Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Bread update

Well Friday's baking went well. Nothing got burnt! And everything was fluffy and bread tasting (minus the pie, it wasn't what it should have been, but that's ok it still tasted of applygoodness).

The Tomato Bread (Recipe found here) was good. It tastes bready, and has an Italian aftertaste. Definitely liked it, don't know if I would make it again, might try it one more time to see if the loaves can be higher. I think I might have made them fall some in an attempt to move them from parchment paper to my cookie sheet. I should have left them on the parchment paper and just slid the cookie sheet underneath. Oh well I will remember that next time I hope. :) Also I maybe should have drained the tomatoes some before putting them into the bread dough... I used a lot of flour to make the dough less sticky. And it did have a pretty good texture. I really want to be in a kitchen with someone when they are making their bread. I do so much better at learning when someone is there for me to copy. I think overall though I am doing pretty good with the whole, kneading and mixing stuff. (Gave a loaf to my sister in law, because I have too much bread!)

The dinner rolls are a family recipe that I might end up posting later ... eh I don't know. Do you know how it is to have a recipe that your family does really well? You want to share it, but you also want to be the only people who can make it really good, so that people can "Oh!" and "Ah!" over your food. Or am I alone in these feelings? I will end up posting the recipe but just not on this post, it has to have it's own post. I was very worried about making these, because the one time my mom tried to make them, they were rock hard. I remember us trying to eat them, mom was so happy to have made them and served them with dinner and everything... then we went to bite them and were like... "Um, I can't bite this" So I had this fear that only Grandma can make these rolls and that the rest of us are inferior in our roll making abilities. Well thankfully I was wrong. I now have a lot of dinner rolls! Everytime I went past the bowl of rolls I would grab one and stuff it in my mouth to let it melt in yummy goodness... Those rolls are like candy to me. Talking about them is making me hungry... I can feel my stomach pushing aside any food that is currently in my stomach and it's yelling "Send down the rolls, there's plenty of space now!" I really am hungry now... So now you are wondering "What is this recipe? How can it be that good?" Well trust me it is! I sent half of them over to my sister in law's so that I don't eat all the rolls.

Wheat bread yummyness(Two huge loaves). My friend Rachel from Wisconsin gave me her mother's bread recipe awhile back when I mentioned making bread on here. So I finally decided to try it... and I have never seen bread loaves get so huge! The bread is very good, and I managed to only have one slice of bread when it came out of the oven. Any recipe that comes from Rachel, Katie or Susan (the mom and two daughters) is definitely a winning meal! They are all great cooks and I am so happy when they share a recipe. I now want to go back and look through past shared recipes to see if there's anything I might want to make in the next few days.

Apple pie... well the filling was good, but my crust didn't turn out right. Still good, but I think what went wrong was that it got too warm before I rolled it out and it didn't turn out flaky and yummy as it should have. It was sandy and golden, it looked right but the texture wasn't there and the yummy wasn't as it should have been. :( It bums me out when that happens. But I know what the problem was, just have to remember to fix it next time. I made a pie in June that turned out very good, so I know I can do it, just have to make sure the conditions are right for it. Next time I will make the pie first if I have a long list of things to make. This way it gets done correctly at the right temperature.

Well that's it for the bread and baking update. :) I will post the dinner roll recipe at some point, for everyone to try out and enjoy. Later!

8 comments:

Susan said...

Oh, Cassie, I'm glad the bread recipe worked for you! I've had some people try it and say that it didn't work; they wanted more precise measurements of ingredients and times and temps. On the other hand, maybe the recipe Rachel gave you was exact, as opposed to my version of my bread recipe which has a lot of "abouts" in it, and things like 1/4 to 1/2 cup of whatever...

I'm trying to figure out what you're talking about with the pie. Did you make the pie and leave it sit on the counter for a long time, until the oven was empty and available? I'm thinking that the apple juices might have soggied up the crust if you did that. But honestly, I'm wondering what I might be doing wrong and just accepting as par for the course.

Unknown said...

Rachel's recipe she gave me had measurements in it, not the word about ever in there... :) so maybe that's the thing. But yes it did work very well!

As far as the pie... it was almost as if each bit of flour got cooked separately and they didn't want to come together so they have continued to stay apart. It really is kind of one of those things you have to feel... when you expect something to be hard, and touch it and it gives under your finger... I know of no other way to describe it... perhaps sandy and slightly moist. And no I didn't let it sit there for any amount of time as a whole pie... I did let the crust sit there for awhile. Which might have been my problem.

Susan said...

It shouldn't hurt to have the crust sit there a while. I do that a lot, without problems. The store sells already-made crusts that sit for weeks before being filled & baked. So it must've been something else with how the flour and fat combined.

Unknown said...

Then maybe it was the water... I don't think I did that part right. Not sure though... I will try making a pie again sometime soon and see if I can perfect it. I don't want to make too many pies, cause then Paul will definitely have a weight problem... :)

Lauranie said...

I understand what you are saying about the dough getting too warm. That happens to me, and I have to keep sticking my hands in ice water when I am rolling it out and patting it in the pan. My hands get too warm and start "gooing" up the dough, when it should be like little peas! When I do it right...flaky goodness! :D But I have to stop reading if you keep talking about bread and pie....mmmmm....pie.... ;-)

Margaret said...

I'm so glad you stopped by my blog..virtually speaking..and wanted to reciprocate. Seems to me we are very like minded. I'm glad you are trying to bake bread; it tastes great and makes the house smell divine.

As for pies??? Whoever coined the phrase "easy as pie" was either a superb baker or never tried making pastry. The perfect pastry takes practice, patience, and really cold water...

I gave up on pastry some time ago, just could not for the life of me get it right. But, thankfully there are lots of baking recipes out there.

Margaret

Susan said...

I think "easy as pie" is in comparison to all the ingredients you have to gather for cake or cookies -- more ingredients than for a fruit pie, and also a need for the ingredients to be in precise proportions to get the proper rising. Besides that, in the days prior to electric mixers, cake was a huge undertaking. If the baker had to beat the batter by hand, it could take 15-20 minutes or more. In comparison to that, pie is a breeze.

Unknown said...

Margaret, I am glad I stopped by too. :)

And as far as Easy as Pie goes... yes it makes sense that less ingredients would mean easier. I think now that they have cake and cookies down to easy, perhaps we could try to make pie easier... Although not sure what kind of mixing they could do to make it easier than flour, shortening, salt and water... Hmm.