Sweet Potato Polenta cornbread

This sweet potato polenta cornbread is so pretty in real life. You can see the chunks of sweet potato because I didn't puree it smooth. 

It is so good too. I love polenta  

1 Cup organic Polenta 

1 Cup all purpose flour

1 TBls baking power

1/2 tsp salt

1 Cup mashed cooked sweet potato

1 Cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1/2 cup softened or melted butter

1/4 Cup honey (this isn't too sweet, if you like it sweeter increase to 1/2 c)

mix the dry together

mix the buttermilk, eggs, butter and honey

add the sweet potato

add wet to dry

grease and line with parchment paper an 8x8 pan

pour batter into pan

bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 mins

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Bread Machine Whole Wheat Walnut Bread

1 cup room temperature water

2 Tbls vegetable oil (I used peanut oil, you can try olive oil)

4 Tbls maple syrup (the real stuff grade A) or use honey

2 cup bread flour (I used King Arthur brand)

1 cup whole wheat flour (king Arthur brand)

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup instant oats

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

2 1/4 tsp bread machine yeast

Add the ingredients in the order they are written in a bread machine.

I programed it on bread cycle and the color light. 

It will be ready in a little over 4 hours

*** To make dinner rolls, set the machine to dough cycle.
When that is done, divide dough into 8 balls and place them in a greased pan.
Let rise until double in size, maybe an hour.
Once fully risen,  brush on the top of the rolls with olive oil. Sprinkle with rolled oats and poppy seeds if you would like.
bake 375 until brown 20 minutes

**** I rolled 16 rolls and baked them for 20 minutes, until golden brown.

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I pulled my bread machine out of storage.  This bread machine was given to me before my kids were born and my oldest is 22 years old.  It still worked and the bread was so good it surprised me how good it was.

These are the dinner rolls, but I rolled them too big they are the size of hamburger buns. They were delicious.  So if you want them to be dinner rolls, roll them smaller. 

Southern Biscuits with no Buttermilk

Southern Biscuits with no Buttermilk

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour (i used bleached and from the freezer)

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 Tbls baking powder-use without aluminum (i didn't)

1 tsp kosher salt

6 Tbls unsalted butter very cold (i used salted and from the freezer)

1 cup buttermilk ( i didn't have buttermilk, i put 1 Tbls white vinegar in a 1 cup measuring cup then added 2 % milk to equal 1 cup, put the cup in the refrigerator while i mixed the flour)

Pre heat oven to 450 degrees

Combine dry ingredients in the food processor.

Add frozen butter in slices

pulse until pea sized butter

add in buttermilk until just combined. Don't over mix.

Turn the dough out on a floured surface.

Gently, gently pat the dough out until it is about 1/2 inch thick. 

Fold the dough in half 5 times turning the dough each time, gently press the dough down to a 1 inch thick. (if your hands are hot gently use a rolling pin)

Cut the dough in circles, cut down and up, don't twist the circle cutter or your biscuits will be lopsided. 

Place on a baking pan not touching each other. I like them brown on all sides.  If you like them softer on the sides you can make them all touch each other. 

Bake for 10-12 (i baked them for 10 mins. i think i should of baked them for 11 mins.) 

Don't over bake the biscuits. So watch them.

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Sweet Cornbread

Sweet Cornbread

1 cup cornmeal, yellow

3 cups all purpose flour

1 1/3 cup white sugar

2 Tbls baking powder

1 tsp salt

2/3 vegetable oil

1/3 cup melted butter

2 Tbls honey

4 eggs, beaten

2 1/2 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan.

Stir together the dry ingredients.

In another bowl, stir together the rest of the ingredients.

Blend wet with dry. 

Pour into the prepared pan.

Bake 45 minutes.

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Focaccia Bread in One Hour

Why not make your own bread? Because it is cheaper and it can be really easy.  Check out this Focaccia Bread you can make in an hour.  I like to use Focaccia bread for sandwiches.  My kids love their sandwiches with this bread!! Make it, you will be surprised.   

I found this recipe online at: 

http://www.crunchycreamysweet.com

Focaccia Bread in One Hour

1. For the dough
2. 3/4 c warm water
3. 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
4. 1 1/2 tsp yeast (I used Red Star Active Dry Yeast)
5. 2 Tbsp olive or canola oil
6. 2 c all-purpose flour ( divided )
7. 1/2 tsp salt
for the parmesan butter brush:
8. 3 Tbsp unsalted or salted butter, melted
9. 1 Tbsp grated parmesan
10. 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

1. Place water and sugar in a large mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Sprinkle yeast over the water and stir few times. Let sit until foamy ( about 5 minutes).
3. Turn the mixer on low speed and add 1 cup of flour and salt. Mix until combined.
4. Add oil and mix well.
5. Gradually add as much of the remaining cup of flour as you can ( it can be only 3/4 of it) and mix until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
6. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 220 degrees F and when it's ready turn it off. Keep the door closed.
7. Grease the skillet.
8. Place dough onto a floured surface (use the remaining flour from the second cup) and fold the dough few times until you feel it's smooth and not sticky anymore. Shape into a ball.
9. Roll out the dough into a size of your skillet.
10. Place in skillet. Stretch up the sides. Cover with a kitchen towel and place in the oven for 20 minutes.
11. Take the skillet out of the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Make indentations in the dough with your fingers.
12. Mix melted butter, parmesan and seasoning in a small bowl. Brush the dough with half the butter.
13. Place skillet with dough in the preheated oven and bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush with remaining butter. Let cool until safe to the touch and slice. Serve.

