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now it's perfect this time very soft to eat and buttery

Ingredients (3-lb dough):
1 3/4 cup milk (evaporated)
1 egg
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 tsp salt
6 cups allpourpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp instant dry yeast

Topping: softened butter(margarine), granulated sugar

Add dry ingredients in a bowls the 6 cups flour,instant dry yeast,salt mix together.. in the pan mix evaporated milk together the 1 3/4 cups sugar and the butter and heat the pan to boil. then cool to warm about 90-100 F. then poured into the flour and mix slowly , then knead about 5 minutes. let it rise for 1 hour. Once done, punch the dough, knead again then lay on the table and roll with a rolling pin to make it flat.  To keep the surface of dough from drying up, cover with clothes while you work on the ropes.)
Using dough cutter, make long ropes (about a foot long) about 1/2 of an inch thick, and coil. at the end of the coil press it tight so that it will not break the coil. some of mine i bake got loose note this...
Apply melted butter(brush) on coils and let rise for 1hour 1/2 inch apart on the tray
You may apply egg glaze prior to baking (if you want it darker brown upon baking). Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes when finish...
You may apply melted butter as soon as they get out of the oven. Helps keep them soft by preventing too much moisture loss. Then apply softened butter and roll in sugar when ready to consume. or you may mix cinnamon together with the butter then dip in the sugar...

if you want to see more recipe visit the site: link :  kusinanimanang.blogspot.com/search/label/ensaymada

vincent

I baked two loaves today.

The white loaf is a sourdough dough I prepared on Wednesday while working from home.  I wanted to see if I kept a sourdough in the fridge for 4 days would it still bake up well.

For the most part, it did.  You can see a bit of compression near the bottom, and in the center there were definitely some thick gummy parts.  I think if I tried it again I would make a smaller shape, but I was impressed that it came out so well after all that time. 

The other loaf is a 100% whole wheat loaf I made using a recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.

The whole wheat flour was sent to me by flourgirl51, who sells freshly milled organic flour at www.organicwheatproducts.com.  The bread is good.  100% whole wheat is a bit much for my kids, so I probably will have to eat most of this loaf myself, but I certainly can see how if you are into whole grain breads you'd want to either mill the flour yourself or find a good vendor that mills it fresh.  The freshly milled flour is significantly more flavorful.

In 1904, Sir William Osler, one of the greatest physicians of his time, was asked to address the graduating class of The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on the topic, “What is the most important personal attribute for a physician to cultivate in himself?” Sir William's address was entitled “Aequanimitas,” which roughly translates into modern American English as “Chill, dude!” I have always tried to follow Sir William's wise advice.

This afternoon, I made a batch of baguettes, according to Anis Bouabsa's formula. I thought they were the most perfectly shaped and scored baguettes I've every made. As I was loading the three baguettes into my pre-heated and humidified oven, one fell off the back of the baking stone. As I tried to grab it, the other two baguettes fell off the peel onto the oven door. What a mess!

Uttering a few words which my wife has asked I not speak in the presence of our grandchildren, I scooped up the twisted heaps of formerly gorgeous baguette dough. Should I scrap the bake as a lost cause or attempt a salvage operation? What could I lose by trying?

Aequanimitas, aequanimitas, aequanimitas ... 

I was able to separate the three pitiful pieces from each other. I reshaped them quickly – one folded as one might fold a ciabatta, one coiled and one formed into a figure 8 knotted “roll.” I immediately loaded them onto the stone and baked for 10 minutes with steam at 460F and 8 more minutes dry.

Anis Bouabsa Not Baguettes

Anis Bouabsa Not Baguettes - Crumb

Delicious! 

I hope you all have a great week and that all your "disasters" are really "opportunities," when you look back at them.

David

For the few and the brave...

 The time has arrived to bake the second batch of hand milled white flour.  This flour was the "pure white" flour that was milled on 27 Feb.  This has been aging in an uncovered container since then.

 Once again, I used my standard baguette recipe.  However after using the last of my last batch of white flour to make a pizza on Friday, I had some thoughts.  The last batch of flour performed very poorly for pizza.  Not that the crust wasn't crispy and tasty (because it was) but the rise had no oomph.  I considered that white flour is usually malted and that this lackadaisical rise bore all of the signs of a lack of alpha amylase action.

 So this batch of flour was malted.  I used a scant 1/8 teaspoon of diastatic malt to 15 oz of flour and blended it thoroughly.  I then proceeded to do my levain build for my baguettes.

 This time the levain was very comparable to that prepared with commercial flour.  If I was forced to find a difference, it would be that it was ever so slightly darker in color.

 The mixing of the dough went as I would have experienced with commercial flour.

 The bulk fermentation was also very much like what I have experienced with commercial flour, and, truth be told, it was a bit more lively than my last week's batch.

 During shaping, I felt no real difference this time; it felt like what I bake every week.

 After an hour for the final ferment, the loaves felt properly "proofed" which is what I would expect from commercial flour.  They were loaded, the oven steamed "as usual" and baked.

 The final result is pictured below.  Alas, the passing week has not improved my photography skills.

