Golden Pull-Apart Butter Buns

When I was browsing King Arthur Flour’s recipes to find a Burger Bun recipe, I came across these dinner rolls, and they immediately went on my to-make list. First I made a half-batch to decide if I should make them for Thanksgiving. We inhaled them before I could get a photo, and they immediately went on the Thanksgiving menu. Michele also made rolls, and as with the burger buns, she tried a different recipe so that we could compare.

Tender and tasty, these are great on their own, but it doesn’t get much better than a bite of warm roll spread with butter.

Both times that I made these, I followed the instructions for making them a day ahead of time: after the first rise, the dough is shaped into rolls and partially rises before going into the refrigerator overnight. The next day, they come out of the fridge and rise the rest of the way before baking. This worked great on Thanksgiving – I baked them in the morning and warmed them before dinner. Everyone was happy that we had homemade rolls!

More tips:

• If you have a scale, use it: weigh the dough, divide by 16, and that’s how much each roll should weigh. I used to think this was too much trouble, but it’s worth a few extra minutes to have equally-sized rolls.
• The recipe is designed for 8-inch round cake pans; I have 9-inch cake pans, so I put 10 rolls in a 9-inch pan and 6 rolls in a 6-inch pan.

Are you ready to bake some rolls? You can get the recipe for Golden Pull-Apart Butter Buns here on King Arthur Flour’s website. I also spotted some other good-looking rolls on King Arthur Flour’s site. I didn’t have a chance to make them yet, but that’s the recipe Michele tried, so hop over to her blog to see more rolls!

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Beautiful Burger Buns

I’ve made various bread recipes, but this was my first try making burger buns. Why did I wait so long? These Beautiful Burger Buns from King Arthur were fantastic. Butter brushed on top adds to the flavor, and the texture is soft but not air-filled and squishy like packaged buns can be. They were quick and easy to make, and I’m thrilled to have four more in stashed in the freezer.

I served these with these Bulgur-Bean Veggie Burgers – my favorite veggie burger recipe. If you’re looking for a non-vegetarian burger recipe, these Curry Turkey Burgers are fantastic – the curry paste punches up the not-so-flavorful ground turkey. I buy curry past in tiny cans and still have leftovers when I use it in a recipe, so this is a great way to use up the leftovers.

Michele made burger buns too, but she tried a different recipe and made a vegan version, so do check out her blog to look at her photo and recipe – they look fantastic! As good as mine turned out, I need to try her recipe too!

TwD Baking with Julia: Buttermilk Crumb Muffins

Muffins were on deck for the Tuesdays with Dorie group this week. As much as I love a challenge in the kitchen, I also appreciate a simple muffin recipe that’s quick to mix and doesn’t make a lot of dishes. This recipe fit the bill! I made them late in the morning and we enjoyed them for an afternoon snack.

I made 1/2 recipe which gave me 8 muffins, though I should have made 9. The muffins overflowed a bit and the crumb topping glued itself to the muffin pan, making them a bit difficult to get remove from the pan. Once they were out, they were tasty – sweet, crunchy crumb topping on top of a tender muffin flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg. They were best the day they were baked, and still really good the next day.

Tip: I had some buttermilk in the freezer that I defrosted for this recipe, and it worked great. It seems that I always need less buttermilk than I need to buy, so last time I had extra, I froze it in 1/2 cup portions. David Lebovitz recently wrote a post about freezing cream, and I’m going to try that next. Update: I tried it and it worked! The frozen, defrosted cream whipped up nicely. It will be great to have cream in the freezer for those times I need just a little bit.

Ready for a quick, nicely spiced muffin? You can find the recipe on page 207 of Baking with Julia. Thank you to Alisa from Easier than Pie for hosting this week. She has the recipe posted on her blog today.

TwD Baking with Julia: Bagels

Another yeast recipe for the Tuesdays with Dorie group; this time it’s Lauren Groveman’s bagels. Here is my first batch: three sesame and two plain.

Thanks to good timing, the bagel episode of Baking with Julia was shown on my PBS station a few days before I planned to make them. It helped a lot to see her technique for forming the bagels, as well as to see what they should look like at different stages.

