Sourdough Bread!

I am such a lover of bread and I have really gained some skill and confidence when it comes to baking over the past few years. I've acquired some really excellent bread cook books and there is just nothing like the experience of making delicious home made bread to sooth me. One area of baking I hadn't had the nerve to tackle though was sourdough... until now! I always thought sourdough sounded so intimidating, what with having to keep the starter alive and all. I also didn't know how to get started, should I buy a starter? Make my own? Well luckily for me one of my generous friends from Echo's preschool program offered to share her starter with me (as well as some tips for keeping it alive) and it has been magical. The recipe I've been using can be found here. It's a no knead recipe and it takes a long time to rise but in terms of hands on time it's very quick and easy. The taste is amazing and I haven't had one failure yet in spite of experimenting with different ratios of different types of flour. The taste of this stuff is amazing, it was love at first bite for sure. Have you ever tried making sourdough? It is so good and it kind feels like magic that you can make bread without yeast!

Soft Rye Pretzels

I'm not sure if it's the chemo or having two little kids (probably a combination) but I have had zero time and energy for my blog lately. I do have a few posts planned but until I can get myself organized here are some lovely soft pretzels I made a while back. I'm not going to type out the recipe because it's a little long and involved but I thought they came out so pretty I wanted to show them off anyway. The recipe is from a great cookbook called Good to the Grain and if you are at all interested in whole grain baking I encourage you to check it out. It really focuses on celebrating the flavor of a multitude of whole grain flours and every recipe I've made from it so far has turned out amazing.

I've wanted to make pretzel from scratch for a really long time and I finally got around to it in February. I will say that making these while simultaneously watching a toddler and and baby is maybe not the best idea. It's a lot of hands on work and involves a huge pot of boiling water. However the results were well worth the work. These pretzels were seriously out of this world and we ate them up in no time flat. They were especially good served with some fancy flavored mustards, yum!

Asparagus and Corn Pizza

Since getting the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day for Christmas it has been really easy to make all our bread from scratch and this include pizza dough! I love this book so much because it has you make up a huge batch of dough and store it in your fridge, then you can cut off a chunk and use it whenever you want. I've started getting more experimental with my pizza lately and this is a light and lovely springtime pizza recipe I threw together.

Ingredients

Premade pizza dough (you can buy it at the store or use any recipe you like. I love the Artisan Bread's olive oil dough for this though)

1 cup shredded parmesan cheese

3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

1 small bunch asparagus

1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels

1 cup chopped kale

1/2 onion sliced thin

4 garlic cloves, chopped

1 tbs olive oil plus more for drizzling

1 tbs butter

fresh ground black pepper to taste

Make sure to heat your pizza stone for at least 20 minutes before baking to get a nice crispy crust. I also find it helps to bake the crust on it's own for 3 to 5 minutes before adding toppings to keep it from getting soggy. While the oven and stone are heating sauté the onions, garlic, corn and kale in olive oil and butter.

Spread the corn mixture evenly over the rolled out pizza dough and sprinkle with fresh ground black pepper. Top with as much asparagus as you like and/or can fit on your pizza. Sprinkle the top with feta and parmesan cheeses and drizzle with olive oil.

Bake at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cheese is just starting to brown in places.

I imagine this would be lovely with a white wine while sitting on a patio but it's pretty tasty no matter where you eat it. This was such a hit with me and Eric that I'm looking forward to trying out new and creative pizza recipes soon!

Homemade English Muffins

For Christmas this year Eric got me some amazing bread baking supplies and cookbooks. I now have the start of a great bread baking library and since one of my new years resolutions was to continue my bread baking journey it has been the perfect thing to get me going.

The fact that it has been such a cold and sometimes snowy winter has also encouraged me in my baking and I have really been enjoying trying new recipes and learning more about the art of baking. One of the fabulous books Eric got me is called "Baking Bread, Old and New Traditions" And it is in this book that you can find the recipe I used for my home made English Muffins. Baking Bread is  a good basic bread cookbook with a decent variety of recipes as well as some baking technique that is nice to know. It's a really nice addition to my cookbook collection.

