Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

For dinner, we had bowtie pasta with fresh mozzarella, grape tomatoes, crushed red pepper, and basil. We had a salad, a light red wine, and these yummy whole wheat dinner rolls on the side. The rolls were a last minute addition. They were so easy to throw together, only 50 minutes rising time total. You use a muffin tin instead of forming them by hand, thus making the prep process even easier. It's important to add the all purpose flour because adding only whole wheat flour will result in a product that is too dense. Here's the recipe:

RECIPE:
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp yeast- one package
1 cup warm water
2 tbs melted shortening
1 egg
1 cup flour

(Oven: 400 degrees)
1- Mix together whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, yeast
2- Add in warm water, melted shortening, egg
3- Mix until smooth- I had to add little more flour because the dough was too sticky.
4- Place a small amount of olive oil in the bowl, cover with a kitchen cloth and let rise in a warm, dry place for 30 mins. Should double in size
5- Punch down after 30 mins
6- Grease muffin tin then spoon dough in (should be exactly 12 rolls- eyeball how much dough to put in each)
7- Let rise another 20 mins
8- Bake until golden (15ish minutes)

(Recipe courtesy of cooksrecipes.com)

Have fun :)

It's been awhile....Flax Seed Muffins with Fresh Blueberries

It has been forever since I've baked..well that's not really true. I made a lemon meringue pie about 2 weeks ago and, while it came out just fine, I had quite the time making it. I was in a particularly bad mood so everything seemed to be a challenge. Anyway, I am back and am going to try to make some healthier baked goods. I made these flax seed muffins yesterday and they came out yummy! I ground my own flax seed, which is apparently much better than buying it already ground. The muffins took like 20 mins to put together and then 25 mins in the oven at 350 degrees. I even used my rose shaped muffin tin, so all of the muffins came out looking like pretty roses.

The cool thing about these muffins is that you can mix anything into them, for example, I used blueberries, but you can add shredded carrots, nuts. craisins, really anything that sounds good to you.

So here's the recipes...Oh and remember to never overmix muffin batter because it will make the muffins tough and icky.

Oven: 350 degrees

1.5 cups ground flax
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 egg beaten
little bit of cinnamon and a little less nutmeg...use your judgement
3/4 cups brown sugar- I use dark brown because I like the dark look it gives the finished product
1 tbsp baking powder
2 cups milk- I use 1%- try not to use skim because the water content is too high

Mix all the dry ingredients together in one bowl. Mix the milk in with the beaten egg. Add the wet ingredients to the dry. At this point, you can add in any mix ins- the choices are endless. Mix everything together, but don't overmix! Spray some muffin tins with non-stick spray, stick 'em in the oven and 20 mins later, check to see if the tops and sides are nice and brown, if not give 'em another 5 mins.

this recipe is courtesy of spiffyman.com.

English Muffins

We've really been working on eating organic foods lately. I'm tired of putting food in my body that has been made with weird chemicals with unpronounceable names. To me, there's nothing more organic than handmaking and kneading bread at home AND what can be better than homemade English Muffins with those tasty nooks and crannies topped with some freshly churned herbed butter? Also, we're in our bread and baking curriculum at school and have been teaching the kids about yeast (what fun!), so needless to say I'm in bread making heaven! Some of the recipe I've been doing at home but just have not gotten a chance to post include: homemade dinner rolls with freshly made butter, braided challah, herbed focaccia, and I also perfected my pizza dough recipe, which I will have to post. But anyway, I digress. For the English Muffins, I found two recipes online and, of course, in true form, I didn't like either of them by themselves so I decided to combine/amend them. The recipes came from petebakes, which is a baking blog I frequent, and The Culinary Institute of America. Oh and the best thing about this recipe is that it is only 6 ingredients and most items can be readily found in the pantry already!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup water, warmed to 110F
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cornmeal, or as needed
Oil
Directions:
1- Place the yeast and warm water in the bowl of a mixer and stir to completely dissolve. Let the yeast proof until foamy, about five minutes. Add the flour, butter, sugar, and salt to the yeast mixture.
2- Mix the ingredients until the dough comes together. When it starts to come together, begin to knead the dough on a floured surface for 10 mins. (That's the proper way, but I usually knead right in the bowl to save clean up!)
3- Shape the dough into a ball and place it into a lightly greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place for an hour.
4- After an hour, punch the dough down one or two times.
5- Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and shape into balls and flatten the balls into discs.

6- Sprinkle cornmeal onto a cookie sheet and coat both sides of the discs with cornmeal.
7-Cover with saran wrap and let them rise for another hour.
8- Heat the oven to 350 F and heat up a skillet on medium heat on the stovetop. Brush the skillet with oil and gently transfer the discs to the skillet a few at a time.
9- Allow them to cook on the skillet for 5-8 minutes, until the bottoms are nicely browned. Flip and cook the other side for about 5-8 minutes more.
10- When the muffins look as if they are about to burn, remove them from the skillet with a spatula and transfer quickly to a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 5-8 minutes. Do no wait until all of the muffins have been cooked on the skillet before moving them to the oven – as the first batch is baking, move the second batch of muffins to the skillet.
11- Transfer the baked muffins to a cooling rack and cool before slicing or serving. Store them as you would muffins you buy in the store – in a sealed Ziploc bag in the fridge or freezer.
Have fun:)