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yogurt bread

January 4th, 2012 · 4 Comments

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Happy New Year! I’m a bit late for this. My husband’s last days of Christmas vacation were Sunday and Monday and we spent as much time as possible frolicking and playing and very little time on the computer. It was a fabulous vacation full of games, parties, friends, food, and afternoons reading books in front of a roaring fire. Going back to work is a rough transition after 12 days off! We are adjusting… slowly…

The New Year is a time for making healthy food choices (even if we are only fooling ourselves for a few weeks!) and this bread is one of those. A third of the flour in this bread is whole wheat, providing a nutty healthiness. Yogurt is high in protein and calcium and here it makes a soft, pillowy bread that’s perfect for sandwiches or toast. I especially love it with butter and homemade jam. (I will talk more about homemade jam in the spring when strawberries are making their debut and again this summer when all the rest of my favorite fruits come into season. :) )

yogurt bread

Prep Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Yield: 1 loaf

Source: Food.com

This airy bread will trick you into thinking it's made with all white flour. Don't be fooled! There's wheat flour and wheat germ in here too!

Ingredients

1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/4 cups white bread flour
2 tbsp wheat germ
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons instant yeast*
*If you are using regular active yeast, you will need to proof your yeast. Simply warm the water to about 110 degrees and place the yeast in a bowl with the water. This gets the yeast moving!

Instructions

  1. Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a standing mixer and knead on low for 8 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer to a greased bowl and cover lightly with plastic wrap. Let dough rise until doubled in size, 1-2 hours.
  2. Gently transfer dough to a work surface and pat into an 8x14-inch square. Starting with the side closest to you, roll the dough into a cylinder, pinching together the ends. Place the dough into a well greased 9x5-inch bread ban, seam side down, and lightly cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until dough has almost doubled in size, about 1 hour.
  3. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375. Bake the bread for 45-55 minutes, tenting it with aluminum foil for the last 15 minutes if the crust is browning too much. The internal temperature of a fully cooked loaf of bread will be 206 degrees.
  4. Immediately remove bread from the pan and place on a wire rack. Let cool completely before cutting.
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http://www.dishingthedivine.com/2012/01/04/yogurt-bread/

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chocolate croissants

December 29th, 2011 · 11 Comments

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The first time that I made these and shared them with my foodie friend Jeremy, the first words out of his mouth after taking a bite were…well, unrepeatable here. But let’s just say that he thought these were amazing. I went to France last year and I can attest that these rivaled those decadent Parisian pastries. Perfectly flaky with a center strip of delicious dark chocolate…. oh, wow. The thought of them makes me want to sign off here and go whip up another batch.

I told Jeremy that I’d be happy to make the croissants again as long as I could simplify one particular step in the process. Croissants are no walk in the park, but the original recipe included one step that made me want to quit the recipe altogether.  The original recipe involved manually pressing three sticks of cold butter with two tablespoons of flour until the mixture is perfectly smooth. The process was messy and frustrating. I waited a few months before making the croissants again (not many people can afford to eat a dozen chocolate croissants very often!) and I had thought of a way to simplify the butter/flour mixture step. Why not just combine the butter and flour in the mixer with a paddle attachment? It worked like a charm and now I don’t cringe at the idea of preparing these for a dinner party.

Now that I’ve made this recipe twice, I realize that making croissants isn’t really that hard. Time consuming, yes, but not difficult at all. An overview of the process is as follows: make your dough and the butter square. Store separately in the fridge. Place the butter square onto the dough and fold like an envelope, flatten a bit, and then fold into a square. Repeat that last step. Roll out the final dough into a huge square, cut into smaller rectangles, fill with chocolate and bake. Once you realize that it’s just a matter of waiting for each step to be complete, it’s not a matter of if you’ll make these croissants, but when.

chocolate croissants

Prep Time: 6 hours, 30 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Yield: one dozen chocolate croissants

Source: Cook's Illustrated

Best. Chocolate. Croissants. Ever.

Ingredients

Dough
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (15 ounces), plus more for dusting work surface
1 tbsp instant yeast
1/4 cup sugar (1 3/4 ounces)
1 1/4teaspoons table salt
1 1/4cups whole milk , cold
2 tbsp unsalted butter , cut into 1/2-inch pieces
Butter Square
24 tbsp cold unsalted butter (3 sticks), cut into 24 pieces
2 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
Chocolate Filling
8 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate , chopped fine (note: use GOOD chocolate here!)
Egg Wash
1 large egg , lightly beaten

