G, I'm A 'Dough' Nut

Every Day Artisan Bread

Five different varieties from same recipe

Talk about 'dough' nuts. While others might delighted in the cakes, pies, tortes, gourmet chocolates or croissant lessons, I chose Baking and Pastry Arts was my major at JWU because I wanted to learn to bake bread from scratch. As a 30 year old returning college student, I was blessed to have a 20 something surfer dude as my Breads chef.

Chef A lived and breathed bread-making. From baguettes, bagels, soft rolls, pretzels, sourdough, Stollen, Challah Challah (think Ja-Rule y'all) to Portuguese Sweet Bread and every imaginable lean and rich dough in between, those 21 days spent in his class were the best. The baking madness continued at my house each weekend, where I nursed a homemade apple sourdough starter for 3 years. After graduating, and a full-time work schedule meant that starter sat neglected in the back of our frig.

The master bread recipe published in the January 2009 Mother Earth News e-newsletter renewed my love for the dough. The brain child of a scientist and a pastry chef, this recipes rocks for so many reasons:

Dough can be refrigerated and used for weeks
No kneading or sifting required
Sourdough quality bread after only a few days
Doubles easily
Great base for all the following recipes
Easily customizable
White and whole wheat recipes
Unbaked and baked dough freeze well
Ready to use in two hours

White Bread Double Recipe (Makes 16, 1 pound loaves)
13 c. all purpose white flour
3 Tbsp salt (optional)
3 Tbsp or about 3 packets granulated yeast
6 cups water

Nutrition Addition
I also added a cup of ground flax seed to the mix.

100% Whole Wheat Recipe (Makes 8, 1 pound loaves)
1 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 c honey
5 Tbsp vegetable, canola or olive oil, plus more for greasing pan

I use parchment paper to line pans

1 1/2 c lukewarm milk
1 1/2 c lukewarm water
6 2/3 c whole wheat flour

I'm not known for following recipes to the letter, but here's a few variations of the master recipes that are easy to make and taste great! Using some of that baking science know how, we easily substituted nonfat dry milk and molasses for the liquid milk and honey.

Changing the texture
To achieve chewy ciabatta bread texture, I added a little more water than recommended to make the dough sticky.

Cinnamon-Raisin Bread: On floured surface, flatten dough into a rectangle, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and press raisins into dough, leave 1"-2" border uncovered for ease in sealing loaves. Roll and pinch seam and ends closed. Bake with seam on bottom.

Cheese stick/Pizza Dough: Add about 1 cup grated parmesan cheese and 1/4 cup each garlic powder and Italian seasonings to the dough.

Renegade Sticky buns: Coat round cake pan with cooking spray. Heat 3/4 cup pancake syrup and 3 tbsp of butter in the pan til boiling. Arrange cut bread in pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 30-45 minutes or until golden brown.

Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns, Raisin Bread and Sticky Buns:
Food Coupon Blog: Culinary Tourette's

roasted dog on a whole wheat bun

I froze more hotdogs in the last month than we normally have in a year. Now that I know how to use coupons effectively, I'm finding great deals all over the place, but it often means that I buy foods, normally didn't eat, like those hotdogs. Don't get me wrong, we eat hotdogs, burgers and ice cream like normal families, but we buy it from a restaurant or a similar location. That was my way to help my kids distinguish between the types of food you should have every day and sometimes foods. In terms of frugality, a pack of 8 hotdogs is about the same price of one or two dogs from a restaurant, so we'll have to make this work.

The whole wheat artisan bread recipe came in handy again as my 9 year old stepson helped out with our first attempt at homemade hotdog buns.

Roll a small piece of dough into a cylinder shape, a little thicker and longer than a serving of string cheese.
Place dough on a pan lightly dusted with cornmeal.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.
Let the buns cool.
Use a serrated knife to slice the buns along the side, less than a 3rd of the way through.

Raisin bread and a renegade batch of sticky buns finished off the day's baking. I'm sure these tips can work for your family too.

Check out the Food and Coupon Blog: Culinary Tourette's for more bread pics.

Semi-Homemade Bread with Pillsbury Dough

Pillsbury dough makes onion garlic bread easy

Sometimes even experienced bakers don't have the time to mess around with making bread from scratch. In an attempt to make restaurant night at home a little more interesting, I kneaded dried onion and garlic powder into a loaf of Pillsbury French bread. The end product, a chickpea and beef panini burger was so flavorful (and secretly healthy) that no one realized it wasn't baked from scratch.

A mini Priazzo Verona I made for my daughter to share with a few friends also starred Pillsbury (pizza) dough. This time I just pressed in corn meal, Italian seasonings and garlic powder on the top and bottom of each crust. There was a good amount of leftover dough, so I kneaded in shredded mozzarella cheese and rolled them in corn meal for cheese sticks that we paired with flavored tomato sauce. Another hit.

With the holidays fast approaching, here are a few Pillsbury dough mix in ideas that you can use to impress friends and family. Another bonus is that you can shape them as traditional or braided loaves or mini rolls.

