Thursday, September 27, 2007

Honey Oat Bread

I made this a few weeks ago for Rob. He loved it, I loved it. It makes a hearty, dense loaf that's perfect with stews and gravies. Or plain. Or warmed up with a little butter. Or ...

Ingredients:
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 packages active dry yeast
1 tablespoon salt
2 1/4 cups water
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 egg
3 (or so) cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
In a mixing bowl, combine whole wheat flour, oats, yeast, and salt. In a saucepan, heat water, honey, and butter to 120-130 deg. Add to dry ingredients; beat until blended. Beat in egg until smooth. Stir in enough all-purpose flour to form a stiff dough.

Turn onto a floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled - about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Shape into loaves. Place on two greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise until doubles, about 30 minutes.

With a sharp knife, make several shallow x-shaped cuts across top of each loaf. Sprinkle with additional oats if desired. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until browned. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

(I find this works really well if I use my pizza stone instead of cookie sheets)

Chocolate Turtle Cake

All right, a few more fantastic recipes. I got this one from Linda Ryan - our pastor's wife. It's fantastic, but you may want to employ someone else to unwrap all those caramels. Pain in the butt.

Ingredients:
1 package Betty Crocker SuperMoist devil's food cake miz
1 1/3 c. water
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 bag (14 ounce) caramels
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1 c. pecans, chopped
1 bag (6 ounce) semisweet chocolate chips (or 1 cup)

Directions:
Heat oven to 350. Grease bottom of 13x9 rectangular pan.

Beat cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl constantly (do not overbeat). Pour half of the batter into pan. Bake 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat caramels and evaporated milk in 1-quart saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until caramels are melted (this takes longer than it sounds). Stir in pecans. Pour caramel mixture over warm cake in pan. Sprinkle with chocolated chips. Spread with remaining cake batter. Bake 30 minutes. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

Cinnamon Roll Coffee Cake

Well, I didn't bake or cook anything yesterday (unless you count a Lean Cuisine frozen pizza as cooking.) LOL. However, to start things off on the right foot, I'm going to post my world-famous, prize-winning Cinnamon Roll Coffee Cake. Yes, I really did win first prize in a baking contest with this one.

DOUGH
1 package active dry yeast
3 T. warm water
1/2 c. warm milk
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour (or more, depending on humidity)

FILLING
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/4 c. packed brown sugar
1 1/2 T. ground cinnamon
3/4 c. pecans, chopped

ICING
3/4 c. confectioner's sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 T. milk

DIRECTIONS:
In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, butter, eggs, sugar, salt, and 1 1/2 c. flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. TUrn onto a lightly floured surface; knewad until smooth and elastic - about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, at least 1 hour.

Punch dough down; turn onto a floured surface. Roll into 24 x 8 rectangle. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Spread over rectangle to within 1/2 inch of long edges. Sprinkle with pecans. Roll up jelly-roll style, starting with the long side; pinch seam to seal.

Place roll seam side down on large greased cookie sheet and, using sharp knife, cut completely in half long-ways. Place cut sides up; gently twist two pieces together to form a "rope". Pull ends together andpinch to form a ring.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, at least 30 minutes. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to wire rack to cool. Combine icing ingredients; drizzle over coffee cake. Best eaten while still warm, but may be frozen for up to two months.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

About my Blog

Well, I figured I should start my cooking blog somewhere ... so this is my first attempt at learning to cook, as well as my continued attempts to improve my baking. I can't promise to update every day (since I don't cook or bake on a daily basis), but I will update when I have a recipe to pass along!

Email me if you have any questions or need help with a recipe I've posted!