There are some steps involved in making bagels, but it didn’t end up being as involved as I feared. The process for making the dough is much like other bread doughs. After a rest in the refrigerator, the dough is formed into a ring with a large center (it will puff up and the hole will close if you don’t make it big enough). The bagels are then boiled in a water bath with sugar and baking soda before being baked. I bought a skimmer and I’m glad I did, because it worked great for fishing the bagels out of the water.

I made the dough one day, baked 5 bagels the next day, and then baked 5 more bagels the day after. The bagels had a chewy crust and tender center, which is exactly how I like a bagel to be. The second batch was darker, which made the crust chewier.

Recipe notes:

• On the TV show, she used 1 tablespoon of barley malt syrup and 1 tablespoon of sugar, but the recipe in the book calls for 2 tablespoons of sugar and no malt syrup (on the show, she said that if you don’t have the malt syrup, you can use 2 tablespoons of sugar). Since I have malt syrup, that’s what I used.
• Another good tip from the show was to put some toppings on the peel or baking sheet before you put the bagels on it — that way there are toppings on the top and the bottom of the bagel.
  

There’s nothing like a bagel warm out of the oven, especially if it’s your own oven!  You can find the recipe on page 87 of Baking with Julia. The book also includes a method for making bagel chips, as well as the recipes for the spreads that Groveman made on the show. Thank you to Heather’s Bytes for hosting this week. She has the bagel recipe posted here.

TwD Baking with Julia: Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Loaf

I was excited when I saw that the Tuesdays with Dorie group was baking a pumpkin recipe this month. I had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season recently, and that got me primed for pumpkin. Steve Sullivan‘s mini Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Loaves were just the fall treat I needed.

This is a yeast bread featuring pumpkin, fresh cranberries, toasted walnuts, and raisins. After an overnight rest in the refrigerator, it’s divided into three pieces to make three mini loaves. It rose well and browned nicely in the oven. The bread, while not overly pumpkin flavored, has a soft texture which is a nice contrast to the juicy cranberries, crunchy walnuts, and chewy raisins.

I had high hopes for this, and ended up liking it even more than I expected! I gave one loaf to my mom and planned to give another to my neighbor, but I decided to slice and freeze the third loaf so that I can grab a slice or two whenever I want. I bet it will be good toasted.

Break out of the quick bread rut and give this a try! You can find the recipe on page 108 of Baking with Julia. Thank you to Rebecca of This Bountiful Backyard for hosting this week. She has the recipe posted on her blog today.

TwD Baking with Julia: Whole Wheat Loaves

I ended up taking the entire summer off from the Tuesdays with Dorie group, but when I saw that Michele was hosting this week’s recipe, I knew I better get my Baking with Julia book out and get going.

The weather is finally cooling off, so it was a great time to make some bread. This recipe, from Craig Kominiak, was easy, and I couldn’t believe how quickly it rose. It includes both honey and malt extract, which I believe gives the wheat flour a bit of a boost to help it rise.

Until recently, I only had a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan, and would use it for all recipes that needed a loaf pan. I finally wised up and bought an 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf pan, and it was a great purchase. I had a lot of flat, squat loaves before that! I try to be practical, but sometimes you really do need several sizes of one type of pan.

Grilled cheese sandwiches made with this bread were delicious! It was also great toasted for breakfast. As good as this was, I want to make it again and add some Harvest Grains Blend from King Arthur. I like all kinds of seeds and grains in my wheat bread.

Get going and bake some bread! You can find the recipe on page 83 of Baking with Julia. Thank you to this week’s hosts: Michele of Veggie Num Nums and Teresa of The Family That Bakes Together. They will have the recipe posted on their blogs today.

TwD Baking with Julia: Irish Soda Bread

A half-batch of Irish Soda Bread was quick and tasty and delicious with some soup for dinner. I made a plain version, using just flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and salt, but I’m sure that many of the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers added currants, other dried fruit, and other creative mix-ins.

I stored the leftover bread in a plastic bag; the next day it was still moist, but the crust was a little soft, so I sliced it, put a little butter and garlic powder on the slices, and warmed it up in the oven. Irish Soda Bread Garlic Bread! If you don’t have time to make a yeast bread, this is a good alternative for some quick and fresh bread.

Don’t wait until next St. Patrick’s Day to make this. You can find the recipe on page 214 of Baking with Julia. Thank you to this week’s hosts: Carla of Chocolate Moosey and Cathleen of My Culinary Mission. They will have the recipe posted on their blogs today.

