A King Arthur Sort Of Day

I just felt like baking today. I went to the King Arthur Flour site and had fun!

Buttery Hot Dog Buns. Click Here For Recipe.

 

 Beautiful Burger Buns. Click Here For Recipe.

 English Muffin Toasting Bread. Click Here For Recipe.

English Muffin Bread

A snowy day means what? That's right, I make bread. I would have done something like a Brioche or Babka but I was working from home yesterday so I did not have a lot of free time. Well until we lost power. Yeah no power. This bread was suppose to raise about an hour. We lost power at 10:30AM and it came back on at 3:00AM this morning. I baked it after 24 hours of rising. So I suppose these should be called the 24 Hour English Muffin Bread. Anyway it is a delicious way to start the day. I baked the bread in a pan that was my Mom's and it is still one of my favorite bread pans.

 

English Muffin Bread from My Baking Addiction -

Ingredients-
3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1 cup milk
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or olive oil
cornmeal, to sprinkle in pan

Method-
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and instant yeast; stir to combine.

2. In a microwave safe bowl, combine the milk, water, and oil and heat to between 120°F and 130°F. Make sure to stir the liquid before measuring its temperature. If you don't have a thermometer, don't worry, King Arthur states that the liquid should feel quite hot (hotter than lukewarm), but not so hot that it would be uncomfortable as bath water.

3. Pour the hot liquid over the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Beat at high speed for 1 minute, the dough will be quite soft and sticky.

4. Lightly grease an 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pan, and sprinkle the bottom and sides with cornmeal. I just tossed in about a 1/4 of cornmeal and tilted the pan until the inside was thoroughly coated.

5. Scoop the dough into the prepared pan. I used a rubber spatula sprayed with nonstick cooking spray to level the top of the dough out a bit.

6. Cover the pan (I used plastic wrap), and let the dough rise until it's just barely crowned over the rim of the pan. King Arthur Flour notes that when you look at the rim of the pan from eye level, you should see the dough, but it shouldn't be more than about 1/4" over the rim. This will take about 45 minutes to 1 hour, if you heated the liquid to the correct temperature and your kitchen isn't very cold. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 400°F.

7. Remove the cover, and bake the bread for 22 to 27 minutes, until it's golden brown and its interior temperature is 190°F. Mine baked for 26 minutes and it was perfect.

8. Remove the bread from the oven, and after 5 minutes turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. Let the bread cool completely before slicing.

Dinner? Lenore and Ralph took us to Dalton's for my birthday (my birthday is Wednesday). Dinner was delicious!!! But it was too dark in the restaurant to take photos but trust me it was a memorable meal. Fried Calamari that melted in your mouth. I had Cavatelli with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe. Loved it! The other dinners were Osso Buco, Short Ribs and Mushroom Ravioli. Everyone was raving about their meals. Yes we will be back!

Panko-Coated Chicken Schnitzel & Acorn Squash Farro Risotto

I have been wanting to make the Acorn Squash Farro Risotto for some time now.
Today I happened to have all the ingredients in the house. Of course I thought that it would not be enough to have just that for dinner. So I also made the Chicken Schnitzel.
The Acorn Squash Farro Risotto was more time intensive, about and hour, so the Chicken Schnitzel was a perfect recipe. It took only 15 minutes. And I used one half of a chicken breast so the amount was just enough.
Now back to the Acorn Squash Farro Risotto. I cut the recipe in half... except for the farro. Making only one squash, the recipe calls for two, I should have used half the amount of farro. We ended up sharing one of the acorn squash halves, they are very filling.  We loved the nutty flavor of the farro. And I have enough for a couple of lunches... unless we have it tomorrow night!

And it snowed today! First snow storm since October. When it snows I have to bake bread. I do not know why but I just do. I tried a new recipe today. English Muffin Toasting Bread. I found this on the King Arthur Flour site. Mine did not rise as much as the bread in the photo on the King Arthur site but I loved the taste. It tastes like an English Muffin!

On a different note... Are there any knitters or crocheters out there. Well I found this very cool site. Biscuits and Jam. There is a Stripe Generator! You pick out your colors and the number of rows you want and it shows you what your striped pattern will look like. Very cool.