I have been scarfing these things down for breakfast and they are so much better than store bought muffins! They really came together pretty quickly and easily too. Check out the recipe:

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon dry yeast
Pinch sugar
1/4 cup warm water
4 to 41/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
1/14 cup warm milk
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup cornmeal for sprinkling

In a small bowl combine yeast, sugar and warm water, stir to combine and let stand until foamy.  Place 2 cups flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook and make a well in the middle. Add egg, milk, butter and yeast mixture and blend until smooth. Gradually add remaining flour 1 cup at a time until a soft dough that just clears the side of the bowl forms. Turn dough on to a lightly floured surface and knead for about 3 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat and cover with a dishtowel. Let stand until doubled in size, about and hour and a half. Lightly sprinkle work surface with cornmeal and roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Sprinkle top with cornmeal and use a upturned drinking glass to cut out biscuit shapes. You can re-roll and cut out extra dough  until it is all used up. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat and lightly grease. Cook muffins for about 6 to 7 minutes on each side until well browned.

This recipe makes about 12 3 inch muffins. They taste great with melted butter or homemade strawberry jam :-)

I hope to share some of the other baking we've been doing with you soon. We have been cooking up some truly delicious breads but I just have't been good about documenting it. Hopefully I can get my act together this month and post more recipes!

Challah Bread

 I find I am getting more and more adventurous in my baking these days. Bread can be so intimidating but the more you do it the more you realize it really isn't that big of a deal. A year ago I would never have attempted a bread that was this complicated and lovely looking. I've made this recipe from Everyday Reading  several times now and it always turns out lovely and delicious.

Challah bread is a little sweeter and richer than some others I've tried and it is great for anything from sandwiches to French toast. Echo loved the beautiful braided shape as well as the taste and as you can see from the photos she couldn't keep her hands off it! Unfortunately I messed up my braid somehow (for some reason it's harder with dough than with hair) but it still looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

I encourage you to try this recipe even if it seems scary. It has a lot of steps but each one is really simple if you just take it one at a time. Who knows, after my challah success maybe I will even be up for trying bagels in the near future.

Irish Soda Bread

Maybe it's that hint of Fall in the air but I have been kind of crazy about baking lately. I have been working really to make all of Echo's snacks from scratch and to make all of our family bread at home. I feel so much better us all eating home grown goodies instead of store bought ones which are full of preservatives and dyes. It's been a lot of work to keep on top of but so rewarding and I am turning in to a decent baker if I do say so myself :-)

I had some buttermilk left over from my Mom's Birthday pie and jumped at the chance to use it in some traditional Irish soda bread. It always puts me in mind of the trip to Ireland that I took while in college so it is a warm, nostalgic bread for me. It's also an incredibly easy bread that requires no yeast and it slices thin so it's great for sandwiches. here is the recipe!

Makes one loaf

1 c all-purpose flour

1 c whole-wheat flour

¾ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 c buttermilk 

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and lightly coat a baking sheet with cooking spray (or use a silicone baking mat like I did). In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the middle and pour in the buttermilk until just incorporated. Turn on to a well floured surface and knead 4 or 5 times. Shape in to a an 8 inch round loaf and place on prepared cookie sheet. Cut a 1/4" x in to the top of the loaf with a  very sharp knife. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Without opening the oven, turn the temperature down to 400 degrees and bake for another 15 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving warm with butter. 

Buttermilk Blackberry Pie

 I don't typically make a lot of desserts just for us because, well, we will eat them all and gain a thousand pounds. Birthdays are a perfect excuse to whip up something special however! My mom is a huge pie person and loves buttermilk pies and blackberries so I decided to combine the two make this yummy confection for her Birthday last week! I was a little intimidated since I'd never actually made a pie before but it came out great and the pie pieces even held together in perfect little wedges when we cut them.

You can find the original recipe here, I just subbed blackberries for raspberries. I'll write out the recipe on this blog as well for anyone who wants to try it.

