing. . . I break the eggs and melt the butter and we're set.  It makes wonderful special occasion rolls, sticky buns, spinach and feta braids, danish, oh the possibilities. . .

Pumpkin Cinnamon rolls

These are the un-iced cinnamon rolls, my 4 year old did make an icing of powdered sugar and cream which was spread all over them, but that picture came out weird. . .

these were a big hit with the kids.\