The Bread is in the Baking

Started getting a little hungry around 10pm, was sick of the almonds I have for munching on and had a craving to make muffins.

When I was younger my twin sister and I went through some different baking phases, one of which was a muffin phase. Our mom has a little cookbook of muffin and scone recipes and we just went through it and made all the muffins that sounded tasty. Then making muffins became too easy and we stopped.

But back to tonight. I have a craving for muffins, specifically spinach cheese muffins.

Problem: All the recipes I found called for ingredients I didn't have on hand
Solution: Try to come up with my own recipe based kind of sort of on a recipe I found. I took out the butter (because there's cheese in the recipe, no more fat needed), chives and instead of using Parmesan (which would have been really great) I used a Mexican mix (that's all they had at the student store). I am currently sitting here hoping that they don't come out like rocks.

They didn't come out like rocks! In fact they're really light and golden brown and just a little crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside.

Spinach Cheese Muffins

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach or 1/4 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
• 3/4 cup Mexican cheese mix

Preheat oven to 400° F
Whip the egg and milk together and then add all the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Batter will be thick and very sticky. Grease muffin pan with olive oil and pour batter into each muffin tin. Place in the center of the oven rack and bake for 20 minutes or until a light brown.

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I saw this recipe on foodgawker and I got really really excited. I immediately sent it to a close friend and went out and bought all the ingredients (which isn't a lot). These are really great. I realized that the best fries are about the thickness of your finger, because then you get the lovely crunchiness of fries on the outside and the juicy mushroom taste on the inside. Last night Eddie, Sophie and I made them as a side with spinach, goat cheese lamb burgers. Who says college students can't eat in style?

This recipe is pretty much identical to the one found here, but instead of using vegetable oil, we used olive oil. It's better for you and the flavor is great.

Portobello Mushroom Fries

2 Large Portobello Mushrooms - brush washed, sliced into even strips
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
About a cup of Wondra flour

First lay the sliced mushrooms on a parchment covered pan and sprinkle with salt to release moisture. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes. Pour the Wondra into a flat bowl and roll each mushroom slice around in the flour. Then in a deep saucepan (or deep fryer), heat about 3-4 inches of oil. Test the oil by dropping in pieces of the mushroom stem (cause they're still tasty, but not as attractive as fries). If the oil starts to sizzle, you're in business. Carefully drop a few mushroom slices at a time into the hot oil. Fry for a minute or two, just til golden. Remove with tongs or slots spoon and drain on a paper towel, serve immediately.

Total Time: About 15 minutes

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I had a really low key New Years this year. I got home from a family vacation the same day and I was really tired, so I just had a couple of girlfriends over. I still wanted to make something of course, it being New Years and all. Since I was tired, I wanted to make something simple, yet tasty, so I signed on to the trusty FoodGawker, looked up appetizers and these little tasty treats showed up.
First off, these are really easy to make. Feel free to use whatever your favorite sharp cheese is (I just used a sharp cheddar this time, but I'll probably try a different cheese next time). There's very few ingredients and you can add more or less of the flavors. At first I was a little bit wary of using Cayenne pepper, but it really adds a depth to the flavor of the puffs.
These can be either made as an appetizer or paired with a soup or salad (my mom thinks they would go very well with the Lentil Soup.

I did very little to change this recipe, I used scallions instead of chives and decided on an actual measurement of cayenne pepper, rather than a "large pinch," so it's easier to replicate the recipe.

Pâte à Choux
1 cup (250ml) water
6 tablespoons (80g) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1/3 cup scallions or chives finely-mince
1 1/2 cups (about 6 ounces, 180g) finely grated sharp cheese like Gruyère or sharp chedder

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Heat the water, butter, salt, and cayenne in a saucepan until the butter is melted, don’t let it simmer or boil because you will lose too much water. Pour in the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture pulls away from the sides into a smooth ball.
Remove from heat and let rest two minutes.
Transfer the dough to a bowl or a standing mixer and beat in the eggs one at a time. The batter will first appear lumpy, but after a minute or so, it will smooth out and become glossy. Add all the chives and about 75% of the cheese and stir until well-mixed. Scrape the mixture into a pastry bag or plastic bag with the corner cut out (that’s what I use).  Pipe the dough into mounds, evenly-spaced apart about the size of a rounded tablespoon (this size is suggested, but you can make them larger or smaller, the bigger you make them, the more air will be trapped inside the pastry). Top each puff with a bit of the remaining cheese.