For the Crust

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter

• 1/4 cup water, plus 2 tablespoons

For the Filling

• 1/4 cup blackberries

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• Salt

• 3/4 cup white granulated sugar

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

• 3 large eggs

• 3/4 cup buttermilk

In a large bowl combine flour, sugar and salt. Use a cheese grater to grate butter in to flour mixture (this is genius by the way! Such and easy way to make crust!), this works best if the butter is very cold. Using your hands, mix butter and flour mixture together until the butter resembles small peas in size. Add 1/4 cup water and mix with your hands until dough just holds together. Add the extra 2 tablespoons of water gradually if you need it to keep the dough together. Shape dough in to a disc and wrap in plastic, refrigerate for one hour. 

Remove dough from refrigerator and roll out on a well floured work space until you get a roughly 14 inch round crust. Roll up on your rolling pin and unroll on to you pie tin to avoid breaking the crust. Trim the edges and crimp with your fingers. Chill crust in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Score the bottom of the crust with a fork and line the pie tin with foil. Add dried beans or rice to weigh down the center of the crust. Bake the crust at 400 degrees for  15 minutes. Remove the foil and beans and bake uncovered for an additional 5 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to come to room temperature. 

Meanwhile, you can start making the filling. Heat the blackberries in a small sauce pan with sugar for about 10 or 15 minutes, mushing with a spoon as you go, until the mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool. Combine eggs, salt, flour and buttermilk, and whisk until smooth. Pour the buttermilk mixture in to the cooled pie crust. Add blackberry mixture to pie filling in dollops and use a bamboo skewer (or something similar) to swirl the blackberries, making a pretty design. Be careful to keep the pie level as you put it in the oven to avoid messing up your pretty design. I also find it helpful to put foil around the edges of my crust to keep it from burning. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 to forty minutes, allow to come to room temperature and garnish with fresh blackberries before serving. 

I thought the crust would be hard to make but it was actually pretty easy if a little time consuming. That trick of grating the butter worked wonderfully and I would definitely use it again. 

Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

I made a yummy soup for dinner the other night and was looking for the perfect roll to go along with them. These rolls are 100 percent whole wheat and are soft, chewy and slightly sweet. They have a fantastic flavor and go great with just about anything. I got this recipe from Averie Cooks and I think it's pretty fantastic. Check out the instructions below.


Ingredients3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup warm milk
1/4 cup honey
2 to 3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon molasses
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
3 cups whole wheat flour
pinch salt, to taste

Combine first 5 ingredients (through molasses) in a bowl and sprinkle the yeast over the top; wait 5 to 10 minutes, or until yeast is foamy. This means it's alive and will work. 

Add the flour, salt, and stir with a wooden spoon to combine. Then stir for about 1 more minute, mashing the dough around (this is as much 'kneading' as this recipe requires).

Stir dough into a ball, cover the bowl with a tea towel, and place in a warm, draft-free place to rise until doubled in bulk, about 3 hours. Whole wheat rises slowly so don't be surprised if it takes a long time. 

Punch dough down, remove it from bowl, and turn it out onto a well-floured surface. Knead it only so much as necessary to shape it into balls for rolls (I divide the dough into 16 rolls and they're just a bit bigger than golf balls). 

Place balls of dough in a cooking sprayed round baking dish or pie plate, or in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan; size depends on how many you're making. They can be close to each other, but not squished, or they'll rise and bake into each other.

Cover baking dish with a tea towel, and allow rolls to rise in a warm, draft-free environment for about 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. 

In the final minutes of rising, preheat oven to 350F. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until rounded and slightly browned. 

 

Peach Pecan Muffins

We have been getting great peaches at the farmers market all Summer and as a money saving technique we usually go for the "scratch and dent" peaches which are discounted. Usually this means they will just have a little brown spot or the skin is scratched up but they still taste great and are perfect for baking! I got this recipe from mrbreakfast.com and man is it ever good! I think it is like a cross between muffins and coffee cake, definitely had to struggle not to eat the whole batch at once. Here is the recipe.