Easy Multigrain Bread - 2 Tbsp each, old fashioned oats, flax seed meal, sesame and sunflower seeds. Mixing in 2 Tbsp of ground whole wheat bread is another secret ingredient I picked up during my baking internship.
Easy Cheese Artichoke Bread - 1/2 can drained and chopped artichoke hearts (dried on paper towels), 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Easy Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Bread - Eons ago, I added 2 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary and roasted garlic in frozen bread dough to make a vegetarian panini (mozzarella cheese, sliced tomatoes and basil) for a work party. It was so popular that the vegetarian on staff almost didn't get to try it. It should work well with Pillsbury dough too.

Knead more ideas? Look no further than the good quality bread you buy from your local bakery. Those flavors offer limitless Pillsbury dough mix in ideas you and your family with treasure.

Easy Carolina Rice Bread
Another Artisan Bread Variation

Easy rice bread ingredients

Each week our family cooks brown rice by the bagful. That way, an healthy meal is only minutes away.Inspired by old Carolina Rice Bread recipes, I substituted brown rice (I added water and cooked the rice to soften it up) for some of the flour in that mother of all Artisan Master Bread recipes at the top of this page. I also added flax seed meal to make healthy naan type bread that we paired with a hearty bowl of homemade vegetable soup. A fan of the chewy ciabatta bread texture, I added extra water to achieve a wet dough.

1 cup ground flax seed
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
4 cups flour (bread or all purpose)
*2-3 Tbsp salt
3 Tbsp yeast
3 Tbsp oil
3 1/2 - 4 cups water

*I normally shy away from adding the full amount of salt but the finished product needed a little salt. Also adding carbs like the cooked rice to the dough really react with the yeast to rise like crazy and salt helps regulate bread's fermentation.

Brown rice bread with bean veg soup

Now for Something Sweet...

Easy Wedding Cake Icing Recipe

In my early days in Charleston, I had a job in a grocery store bakery. I'll never forget a panicked wedding cake baker running into the store one steamy Saturday afternoon. She'd driven from Mt. Pleasant headed to a wedding on the peninsula. In the 10 minutes it took her to get across the Cooper River Bridge, the delicate buttercream icing she'd made completely out of butter disintegrated in the back seat of her car. Unfortunately, company policy wasn't very sympathetic to her dilemma. On that day I decided I never wanted to bake wedding cakes - period.

An aversion to wedding drama and nutrition bias are my personal turnoffs when it comes to making wedding cakes. But with plenty of Wilton Cake Decorating classes and Baking and Pastry Arts schooling, I've learned several key strategies to ensure a stable wedding cake (and a stable baker) in Santarem Brazil, the US or anywhere else in the world where summer heat slaps you - and your icing across the face. FIRST RULE, unless you're making the wedding cake onsite in an air conditioned facility (or Superman II's Fortress of Solitude with a backup backup cooling system in the form of Superman himself), let your client know up front that icings made of pure butter are unrealistic in the summer. Remember my food science information on fats? Butter melts between 90 and 95 degrees. For an icing to withstand the temperature test, vegetable shortening is your best option. Also choose 10x confectioner's sugar for a smooth texture.

This first Wedding Cake Icing recipe is very popular and contributed by CHAYES100 on Allrecipes.com.

1 cup shortening
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp clear imitation vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup water
8 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Makes 4 cups of icing.

Mix shortening, water, vanilla, almond extract, and half of the powdered sugar with a mixer for 5-10 minutes. (It's very important to mix this long).
Add the rest of the powdered sugar and beat just enough to mix in.
Add additional water for desired consistency.

Wilton Wedding Cake Icing Recipes

Wilton.com offers two high humidity icing recipes that use 50-50 ratio of shortening and butter recipe that's not as sweet as the Allrecipe.com version, but will produce similar results. Each recipe will produce about 3 cups of icing.

Wilton's High humidity Recipe #1

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened
1 tsp clear vanilla extract
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
2 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp cornstarch

In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla; mix well. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar mixture has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. In small bowl, combine milk and cornstarch; stir until cornstarch is dissolved. Add to icing mixture; beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Keep icing covered with damp cloth until ready to use. For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Re-whip before using.

High Humidity Recipe #2

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened
1 tsp clear vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar sifted
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp milk
5 tsp dry whipped topping mix powder (i.e. Dream Whip®)

instructions In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla; mix well. Combine sugar and flour. Gradually add sugar mixture, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar mixture has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. In small bowl, combine milk and whipped topping mix powder; stir well. Add to icing mixture; beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Keep icing covered with damp cloth until ready to use. For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Re-whip before using.

More Tips to Keep Your Cool During
Summer Wedding Cake Season

Do not wait until the day of the wedding to make your cakes.
Cool your cakes at room temperature for at least one hour before covering them with frosting.
Store each iced cake layer in the refrigerator or freezer.
Get the car cool before transporting your cakes to their final destination.
Transport the cold cake layers in a cooler and assemble onsite.

G, I'm A 'Dough' Nut

Every Day Artisan Bread

Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns, Raisin Bread and Sticky Buns:Food Coupon Blog: Culinary Tourette's