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 After I rolled it out and placed it in my oiled 10 inch cast iron pan

 This is after I had it in the warm oven for 20 mins

 I poked it

Brushed it with butter and italian seasoning and sprinkled parmesan cheese on it. 

 Baked this for 20 minutes

This was so good and just like the kind you buy in the stores and spend a lot of money on them. 

Old Town Cranberry Bread

This bread is a recipe from the Colorado Bed & Breakfast Cookbook.  I love this bread, it is so good.  I bake it every year.  I had to post the recipe on my blog so I never lose this recipe.

OLD TOWN CRANBERRY BREAD

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup sugar
2 strips (about 3x1 inch each) lemon zest
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 eggs
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
6 Tbls plain yogurt
1 1/2 cup fresh cranberries (or use dried cranberries**- see note below)

DIRECTIONS:

preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda.

In food processor, place sugar and lemon zest strips.  Process until zest is finely grated.  Add butter; process until creamy.  Add eggs, one at a time; mix well.  Add vanilla and yogurt; process until combined.  Transfer butter/yogurt mixture to a large bowl.

Put cranberries in food processor; pulse 3-4 times until coarsely chopped.  Add cranberries to dry ingredients; toss to combine.  Add dry ingredients and cranberries to butter/yogurt mixture; stir just until moistened.

Spoon batter into loaf pan.  Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for 30 minutes.  Remove bread from pan to finish cooling.  Wrap well; refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.


**use 6 oz package of dried cranberries, soaked in very hot water for 10 minutes and drained well.  the cranberries worked great.

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Crusty Bread requires No Kneading

1/2 packet active yeast

8 oz warm water

1/2 tsp sugar

2 1/4 cups flour (287 grams, I measured)

3/4 tsp salt (I had course kosher salt)

put water in a large bowl, sprinkle with sugar and stir

sprinkle in the yeast on top of the water.

let it bloom for 10 mins.

add some of the flour and stir

stir in the rest of the flour. 

cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 1/2 hours or until double in size.

use floured hands and pound down dough.

Put it in a 8 inch cast iron pan greased with olive oil.

cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubles again. around 1 hour or longer or less. depends on how warm/cold your house is.

preheat oven to 400 degrees.

take plastic wrap off

put olive oil on top with any seasonings you would like. salt, pepper, garlic oct

bake for 30 mins until crusty.

The bread below was made in my new bread pan (you can see it in the background) I bought from Breadtopia.com

here is the link:   http://www.breadtopia.com/store/la-cloche.html

It was pricy but worth the money.  In this recipe I made 1 1/2 times the no kneed bread recipe below.  Next time I will double the recipe and see if I get a bigger loaf.

 

more bread in my bread pan.  I made it into balls.  It was made with the recipe below.  I didn't double it.  When it was done you could just rip off the pieces and eat them. Yum!

Not only can you make bread from this recipe you can make pizza dough.  

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Crusty Bread requires no kneading

3 cups unbleached white flour

1 3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 tsp yeast (I used the jar of quick rise yeast)

1 1/2 cup of warm water

Whisk together the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl it will sit in for 12-18 hours.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the water.  

Slowly stir in the flour little by little until it is mixed.  

It will be a sticky mess. 

Now just leave it alone, cover it with plastic wrap and place on your counter top for 12-18 hours or longer until you can use it. 

This is what it will look like after 12-18 hours sitting on your counter with plastic wrap on top.

Next put the dough on a well floured surface.  With floured hands or even olive oil on your hands and pat the dough into a ball and cover with plastic wrap to rest and let rise for 2 hours.  Pre heat your oven to 450 degrees with the pan pre heating in the oven also for 30 minutes. 

Bake for 30 minutes with a LID ON

This is what it looks like after 30 minutes of baking with the lid on.

Now take the lid off and bake for another 10-15 minutes.  I baked my bread for 15 minutes with the lid off and I think it was too dark.  Next time I will only cook for 10 minutes.  After it sat on the counter and cooled the outside did soften a little bit and wasn't so hard. 

This is what it looks like when it is done. Yum!

I made pastrami and banana pepper pizza.

All you do is after the no kneed dough has sat on your counter for 12-18 hours, flour a surface and your hands and roll it into your pizza dough and add your favorite toppings.  Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. 

No Knead Bread

1 packet active yeast

2 cups warm water

1 tsp sugar

4 1/2 cups flour (574 grams, I measured)

1 1/2 tsp salt (I had course kosher salt)

add in:

dried rosemary I just put in as much as I thought looked good

Bloom the yeast: add the packet to the warm water with the sugar. Let sit for 10 minutes or until yeast starts to foam.  If it doesn't foam you got your water too hot and killed the yeast. You will have to start over.  If it didn't foam after 10 minutes, and your water was too cool you will have to wait longer for it to activate.  

Mix together the flour and salt and rosemary if you are using it. 

Once the yeast is activated, add some of the flour mixture to the yeast and water. Stir with wooden spoon. 

Keep adding flour little by little and stir in-between until all the flour is used.

The dough will be sticky. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 hour or until it doubles in size.  Depends on how warm or cold your house is. 

oil your pan with olive oil. Preferably a cast iron pan or stone. 

Once doubled in size, put flour on your hands and punch down the dough and move it to your pan. 

Let raise until it doubles in size. Mine took around 1 1/2 hours. 

Brush with olive oil (seasoning on top is optional)

bake with the lid on 400 degrees for 30 mins. Take the lid off and cook another 15-17 mins until golden brown on top. 

If you don't have a lid, just bake it for 45-47 mins

I brushed the top of my dough with olive oil and seasonings before I put it in the oven.  

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