Peach Pecan Muffins

1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter - melted

1/4 cup milk plus 2 tablespoons

1 large egg

2 medium peaches, diced

For The Topping:

1/2 cup pecans - chopped

1/3 cup brown sugar - packed

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 Tablespoons butter - melted

To make the muffins combine all ingredients from the topping list in a small bowl and set aside. Next mix sugar, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and in a separate bowl mix egg and milk, whisking until combined.  Gradually stir the wet ingredients in to the dry ingredients until just combined and stir in the peaches. Fill a greases muffin tin with muffin mixture and sprinkle pecan topping on each one. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

Quick French Bread

I know we are late to the game but we finally got a stand mixer! I really didn't want one for a long time to be honest. I felt like it would take up too much room on our counter and that we really didn't need one. I was however frustrated to see how many recipes (especially bread recipes) assumed I had a stand mixer. Well when I saw one on sale for a really great price at Target I broke down and got one and it has revolutionized my bread making. I had previously stuck to knead varieties because it was too much work to knead and keep an eye on my baby at the same time. Well no more! I love that this machine does the kneading for me and I feel like the quality of the bread is soooo much better than the kind you get from a bread machine and is just as easy.

I have been on a quest for the perfect French bread recipe that is just the right mixture of chewy, crusty and airy so I have been trying lots of new ones (with the help of my stand mixer of course). While this is not quite what I was looking for ( I found it not quick crispy enough in the crust department and a little too dense in the middle) it is still a very solid recipe and great for sandwiches! I got this recipe from Hungry Hungry Highness, like I said it is very solid and a great easy recipe for beginners plus it is quick to make (by bread making standards anyway).

Quick French Bread

Yields: 2 baguettes

1 1/2 tbsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (split)
2 tbsp honey
3 1/2 to 4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
5 ice cubes

1. Combine honey with 1/2 cup warm water. Add the yeast and stir with your finger. Let it sit and activate for 5 minutes.

2. Mix the flour and salt in a mixer. Add the water with the yeast and mix with the dough hook. Mix with the mixer for 1 minute, or until combined.

3. Pour out of mixer bowl onto lightly floured surface. Knead for 2-6 minutes, or until elastic. Do the fingerprint test. If you can press your finger very lightly into the dough and the dough pops back out slowly, it is elastic enough. Put it back in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 25-30 minutes or until doubled in size.

4. Punch down dough and divide in half. Shape into 2 baguettes by trifolding the dough (like you fold a letter). Pinch the seam closed and repeat the process twice until it's about 14 inches in length. Fold the ends round. Set in a baguette pan or a lined cookie sheet (baking stone would probably work well too). Cover with a dish cloth and let rise for 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.

5. Preheat oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit. Set an old (non-glass) baking dish on the bottom oven rack.

6. When the rising is done and the oven is ready, quickly put the baguettes in the oven and throw the ice cubes into the old baking dish in the bottom. It should steam.

7. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Carrot Cake Muffins for Baby

We are getting ready to go on a road trip for my Birthday (yay!) and I have had a busy day with pre Birthday celebrating and preparing for our 8 hour drive to Charlottesville, VA tomorrow. One surefire way to keep Echo happy in the car is to keep her well fed so I have been stocking up on snacks for her. In addition to some store bought baby crackers and fresh fruit I baked up a batch of these pint sized muffins that are just perfect for Echo to munch on. I adapted the recipe from Hello Bee but used carrots in my muffins instead of spinach as well as making some other changes. Who doesn't love carrot cake right? Here is the recipe as I used it.

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 large egg
1 cup grated carrots
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbs canola oil
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix first 5 ingredients in a bowl and blend well with an emersion blender. Mix remainder of ingredients in a separate bowl until well combined. Gradually stir wet ingredients in to dry ingredient mixture. Scoop batter in to mini muffin tin filling 3/4 of the way in each cup. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

These are the perfect size for babies that like to feed themselves like Echo and so far she seems to be a fan. I'll let you know how the road trip goes, hopefully these will help keep her happy!

