Cranberry walnut bread

Cranberry Walnut Bread
Yield: Makes 2 LoavesPrep Time: 3 hrsCook Time: 30 – 35 mins
A pretty holiday inspired bread that both freezes and toasts really well.

Ingredients:
Biga:
1/2 Teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
1 Cup Lukewarm water
2 Cups Unbleached, All-purpose Flour
Bread:
3 1/2 Cups All-purpose Flour
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
2 Cups Water (Approximate)
1 Teaspoon Instant Yeast
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Ground Cinnamon
Zest From 1 Orange
1 1/2 Cups Dried Cranberries
1 1/2 Cups Chopped Walnuts

Directions:
For the biga, Mix the yeast and water together, and then slowly start adding the flour, mixing well.
Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for up to 6 hours and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, take 1 cup of the biga (refrigerate rest for another project) and mix together with the flours, salt, cinnamon, orange zest, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl.
Begin to add water, stirring as you go and add as much water as is needed to bring everything together into a fairly firm dough.
Stir in the walnuts and cranberries, then dump the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for 5 minutes until smooth.
Lightly oil a large bowl and then place the dough in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
Let the dough rise in a warm place in your kitchen until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Punch down the dough and divide it into two equal pieces.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Share each ball of dough into an oval loaf and place each on a cornmeal dusted baking sheet.
Cover the loaves with a kitchen towel and let rest 30 minutes.
Cut three slashes into each loaf with a sharp knife and then bake until the internal temperature of the bread reaches 190 degrees F., about 35 minutes.
Cool to room temperature before slicing.

Sue’s Iron Skillet Texas Cornbread

Yes, another cornbread recipe. I make a new one up almost every Fall. This one is kind of back to basics Texas fare: green chile, cheese, but cutting down on bacon fat and substituting olive oil. Best I’ve made in a while!
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place in 10″ iron skillet:

2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons bacon grease

Put skillet in oven to heat until piping hot. Keep it hot until the batter is ready.

Whisk together in a large mixing bowl:

1 cup ground yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup all purpose white flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder

Drop in:

2 eggs, unbeaten
1 cup 2% milk
1/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup grated fiesta cheese
1/2 cup green chile (spicy preferred by us)
2/3 cup frozen corn

Mix together with whisk.

Pour into piping hot skillet, and bake until crunchy and golden brown (25 minutes approximately).

Cut into wedges and eat.
Good with soup, pinto beans, chile con carne, and cold when you’re waiting for the coffee to brew the next morning.

Texas Style Cornbread

This cornbread contains all three of the primary tastes that Texans love: savory (bacon grease), sweet (creamed corn), and spicy (chipotle peppers). If you don’t like spicy leave out the peppers, but you are missing a way to jump start your metabolism if you don’t use peppers. You are also missing the way the your brain starts firing “WOW” messages to the rest of you.

1 cup stone ground cornmeal
3/4 cup flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or sea salt)

1/2 cup canola oil (or bacon grease if you have it)
14 ounce can cream style corn
2 eggs, whisked until smooth
1 cup sour cream
1 cup grated sharp cheese (cheddar)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
two chipotle peppers, chopped small (optional)
crushed black pepper for top (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Put iron skillet in oven and add 2-3 Tablespoons bacon grease or oil. Heat until hot but not smoking.
Place dry ingredients in mixing bowl and whisk together to distribute evenly. Add oil, whisked eggs, creamed corn, sour cream, cheese, cayenne and chipotle peppers. Whisk together just until blended. Pour batter into heated iron skillet, top with cracked black pepper, then bake until golden brown, approximately 30 minutes, and remove from oven. Coat top lightly with salted butter, and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Cut into wedges and enjoy!

This recipe will also make wonderful corn muffins!

Buttermilk cheddar biscuits

I found this Ina Garten recipe on Food Network, and after reading a lot of reviews, modified it slightly, adding soda where Ina did not call for soda and decreasing the salt because the cheddar has a lot of sodium in it already. These are the best cheddar biscuits I’ve ever eaten!! It makes eight huge biscuits, but you can cut them smaller if you like. The square corners are nice and crunchy. You can eat these cold the next day they’re so good.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoons kosher salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup cold buttermilk, shaken (more if needed)
1 cold extra-large egg
1 cup grated extra-sharp Cheddar
1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water or milk
Maldon sea salt, optional
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place 2 cups of flour, the baking powder, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low, add the butter and mix until the butter is the size of peas.

Combine the buttermilk and egg in a small measuring cup and beat lightly with a fork. With the mixer still on low, quickly add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and mix only until moistened. In a small bowl, mix the Cheddar with small handful of flour and, with the mixer still on low, add the cheese to the dough. Mix only until roughly combined.

Dump out onto a well-floured board and knead lightly about 6 times. Roll the dough out to a rectangle 10 by 5 inches. With a sharp, floured knife, cut the dough lengthwise in half and then across in quarters, making 8 rough rectangles. Transfer to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops with the egg wash, sprinkle with salt, if using, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the biscuits are cooked through. Serve hot or warm.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

These were *really* good. I got the basic dough recipe from the King Arthur Flour website and modified it a bit to suit me. Mostly because I can’t follow directions (I’m a rebel like that when it comes to cooking). The rolls are not screaming with pumpkin flavor but they DO scream with deliciousness, with a beautiful rich color and flavor.  Your house will smell amazing while they cook!

Dough:
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup lukewarm water*
1/4 cup soft butter
4 1/4 cups King Arthur all purpose flour
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, optional
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 package active dry yeast

*I wound up adding an additional 1/4 cup water – the dough was too dry

Filling:
1/2 cup softened butter
2-3 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
Cinnamon
1/2 – 3/4 cup brown sugar

Directions:
1. Mix and knead all of the dough ingredients together — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — until you’ve made a soft, fairly smooth dough.