Instructions

  1. For the dough: Whisk 2 3/4 cups of flour together with yeast, sugar, and salt in medium bowl. Place milk in bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Add flour mixture and knead at low speed until ball of dough forms, about 5 minutes. Add butter pieces to dough. Continue to knead until butter becomes fully incorporated and dough becomes smooth, begins to form a ball, and clears the sides of the bowl, an additional 5 to 6 minutes. (Dough should be sticky, but if more dough is sticking to sides of bowl than to itself, add remaining 1/4 cup flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, as necessary.) Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.
  2. For the butter square: Clean out the mixer bowl. Combine the butter and flour in the mixer bowl with the paddle attachment. Mix until well combined using a spatula to redistribute the mixture as needed. Dump onto your workspace and shape into a 7-inch square. Refrigerate butter square until ready to use, at least 30 minutes.
  3. Lightly dust work surface with flour. Roll dough into an 11-inch square. Place chilled butter square diagonally onto dough. Fold corners of dough up over butter square so that they meet in middle and pinch ends of dough together to seal them. Your dough should look somewhat like a giant diamond at this point.
  4. Using rolling pin, gently tap dough, starting from center of dough and going outward, until square becomes larger and butter begins to soften. At this point, start gently rolling dough into 14-inch square, checking often to make sure dough is not sticking and dusting with additional flour as necessary. Fold square into thirds to form long rectangle. (This method of folding is called a “turn” and resembles folding a business letter.) Starting from narrow ends, fold rectangle into thirds again to form square. You have now given dough 2 turns. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.
  5. Repeat step 4, giving dough 2 additional turns (for total of 4 turns) and chilling again for at least 2 hours.
  6. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Place chilled dough on floured work surface and gently roll dough into 20-inch square. Use pizza cutter and ruler to cut dough into 4 equal 10-inch squares. Cut each square into thirds to make a total of 12 rectangles, each approximately 10 by 3 1/4 inches. Place 1/2 ounce (about 1 tablespoon) chocolate in middle of each rectangle. Fold the top and bottom halves of each rectangle over the chocolate portion, dividing each rectangle into thirds and place it seam-side down on baking sheet.
  7. Cover croissants loosely with plastic wrap and let them rise at a cooler room temperature (meaning, probably not in your kitchen!) until puffy (they will not double in size), 45 to 60 minutes.
  8. Meanwhile, adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 400 degrees. Using pastry brush, brush croissants with beaten egg. Bake until croissants are golden brown, 18 to 22 minutes, rotating baking sheets from front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking time. Cool croissants on wire rack until warm, about 20 minutes. Drizzle with melted chocolate, if desired. Serve warm or at room temperature. (Jeremy loves these dusted with powdered sugar!)
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http://www.dishingthedivine.com/2011/12/29/chocolate-croissants/

 

 

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oven fried onion rings (secret recipe club)

December 26th, 2011 · 18 Comments

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This month for the Secret Recipe Club I was assigned Lindsay’s blog, Life and Kitchen. Lindsay has a host of recipes on her blog that range from sweet to savory and from simple to more complex. She shares stories about her family throughout her blog posts and the pictures of her daughter are adorable! It took me a bit to decide what to make this month, but when I saw these onion rings I knew they would be a winner. Any Cook’s Illustrated recipe repeated on Annie’s Eats is guaranteed to be a real winner, and these crunchy onion rings were no exception! I love that these onion rings aren’t quite baked and aren’t quite fried. The oils from the chips that are used in the crumb mixture combined with a thin veneer of oil in the bottom of a rimmed baking sheet are all that’s necessary to make a perfectly crunchy onion ring, without the hassle of deep frying.

Looking for a fun appetizer for New Year’s this weekend? This one is a winner!

(My husband recommends that you serve these with ketchup, but you can also add them to your burgers or eat them plain!)

oven fried onion rings

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Yield: a heaping plater of rings - maybe enough to feed 6 people?

Source: Originally from Cook's Illustrated , as seen on Life & Kitchen

Not just baked. Not quite fried. So delicious.

Ingredients

½ cup all-purpose flour, divided
1 large egg, at room temperature
½ cup buttermilk, at room temperature
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
30 saltine crackers
4 cups kettle-cooked potato chips
2 large yellow onions, sliced into ½-inch thick rings
6 tbsp. vegetable oil

Instructions

  1. Adjust oven racks to lower- and upper-middle positions. Preheat the oven to 450F. Place ¼ cup of the flour in a shallow baking dish. Beat the egg and buttermilk together in a bowl. Whisk the remaining flour, cayenne, salt and pepper into the buttermilk mixture. Combine the saltines and potato chips in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Place half of the crumb mixture in a second shallow baking dish; reserve the other half.
  2. Working one at a time, dredge each onion ring in flour, shaking off the excess. Dip the onion rings in the buttermilk mixture, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl, and then dredge in the crumb coating, turning to coat evenly. When the crumb mixture is low, add the reserved crumb mixture to the dish to coat the remaining onion rings. Transfer the coated rings to a large plate or platter.
  3. Pour 3 tablespoons of the oil onto each of 2 rimmed baking sheets. Place the baking sheets in the oven and heat just until smoking, about 8 minutes. Tilt the heated sheets to coat evenly with the oil.
  4. Lay the onion rings out in a single layer on the oiled baking sheets. Bake, flipping the onion rings and rotating the pans halfway through baking, until golden brown on both sides, about 15 minutes total. Transfer to a paper towel-lined rack briefly before serving.
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http://www.dishingthedivine.com/2011/12/26/oven-fried-onion-rings-secret-recipe-club/



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