FroYo!

Ok, I know this isn't bread but I have been loving frozen yogurt lately and so I wanted to try to make it at home. I looked up different recipes online and decided to follow this one. It was fairly simple to do. For ice cream and yogurt, it really needs love. Not to be cheesy, but it's true. You have to be patient and give it attention every 30 minutes for it to be deliciously creamy. That's love! I really liked how this frozen yogurt turned out. It turned out nice and creamy. I wish I had some M&M's to add in, but I didn't have any. Maybe next time I'll have candies and fruits to add in.


A nice dessert!


Homemade Frozen Chocolate Yogurt
adapted from About.com Jonathon Stewart Homemade Frozen Chocolate Yogurt


Ingredients
1 cup 2% milk
¼ cup sugar
1 lightly beaten egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
about 3 oz. of bittersweet chocolate (I ended up using milk chocolate chips - it's what I had)
2 cups of organic frozen yogurt (I used Oikos Greek Yogurt)


Directions
Combine the milk, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. As your mixture thickens, add your chocolate and continue stirring until the consistency is thick and smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes. 


In a baking dish, or anything that can be frozen, combine the chocolate mixture and yogurt - and mix thoroughly. (I don't think I stirred the chocolate mixture as constantly as possible, and I ended up having little lumps in the mixture. So, before I mixed the chocolate mixture with the yogurt, I strained the chocolate mixture through a cheesecloth.) Then submerge the dish in a shallow ice bath for about 15 minutes. After the ice bath, gently stir the mixture and place in the freezer.


After 45 minutes in the freezer, stir up the frozen yogurt. Frozen crystals probably formed, so break those up until the consistency is back to fairly even, and then place the dish back in the freezer. This is where the love comes into the picture. Check on it every 30 minutes to stir it up again, for 2-3 hours. The frozen yogurt will be creamy and delicious. If you let it freeze for too long without stirring it up, it will get fairly hard and not the enjoyable froyo consistency. Don't get too upset if this happens, just let it sit in room temperature for a little bit and it'll be just as yummy.


A little side note - Tim came home with flowers tonight. =) A nice sweet surprise for sure!

Pretzel Buns

We got pretty busy this past weekend and couldn't make any bread. Not a bad thing, we were busy enjoying the nice weather. We hung out as a family at Barnes & Noble and enjoyed some frozen yogurt at a frozen yogurt place in town. (My recent obsession) =)

Anyway, back to the topic hm? We wanted to make pretzel buns this time around. I love love pretzel buns. If I see pretzel buns as an option for a sandwich at a restaurant, I always choose it. Making these involved poaching the dough, which was the first time Tim & I have ever heard of doing for dough. (Again, we are novice bread makers!) =)

We followed Guy Fieri's recipe for Pretzel Buns.. but also read other pretzel bun recipes online for other options/ideas.

Pretzel Buns

adapted from Guy Fieri's recipe

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
• Vegetable oil, for the bowl
• Cooking spray
• 1/3 cup baking soda
• 2 tablespoons of butter, melted (we added this)

Directions

Put 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F to 115 degrees F) in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Set aside to bloom, 5 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl.

Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture and mix with the dough hook (this was our first time using our dough hook attachment! Yay!) on the lowest setting until the dough comes together. Increase the speed to medium and continue to mix until the dough is elastic and smooth, about 8 minutes.

Form the dough into a ball, place in a large oiled (we used Olive Oil) bowl and turn the dough to coat it with oil. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rest in a warm place until doubled in size, 30 to 35 minutes. (We turned on the oven to 350 for a few minutes, then turned it off and placed the dough in there to rest) Line a baking sheet with foil or a silicone baking mat, coat generously with cooking spray and set aside.

Punch down the dough, then turn out onto a floured surface. Knead just until the dough is smooth and springs back when poked, about 1 minute. Divide into 4 pieces and form into 5-by-3-inch oblong rolls. (We made circular buns because I thought they would look cuter) Place the rolls on the prepared baking sheet and cut four 2-inch diagonal slashes across the top of each. (This was fun to do for me for some reason) Cover with a damp towel or cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until almost doubled in size, 15 to 20 minutes. (We did the same thing as earlier and let it rest in a warm oven. Our oven preheats quickly, so I didn't do the next step right away) Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and bring 8 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat.

Stir the baking soda into the boiling water (it will foam up slightly). Add 2 rolls and poach 2 minutes per side. (We think 1 minute of poaching on each side would probably be better) Using a slotted spoon, remove the rolls, drain (DEFINITELY do this! And pat with a paper towel. The last thing you want are soggy pretzel buns) and place on the baking sheet, cut-side up. We melted some butter and brushed some on the buns to give that shine after baking, to make them look more legitimate. Sprinkle with salt. Repeat with the remaining rolls.

Bake the rolls until golden, 12 to 15 minutes. (We baked the buns between 15-20 minutes because we like our bread crisper/browner) Let cool slightly on the baking sheet.