2.  Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and allow the dough to rise for 1 1/2 hours, until it’s almost doubled in bulk.

3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased surface. Roll it into a 14″ x 22″ rectangle; the dough will be thin.

4. Brush the dough with milk or heavy cream. Spread the softened butter on top. Sprinkle alot of cinnamon on the dough.  I didn’t measure the cinnamon (sorry!) but I probably used at least 1 tablespoon, and as it turns out I wished I had used more.  Then sprinkle 1/2 to 3/4 cup brown sugar over the cinnamon.

5. Roll the dough loosely into a long log and pinch to seal the seam.

6. Slice the log into about 1 1/2 inch thick rolls – the dough is soft and it’s best to use a serrated knife for this.  This recipe made 20 cinnamon rolls for me.

7.  Put the rolls into a greased pan. I greased my pans with butter (as if there’s any question on that).  I used two 13×9 pans (8 rolls each) and one 9 inch cake pan (4 rolls).

8. Cover loosely with greased saran wrap and place in the fridge overnight.

9. In the morning, let the dough sit on the counter about an hour, until the rolls start puffing up a bit.

10. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
Heavy cream

1. Add heavy cream a bit at a time and mix until the glaze is still thick, but thin enough to spread easily.

2. Spread the glaze over the cooled rolls.

Eat! And enjoy!

Bran Buttermilk Pecan Pancakes

I developed this recipe to avoid having the sugar rush and subsequent blood sugar drop that you get when you have pancakes made with white refined flour only. The fiber in the pancakes slows down the digestive process and helps avoid the extremes of the sugar rush.

Mix together in small bowl, allowing to sit for 2-3 minutes:

1/2 cup Kellogg’s All Bran cereal (or other brand cereal you have)
1/2 cup milk

In a medium size mixing bowl, add and whisk together:

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup fine chopped pecans
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt (less if it’s not kosher)

In a small mixing bowl, separate two eggs then whisk together:

4 Tablespoons melted butter
2 egg yolks
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat the 2 egg whites until soft peaks form. I like to use my old fashioned egg beater and do this by hand. While I’m beating the eggs, I watch the foam start to make big bubbles then little bubbles and relish the luxury of doing this the old fashioned way. Pancakes are a journey.

Add the bran and milk mixture and other liquid ingredients (except the egg whites) to the flour mixture. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook by the scoop full (approx 1/3 cup of batter) to a 400 degree heated pancake griddle. Flip when bubbles begin to appear, and put on heated platter covering with a kitchen towel until all pancakes are done. This yields eleven to twelve 5″(approximately) pancakes.

Serve with real maple syrup and butter.

We also like to serve this with chopped peaches (canned is fine) that are sprinkled generously with cinnamon. When you add the peaches, it is a little like having cobbler for breakfast! This is also good for the “breakfast for dinner” meal.

Beer Battered Oat Bread

Another recipe from my Tía Loca.  This is my kind of recipe – beer and oatmeal.  Sounds like breakfast to me.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 ¼ cups rolled oats
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon honey
1 12 oz. beer
1 stick of butter

Directions:

Preheat oven at 375, grease a 9X5 loaf pan. Mix dry ingredients, drizzle honey over mixture, pour beer on top, fold carefully (don’t over mix). Fill up loaf pan and drizzle melted butter over the top.

Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

Mema’s yeast rolls

No holiday meal was complete without my sweet Mother In Law’s rolls. The first meal I ate at her table consisted of fried chicken (lightly fried then baked in the oven), fresh black eyed peas, homemade cream style corn, rice with celery and onions sauteed in butter, and these rolls served with home churned butter. The rolls just melted in my mouth. Dessert was chocolate meringue pie so good your eyes would roll back in your head. When the meal was over all the females pitched in and cleaned up the kitchen and got to know each other. I was in love with Darrell and his family after this meal if not before.

1/4 cup warm water
1 package dry yeast
3 cups flour
1 cup scalded milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1/2 cup lard (yes, LARD) Crisco will do, though

Place yeast in cup with 1/4 cup warm water to proof the yeast. If it begins to bubble, it is good yeast. Put sugar, salt, and lard in mixing bowl. Add scalded milk and let cool to lukewarm. Add eggs and yeast mixture to the milk mixture and beat in 1 1/2 cups flour with the mixer. Add 1 1/2 more cups flour, beating until moist. Turn out on floured surface and work in more flour 1/2 cup at a time as needed to make a soft dough. This will be softer than bread dough. Turn into greased bowl, cover and let rise at room temperature until double.

Punch dough down and put on a floured surface, pinching off 2 small balls of dough to make divided rolls. Place two balls in each muffin tin depression, let rise until double (again at room temperature), and bake at 325 until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush tops with melted butter.

Alternate method: Roll out dough, and cut with round biscuit cutter. These may be baked in biscuit shapes or creased and folded over to bake in a folded shape.

Pumpkin Nut Bread

When Fall mornings are crisp and the smell of maturing crops is in the air, I pull out my mixer and make this cake. We used to bake it in one pound coffee cans but alas I have no one pound coffee cans any more. Matt always loved pumpkin bread and would have it for breakfast with spiced tea. Nothing signals fall better than pumpkin *anything*.

1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 can (1 lb.) pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups sifted flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup dark or golden raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter and add sugar gradually; beat in eggs. Add pumpkin and vanilla, mixing to combine. Sift together the flour, salt, soda, baking powder, and spices; blend with pumpkins mixture. Add nuts and raisins.

Grease two loaf pans or one tube pan, and flour lightly. Bake for 60-65 minutes or until bread tests done with a toothpick. Let stand 10 minutes before removing from pans, cool on racks. Wrap and store overnight before slicing.