TwD Baking with Julia: Chocolate Truffle Tart

The second recipe in February for the Tuesdays with Dorie group is Chocolate Truffle Tartlets. Perfect for Valentine’s Day, although I spent V-Day in a different city and had dinner with a group of colleagues. Not ideal, but we were all in the same boat, and we made a game of watching couple after couple ride past the restaurant in a horse-drawn carriage. So I had a pre-V-Day dinner with my husband and then we had this lovely tart when I was back in town.

It looks a little bit like rocky road, but what’s really going on in that tart is milk chocolate, white chocolate, and chopped cookies mixed into a smooth-as-all-getout chocolate filling, all resting in a chocolate crust. If you have a chocolate craving, this is going to satisfy it!

Notes

• The recipe makes six individual tartlets. Instead, I cut the recipe in half and made a 6″ tart, plus I had enough leftover crust and filling to fill a 3″ ramekin.
  
• I used 60% chocolate in the filling and stirred in milk and white chocolate chips.
• I think just about any kind of cookie or biscotti would work. Here’s what I used (they are crunchy; not sponge-cakey like some lady fingers):

True to its name, this is like a smooth chocolate truffle in a crust. A little goes a long, delicious way. This is something I would make again, especially for a a chocolate lover. My husband preferred the deeper ramekin serving, because it had “more guts.” Since there’s so much chocolate in the filling, we both agreed that the chocolate flavor in the crust was lost. Although the crust was good, I would be comfortable making this with any type of tart crust, even if it didn’t have chocolate in it.

You can find this recipe on page 382 of Baking with Julia. This recipe is hosted by: Spike, Steph, Jamie, and Jessica.

Note: I’ve been having trouble commenting on some blogs. If there’s a Name/URL option, then I’m fine, but if I have to sign in with my WordPress ID, I often can’t submit a comment.

Helpful information about yeast, and my commenting woes

Yeast!

If you are on the King Arthur Flour mailing list, you may have already seen this article about yeast. Yeast and I get along pretty well, but I learned a few things and got some good tips about how the different types of yeast behave and how to tweak rising time, so take a look!

Commenting Woes

I use WordPress, and off and on, have trouble commenting on some Blogger blogs. This is one of those times, and I wasn’t able to comment on some of the lovely loaves that were posted for the Tuesdays With Dorie/Baking with Julia group. I hope it resolves itself; if not, I will be reading your blogs but will not be able to comment. I’m really happy with WordPress, so no, I’m not going to switch teams. If anyone has a solution, please let me know; I did some searching and didn’t come up with anything that worked for me.

Baking with Julia: White Loaves

The Tuesdays with Dorie group baked its way through Baking: From My Home to Yours, and now we’re on to a new book, Baking with Julia. Welcome new bakers! Tuesdays with Dorie was so fun that I knew I wanted to keep going and join the new group. I got the book for Christmas, and it was great to crack it open and start baking. And so I present to you, a White Loaf.

Yep, white loaf bread; a nice, basic recipe to kick off the new group. Although the recipe is for White Loaves, I cut it in half and made White Loaf. There are only two of us, and one loaf of bread at a time is plenty.

Notes

• I cut the recipe in half and made one loaf.
• I always use instant yeast, so I used a little bit less yeast than called for in the recipe (no scientific calculation – I just eyeball it and use less than called for).
• My loaf was done after baking for 30 minutes.

The day I baked this, we had it with soup for dinner. Spread with a little butter (er, Smart Balance), it was a tender and tasty accompaniment to a steaming bowl of soup. It was very well-received by my husband, who was more excited than I expected him to be about white bread (hmmm…maybe I overdo it with the grainy, wheaty breads!). I was all excited to make toast with this, but somehow I didn’t get around to it. I did see a piece of toast that my husband made and it looked lovely.

You can find this recipe on page 81 of Baking with Julia. This week, Laurie and Jules are hosting, and Jules has the recipe on her blog.

One more note: I kicked the Facebook habit and deactivated my account. I was friends with a few other bakers and wanted to mention that just in case you noticed that I disappeared from your friend list or your page likes. Facebook just wasn’t enhancing my life. Will Twitter do it for me? I don’t know, but I’m giving it a try. You can find me @BakeWithJill. I’m just getting started, but hope to find my tweeting groove and find some good people to follow. Suggestions welcome!