While the buns were baking, Tim fried up some of his famously delicious burgers. We have them frozen to make for dinners whenever we feel like having them. He made different kinds and he cooked up the bacon & cheddar burgers for this meal. He let them rest after cooking and then we set up our burgers for our very late meal (again). It was a really delicious meal and it was a pretty neat feeling to know we made everything from scratch - the burger and buns.

Naan, Naan, Naan

Tim and I love Indian food.. and I especially loved it when I was pregnant. One of my favorite things to eat at Indian restaurants are the Naan. In the bread cook book we have, there is a Naan recipe. We wanted to try it out next. We followed the recipe/techniques in the book and also the one on this website. We made 5 pieces (and probably could have made the dough into more pieces .. next time), and with each piece, we used different combinations of cumin, caraway seeds, garlic, and butter as additional flavors. We learned as we went along...and made the dough thinner to get a crisper naan. We followed 2 different recipes, one called for a flash fry in oil and the other called for brushing water on one side and cooking on the skillet then flipping the naan straight unto the gas flame to finish. We liked the latter technique better and it created burn marks that look more authentic.

We made these later in the evening last night and they became our snack while watching The Help. Great movie, by the way. We didn't really have anything else that would accompany the naan, but it was ok, it was a great snack regardless.

Naan Recipe

Adapted from Rasa Malaysia website

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oil
1/2 cup yogurt
1/2 cup milk (warmed)
Butter for brushing naans
Chopped coriander/ garlic, caraway seeds or cumin for sprinkling



Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt together in a bowl. Make a well in the center and add the yogurt and oil. Add half the milk and mix everything together to form a ball. Then, keep adding the milk if you think it needs it. (We used up the 1/2 cup of milk.) Your dough needs to be soft such that if you poke it with your finger, it leaves an indentation. Knead for 7 minutes until the dough is almost bubbling. (We weren't sure what that meant exactly)  Keep covered in a warm place for 2 hours. (We turned on our toaster oven to warm it up, then placed the dough in a covered bowl in it - the toaster oven was off when we had the dough inside) Although the dough will rise, it will not double and may be slightly sticky to touch.

Heat a heavy bottom skillet. Divide the dough into six balls. (We made 5, but definitely try to make 6 or more) Roll each ball into the shape of a teardrop with the aid of extra flour. At this point, you can sprinkle whatever garnish you like such as cumin or caraway seeds or leave it plain. This was our first time trying caraway seeds. Tip - buy it from a fresh foods market type place where you can get a little scoopful, you don't need that much (unless you plan on using them a lot) Also, caraway seeds have a very strong flavor. Not bad, but definitely strong, so sprinkle a little at first to learn your preference. Brush the other side of the naan with water and place the water side down onto the skillet. Cover with a lid immediately. You will see the top of the naan bubbling. After a minute or so, turn the pan upside down so that the naan is exposed to the direct flames of the fire (the naan will stick to your pan because of the water -for our case, it didn't stick, so we used tongs to move the naan around) until that side is cooked. This usually only takes a few seconds. Our smoke detector definitely turned on while cooking these. (With our baby sleeping upstairs, we were a team of cooking and fanning the smoke detector.) Brush butter on the naan and serve immediately. These naan turned out really good. Next time, we'll actually make it for a meal.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 

As my first official post, let me give a little introduction of myself and this blog. My husband, Tim, and I (my name is Mary Grace) decided we should do something together, just us two. And since we have an 8 1/2 month old baby (Miles), alone time isn't necessarily easy to come by. We wanted something we can do at home that was different for the both of us. Since we love bread so much, we decided it would be pretty neat to make our own. I hope this blog will capture many different kinds of bread and experiences (and lessons). We really want to make bread at least once a week this year. Having a blog documenting everything can hopefully motivate us to keep going. Follow us on this little project bread of ours and feel free to chime in with any thoughts.

The first bread we decided to try was the Baguette. A simple yet wonderful bread. Tim and I have never made bread before (other than the No Knead Bread recipe) so we wanted something "classic"  to start with. The recipe sounded simple and we worked nicely together throughout the whole process (which is always a plus). As most things simple, it can be hard to do properly. Luckily, this simple recipe resulted in a great baguette to enjoy for New Year's Eve. I'm thinking this is a bread that we will do again and try out different techniques for it, etc. This bread was so good. And we are still eating it today!

Our New Year's Eve spread

consisted of our baguette plus fruits & candies (circles!) to bring good luck for the new year!

Baguette

from 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood

scant 4 cups white bread flour

1 package yeast

warm water to mix

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 sick butter, softened

Makes 1 loaf

Mix 1 1/3 cups of the flour with all the yeast and enough warm water to make a thick batter, then let rise overnight. (We started this process early New Year's Eve morning and figured it would be ok by night time) 

Add the rest of the flour, the salt, and butter to the dough and slowly add enough water to make a soft, pliable dough. Rest the dough for 1 hour. (Tim and I are pretty picky and detailed about most things - the engineer in us, I guess, and we really wanted to make sure what pliable dough really meant.. we're such novices!) 

Line a baking sheet (we used parchment paper). Bang the air out of the dough and roll into a baguette shape. Put it on the baking sheet and let prove for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Before the dough goes into the oven, using a sharp knife, make slashes along its length. Bake for 30 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.