Whole Grain Banana Bread

I don't really like to eat bananas by themselves but I love having them on hand because they are great for making smoothies, ice cream and my personal favorite banana bread! Here is a whole grain take on the classic using half whole wheat flour and half oat flour. I thought it tasted fantastic and really couldn't tell much a difference from the white flour versions I've used in the past. 

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup oat flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

4 tbs butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

3 ripe bananas

1/3 cup plain greek yogurt

Mash bananas with a wooden spoon in a large bowl, add butter, eggs, yogurt and sugar mixing well to combine. Mix all other ingredients in a separate bowl and slowly add to banana mixture, stirring as you go. Pour batter in to a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for  1 hour. Enjoy hot with lots of butter and a cup of tea!

Key Lime Cookies

It's been really fun going to the farmers market every week (especially when it's not ridiculously cold!) and partaking of all the local produce. I try to always make myself try something new when I'm there and the last time I went they had some great looking key limes for sale. I bought them because they looked so fresh and yummy but I ad no idea what I'd do with them. Luckily I stumbled across a recipe for key lime cookies and the problem was solved!

Here is the recipe, originally from Honest Fare.

Ingredients
1 stick of butter softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 egg plus one yolk
1/4 cup key lime juice
2 tsp lime zest
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
powdered sugar for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until smooth, add egg and yolk and beat until combined. Add lime juice, lime zest, baking powder and salt and stir to combine. Gradually add flour and stir until dough is smooth. Shape dough in to 1 inch balls and transfer to cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Add powdered sugar topping using a sifter (this was so fun, I'd never done it before!).

I made these while my husband had people over for games and it was all I could do to save them all from being gobbled up on the spot! Luckily I had enough limes left to make a second batch :-)

Chocolate Chip Apricot Scones

One of my new years resolutions was to bake more. Not because it's good for me or anything (it pretty obviously isn't) but because I love doing it and the smell of fresh baked goods in the house makes me incredibly happy. I dream of the day when Echo will help bake, I can just see her little pudgy fists kneading the dough.

Recently I've been having more excuses to bake, which is good so I don't eat it all myself! I've been having monthly get togethers with some of my friends who are pregnant or have babies. We usually meet in the mornings so it's the perfect time for some fresh baked breakfast goodies.

For our last meeting I made this chocolate chip apricot scones, mmmm... Here is the recipe adapted from Eat, Live, Run.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

6 T cold butter, cut into chunks

3/4 cup whole milk

1/2 cup chopped dried apricots

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in the butter with your fingers and work mixture together until it resembles coarse sand. Add the chopped apricots and chocolate chips.

Add the cream and mix with your hands until a dough forms. Make an eight inch circle with the dough and slice into 12 small wedges. Place wedges on a lined baking sheet and bake for 16-18 minutes, until golden brown.

Whole Wheat Sesame Crackers

This was my first attempt at making crackers. For some reason I assumed crackers would be difficult to make and had been avoiding them. I was so surprised to lear how easy it is and how delicious home made crackers can be. Crackers are a kid snack staple so I want to learn to make lots of different varieties to have on hand when Echo is old enough to eat them. The only slightly difficult thing about them is that rolling out the dough can be time consuming but this is only difficult because I have a five month old who wants my attention. You can find the recipe I used here, at Sweet Freedom. 

These would be great with cheese but we enjoyed them on their own this time. They were so good that we ended up eating them all in one sitting! I should mention that the recipe only makes six crackers so (even though they are large crackers) they go pretty quick. Next time I will double the recipe.

Honey Wheat Sandwich Bread

Continuing my bread baking kick is a fabulous honey wheat sandwich bread.

It's another o knead bread which I love but it does require more yeast that my other no knead varieties because it has a shorter rise time. This is a nice one if you don't want to wait 12 to 18 hours for your bread. It also has a great, slightly sweet flavor and is cooked in a loaf pan so it's perfect for sandwiches. This recipe makes two loafs.

