Basic Dinner Rolls – Let Your Bread Maker Do the Hard Work!!!

Tags

baking, bread, bread machine, bread maker, dinner rolls, vegetarian

I have to warn you! These things are addictive! Lately, our favorite thing to use our bread machine for is making dinner roll dough. It’s so nice to have the bread maker do all the mixing and some of the rising for you. The rest of the steps are pretty simple, but it yields some delicious rolls! They have a good, basic, yeasty bread flavor and nice texture. This one recipe makes 2 dozen rolls, so even with dinner guests you’ll have plenty. We had 7 people for Mother’s Day dinner. My daughter made these and we still had a few leftover, but they disappeared quickly!

While simple, this process does take some time, so give yourself 3 – 3 1/2 hours to have these ready. See my tip below for an awesome way to create a warm environment for dough to rise.

Basic Dinner Rolls

3/4 cup +3 tbsp water, 80 degrees (microwave 30 seconds)

3 cups bread flour (invest in a good flour. I like King Arthur brand)

2 tbsp dry milk

3 1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp butter, cut into 6 pieces

1 1/2 tsp fast rise yeast or 2 tsp active dry yeast

• Add water to bread maker pan
• Add flour, dry milk, sugar and salt to pan. Tap pan to settle dry ingredients, the level dry ingredients, pushing some into the corners. Place pieces of butter around outer edges of pan on top of dry ingredients
• Make a light well in the center of dry ingredients and add yeast
• Place pan in bread maker and set maker to Dough setting and turn on
• When bread maker is done (usually takes about 1 1/2 hours), remove dough and let rest on a floured surface for 15 minutes
• Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Each piece will be divided into 6 equal pieces. I shape dough into a ball, kind of pulling the sides down and tucking under creating a smooth domed top. Place rolls into greased muffin pan or baking pan.
• Place pans with rolls on the top rack of your oven. DO NOT TURN OVEN ON. On the bottom rack of oven, place a large oven safe pan filled with boiling water. Close oven and allow dough to rise for 1 hour. Keep oven closed. No peeking!!!
• After rising, remove dough and water pan from oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. While oven is heating melt 1-2 tbsp butter and then brush tops of the rolls with the butter.
• Bake rolls for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Enjoy!

Soft Baked Pretzels – Use Your Bread Maker to Do All the Work!!!

Tags

baking, bread machine, bread maker, Cooking, Food, pretzels, recipe, Soft Baked Pretzel

 I got a great response to my earlier post on making pizza crust dough in the bread maker. In talking to one of my food blog friends, the topic of pretzels came up. I shared that I also have a recipe for making pretzel dough in the bread maker. Those bread makers are a work horse! If you don’t have one, I would seriously think about getting one!

I was a little hesitant about investing in a bread maker. I heard from so many people that have them and never use them. So I went on a mission to get one on the cheap or even better, free! I put word out on Facebook to see if anyone had a bread maker they wanted to unload. Low and behold, one of my friends had one that she never used and was glad to give it up. Don’t worry! I have shared many a loaf of fresh baked bread with her! I purposely leave my machine out on the counter as a reminder to use it and I would say I do use it once or twice a week.

The great thing about these machines is they do more than just bake a wide variety of breads. You can use the dough setting to make dinner rolls, pizza dough and pretzels. There might be other uses too that I have yet to uncover. I have posted several bread recipes over the last few months. You can find them by searching my blog site.

So in that spirit, here is my recipe for Soft Baked Pretzels. These pretzels are lot of fun to make with the family. Kids get a kick out of shaping their own pretzels. They can get creative as the shape really doesn’t matter much and the taste remains the same.

I do have to give one warning though! I thought I would use this recipe and try and make my own pretzel rolls. We love sandwiches and burgers served on pretzel rolls! This venture did not turnout well! They did not bake well and were very doughy. I think there must be a better recipe for this, but I’m still working on that! I will figure it out though and share it when I do.

Soft Baked Pretzels

 1 cup, 2 tbsp 80 degree water (I microwave it for about 30 seconds)

3 cups bread flour

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 ½ tsp fast rising yeast

2 egg whites

Coarse salt

Load first four ingredients in bread maker in the order listed. Set bread maker to dough setting and turn on. You DO NOT want your bread maker to bake the dough.