At this point, you could refrigerate the dough on the sheet for several hours before baking.  You could also freeze the dough on the sheet and then transfer the frozen mounds to a ziplock bag to store for up to three months.

About half an hour before you want to serve these.  Pop them into a hot oven at 425 degrees F for 10 minutes (12 if you are baking from frozen), then turn the oven down to 375 degrees F and bake for an additional 20 minutes.  These are best served warm,  but they still taste good at room temperature.

Total Time:  About 1 hour

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Doesn't the name of this bread just sound mouthwatering?

And oh it is.

I've been meaning to make this bread for the last couple of weeks, but I haven't had time. Now I'm back at school and finally have a day to relax. Got all the ingredients and my friend Eddie and I got down to business. This is a ingredient intensive bread, so get ready to do some shopping!

Overall we stuck with the original recipe, we cut back on the flour by 3/4 of a cup and 1/2 cup of Parmesan and added garlic to the filling and I don't have a cake pan at school so we used my mini loaf pans instead.

The downside of using the small pans is that not all the tomato pieces stayed with the bread, so we left it with the tomatoes on the bottom when we served it. I'll have to invest in my own cake pan and make it the way it's supposed to be done and see if it makes a difference. The upside of doing it this way is that makes portions really easy. I used 5 mini pans which made 10 portions.

Upside-Down Tomato Basil Bread

Dough

2 1/2 teaspoons (or 1 package) active dry yeast
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons warm water
4 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper


Filling

4-5 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped (basil from store produce pkg, about 1 oz)
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper (or three-pepper mix)
fresh-ground red pepper flakes, to your more hot/less hot taste -or- 1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

Tomato Topping

3 large or 4 small-medium tomatoes


Make Bread Dough:

Stir the yeast into warm water in mixer bowl; let stand about 10 minutes, until yeast looks bubbled and creamy. Fit mixer with dough hook. Stir in olive oil first, combining with yeast, then mix in flour, Parmesan cheese, sea salt, ground black pepper and hot pepper flakes. Kneading about 5 minutes, until dough is combined, soft and elastic.

Place dough in lightly oiled bowl; cover loosely with plastic wrap, then dish towel. Set aside and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours. Dough should feel very smooth, moist and soft.

You can start making the filling and cutting up the tomatoes for the topping while the dough rises. You won't need more than 45 minutes to prep and make the filling.

Make Filling:

In small bowl, place chopped fresh basil, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, sea salt, ground pepper and red pepper flakes. Stir to combine well, and set aside.

Tomato Topping:

Remove cores and chop tomatoes to small, rough pieces. Place in bowl (without accumulated liquid) and set aside.

Assemble Tomato Basil Bread

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Lightly oil (with olive oil) bottom and sides of 10″ round cake or springform pan (can also use 9 x 13 metal pan, Pyrex dish, or similar). Drain any excess juices from chopped tomatoes, then spread evenly over bottom of pan. Set aside.

Turn risen bread dough out on lightly floured surface. Gently pull and stretch dough to a rough rectangle, approximately 11″ x 24″. Using spatula, gently spread Filling evenly across dough to cover, reaching edges. Starting at long edge, roll dough up jelly roll style, as for cinnamon rolls. Try to roll evenly and without air gaps. With seam side facing down, make sure filled roll is solid and combined by patting sides and edges.

Using a thin, sharp knife (serrated is best) cut 1″ slices from dough roll. Arrange slices, spiral side down, on top of chopped tomatoes in prepared pan. In a 10″ round pan, you will have little to no room between slices (if using a larger pan, arrange slices barely touching, with small amounts of space between them.) Cover lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise slightly, about 20 minutes.

Place filled pan on wider sheet pan or foil (important – to catch drips!) Bake on lower rack 40 – 45 minutes, until top rolls are medium brown, feel hollow when tapped, and tomato juices have bubbled and thickened. Remove from oven and cool on rack for 5 minutes.

Total Time: 4 hours

Picture courtesy of Eddie Barksdale

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