Ingredients
3 cups warm water
4 1/2 tsp dry yeast
1/4 cup honey
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup oat flour
2 cups white flour
2 tsp salt

Directions
Grease loaf pans and set aside. Combine water, yeast and honey and stir until yeast is disolved. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix thoroughly. Divide in to loaf pans and loosely cover, let stand in a warm spot for 20 minutes, dough will rise slightly. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Turn out of pan and cool on a rack.

This bread is fantastic hot out of the over with lots of butter, yum!

Cheese Bannocks

Eric and I recently placed an Amazon order for some specialty food items since certain things are way cheaper to buy in bulk online. One of these items was oat flour because there are some homemade cracker recipes I've been wanting to try that require it. I'm trying to use more whole grains and I'm experimenting with different flours as well so I was excited to try oat flour. When I was unpacking our box of flour I noticed a recipe for cheese bannocks on the back of Arrowhead Mills flour bag and decided to give it a go. For those of you who don't know a bannock is a kind of flat bread very similar to a scone (in Scotland the words bannock and scone are used interchangeably). This recipe was easy and delicious! Plus it is 100% whole grain but it doesn't taste like a health food, yum!

1 cup quick cook oats
1 cup oat flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 cup warm water

combine dry ingredients and blend thoroughly. Cut in butter with a fork then stir in cheese. add water and mix, kneading when dough gets too thick to stir. divid dough in to 2 parts and shape in to circles about 1/4" thick. Cut in to 4 equal wedges  and bake on lightly greased cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Bannocks hot out of the oven. I also got to use my new silicone baking mat!

I had mine for breakfast with tea and felt very British :-) Enjoy!

No Knead Bread Variations

Baking is a passion I discovered last year and no knead bread is pretty much my favorit thing to make ever. You can see the original recipe I used here. I wanted to jazz things up a bit so for a holiday dinner party I made a cranberry orange bread. Delicious!

To make this one all you have to do is add about half a cup of dried cranberries and the zest of one large orange. I also threw in about a quarter cup of brown sugar to make it a little sweeter.

I guess I got cocky from my first variation because then I went crazy modifying the recipe. I added half whole wheat flour (which I have done before and it turned out fine), flax seeds, a cup of rolled oats and a few tablespoons of molasses. I was loosely basing this on a recipe for honey wheat bread but I didn't have any honey so I thought molasses could be interesting. I also added some extra water because the consistency seemed wrong. I hoped it would be a rich, dark bread and while the flavor was good I couldn't get the middle to cook and it turned out doughy.

It came out pretty but not that tasty. I may try it again in the future and fiddle with the ingredients a bit, but for now I think I'll stick to recipes that others have tried so I know they'll turn out well.

No Knead Bread

I was turned on to no knead bread by a friend of mine and it has changed my life!

You see I'm kind of a bread snob, I've gotten to the point where I just don't like the bagged bread you buy at the store, it has to come from the bakery. Of course it's even better if it's home made. I was baking quite a bit this Summer before Echo was born but now that she's here I have very little time for baking. I've thought about getting a bread machine but somehow bread machine bread just doesn't do it for me. It doesn't taste the same as the real from scratch stuff.

Enter no knead bread! It's just as easy as bread machine bread, all you have to do is whip it up the night before, let it sit for 12 to 18 hours and bake in the morning. Yum! Hot, fresh bread for breakfast!

Plus I get to cook it in my enameled cast iron dutch oven, possibly the best piece of cook ware known to man.

Here is the recipe I used, enjoy!



Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups water (room temperature)

Instructions:
In a big bowl mix flour, salt and yeast together. Pour water into the bowl and using a spatula mix it until it's all incorporated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit on your counter for 12 to 18 hours.
Preheat oven to 450 F degrees. Add your cast iron pot to the oven and heat it as well until it's at 450 F degrees.
Remove pot from oven and remove the lid from it.
Flour your work surface really well and make sure you flour your hands really well. With your floured hands gently remove the dough from the bowl and roughly shape it into a ball. Take the ball of dough and drop it into the pot. Cover the pot with the lid and place it back in the oven.
Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, after which remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and let cool.