When dough cycle of bread maker has completed, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place dough on a floured surface and knead for 1 minute. Roll dough out into a rectangle about ½ inch thick. Divide dough into 12-15 equal size pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and place on a greased baking sheet, cover and let rest for 20 minutes. Roll each ball into a 12 inch long rope. Shape into a pretzel shape on a greased baking pan. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Boil each pretzel for 10-15 seconds using large slotted spoon or spatula to remove from water and drain. Place pretzels on greased baking sheet, brush with egg white and sprinkle on coarse salt. Bake for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Homemade Pizza – Make the Crust in Your Bread Maker

Tags

barbecue sauce, basil, bread maker, Cooking, Food, homemade, pesto, Pizza, recipe, sausage

  
Pizza is my kryptonite! Once I start eating it I have a hard time stopping, so I don’t have it very often. Because of the depravation, I had been craving the stuff. I figured if I make my own pizza, I can control what goes into it, so it must be a little healthier, right?!?  I don’t now how healthy it was, but it sure was good! I made my crust dough in my bread maker, which made that portion easy peasy and it turns out a great crust!

From the pictures you’ll notice we made two different types of pizzas. I made one for my husband and me and my daughter made one for her and her friend. The crust dough recipe below makes enough for two crusts in a single bread maker batch. My obsession with ranch salad dressing mix continues! I decided to add a tablespoon to my dough and it added a nice extra bit of flavor and you could see the seasonings in the dough.

So here is what we did…

Bread Maker Pizza Crust

1 1/2 cups water, 80 degrees (I microwave it for about 30 seconds)

4 tbsp vegetable or canola oil

4 cups bread flour

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp ranch salad dressing mix

3 tsp fast rise yeast

Put ingredients in bread maker pan in this order. Before adding yeast, create a well in the center by pushing flour out to the edges. Pour yeast in the center of well. Set bread make to dough cycle and turn on. You don’t want this to bake in your bread maker!

When cycle completes, place dough on a floured surface and knead for 15 minutes. Cut dough ball in half. Place dough on greased pizza pan or stone and roll or press into place. This makes two 12-14 inch pizzas. I have one round pizza stone, so we made one on there and then I made the other on my rectangular stone baking pan. After rolling out dough, let dough rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. Top as desired and bake in a 425 degree oven, one pizza at a time, for 20 minutes.

So what did we top our pizzas with, you ask?

Pizza #1

• Sauce: I used jarred sauce and mixed some Sundried tomato pesto into a marinara sauce
• 1st layer motzarella cheese
• Turkey Pepperoni
• Lowfat Jimmy Dean Sausage (I browned this in a skillet first and crumbled over pizza)
• Fresh basil leaves
• Sundried tomatoes
• Mushrooms
• Green onions
• Sliced black olives
• 2nd layer of motzarella cheese

Pizza #2

• Sauce: Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce
• 1st layer motzarella cheese
• Grilled Chicken – I was feeling lazy and bought pre-cooked chicken
• Pineapple chunks
• Onion
• 2nd layer motzarella cheese

Both pizzas were great! The second pizza was similar to a version that our local pizza joint, Mountain Mike’s Pizza, offers. Their version also has bacon on it, but one of our girls doesn’t eat bacon, so they left it off. It was still delicious though!!!

We had plenty of pizza left over. This could have easily fed 6-7 people. We also had salad with our pizza.

 

Hawaiian Sweet Bread: A Touch of the Tropics on Father’s Day

Tags

baking, bread, bread machine, bread maker, Cooking, Food, hawaiian sweet bread, recipe

 

Sure, I could have picked up bread or rolls at the grocery store, but I love to cook and that includes using my bread machine. Why not!?! It’s super easy to use and it’s cheaper than buying ready made at the store. 

I haven’t been completely pleased with all the bread I’ve made in the bread machine. They are often a little too dense for my taste, but this recipe that I baked for Father’s Day was SO very tasty and had a great consistency! I wanted to share my recipe with you. I will definitely be using this recipe on a regular basis! There is nothing better than fresh baked bread that is still warm!!!

Tip: Don’t have a bread machine and not sure if you want to make the investment? This is one of those appliances that you either love or gets put away and ignored. I put word out on Facebook that I wanted one, but didn’t want to have to buy one. Low and behold my girlfriend had one that she had NEVER used, so she just gave it to me. I leave it out on the kitchen counter, so I remember to use it and I do quite frequently. I make sure to serve my girlfriend and her family fresh baked bread when they come over!

Hawaiian Sweet Bread

 3/4 cup Pineapple Juice (I got mine from draining canned pineapple 

1 egg

2 tbsp coconut oil (You could also use vegetable oil, but I think the coconut oil contributed to the great texture.)

2 3/4 tbsp honey

3 cups bread flour

3/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp dry milk

2 tsp fast rising yeast

Add all ingredients to bread machine pan in the order listed. Set your bread type to Sweet or White (I did sweet.) and set the color to Light (It still came out a beautiful golden brown!). Hit on and let the baking wonderfulness begin!!! This bread rose very nicely and our group of 7 people only ate about 2/3 of the loaf with our lunch.