Compared to last week's loaves these are much better balanced.  The sacrifice in grigne comes from a more thorough final ferment.  The more thorough fermentation process has produced that good old open crumb that I have come to expect from commercial flour.  It had the proper translucent quality and was not a bit gummy (as it would be if I over malted.)

 The taste?  Like I baked with commercial flour.  I like it, but it really isn't much different than what I bake every week.

 Would I mill this flour again?  Perhaps.  With a yield of 15 oz of flour from 2 pounds of wheat berries, one must regard this as a luxury flour.  The increment in taste - except for that sweet, sweet taste that comes from knowing that I can hand mill a flour that is every bit as good as a high quality commercial flour - is not really worth the effort.  The dramatic change in fermentation behavior must be attributed to the malting of the flour.  Remember it is less than .05 oz per 15 oz of flour - as we see; a little goes a long way.  What I may work at is developing a semi-white flour and make sure that I malt it properly.

 When I pick up a sack of all purpose flour, I handle it gently.  I have a deep appreciation for what this really means.

 Happy Milling!

I received an email several weeks ago about this contest to come up with original recipes with sweet potatoes as the main ingredients. While I grew up in a country where sweet potatoes were more commonly used than regular potatoes in cooking, the contest prompted me to experiment in baking with sweet potatoes.  Whether I win or lose, I have come up with several definite keepers.  I came up with 5 recipes (recipes should be easy, and quick enough to make it to mealtime and be a part of daily meals).  There was no limit to the number of recipes to submit. Deadline is March 31st. I have made 5 and to me, that's enough, although I will still cook and bake with sweet potatoes. It was a pleasant learning experience.

 On the left is pandelimon (as we call it in the Philippines), which is what we would refer here in the US as some dinner rolls. The softness and taste is unbelievable; it rivals the rolls served in one of our favorite family restaurants here.

On the right is pandesal (a Filipino breakfast staple). The only difference is the way they are cut, and that pandesal is rolled in breadcrumbs.

Both can be enjoyed with butter or jam, or just plain, dipped in hot cocoa or coffee.

Recipe can be found in my blog.

Next thing I made was the Sweet Potato Cream Cheese Wheat Bread.

It is a dough (of course, made using sweet potato again), with cream cheese filling combined with sweet potato (inspired by a pumpkin cream cheese filling).

While the photo looks tempting, I was not too happy with it.

Then I made this dessert of baked sweet potato. While this entry will not qualify for  a "baking" post here in freshloaf, this delightful and rich dessert would pave the way for a baked "Hot Pockets" inspired sweet potato snack.

But first I had to make another dough to be able to make those sweet potato pockets.

Enter the Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls.

It was probably the best dough I have ever made for any cinnamon rolls.  So moist and soft, even after refrigeration!  And the best thing was that, the recipe could make a batch of three logs. A log could be frozen for use in another day. Everything is described in my blog. So the recipe I have there is good for 3 batches of 7-8 pieces cinnamon rolls. Being able to freeze them enables me to have them for at least 3 meals.

Since I had some leftover Sweet Potato Bake and I had enough dough from Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls to experiment with, I came up with a sweet vegetarian version of Hot Pockets, which I called Sweet Potato Pockets.  One or two pieces of this delightful snack is enough to fill my tummy in between meals.  They are also good as accompaniment to my evening coffee.

These are all the 5 entries I submitted to that contest. And like I said, whether or not I win or lose, I have already several keepers here, that I feel like a winner. One of my blog readers already tried the Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls, which happened to be her first ever baked bread/rolls, and she was so thrilled that everyone liked it. I guess I "recruited" her now into the world of baking. Maybe I should recruit her to the fresh loaf as well.

I don't know if it's my love for bread baking or my new camera that keeps me in the kitchen, but here's another attempt I just completed tonight.  The recipe is from Lory of Maine whose web site is:  http://kusinanimanang.blogspot.com/2008/01/potato-peasant-bread.html.  She says people can copy her recipes but she'd appreciate it if they would include a link to her web site.  So my thanks to Lory for sharing.  She's got over a hundred recipes there - goes to show what a dedicated wife and mother and foodie she is.

Since the recipe was for 2 loaves, I decided to make a loaf with one half of the dough and dinner rolls for the second half.  For the loaf, I added shredded cheese and green onions, then I rolled the loaf jelly-style and put it in a pan.  For the dinner rolls, I divided the dough into tiny balls and put three balls in each muffin cup. 

These were what came out of the oven:

When the loaf cooled, I sliced it.  Here's what it looked like:

And here's the final picture - a closer look at the slices:

Here's my question:

Can anyone tell me why that slice has a hole at the top, right below the crust?

Overall, I am happy with the recipe.  I probably shouldn't have spread the shredded cheese and green onions before rolling; maybe it would have been better if I incorporated the cheese and green onions into the mixture during the pre-kneading stage.

I must say though that the cheese and green onions spiked the taste a few notches up.  The loaf definitely had a sharper and more flavorful taste than the rolls.  And Lory did say that potatoes tend to make the bread soft and chewy inside and crisp and crusty on the outside.  I agree.  Those slices were really soft!  I left the potato skins on by the way - so they look like bacon bits but they're not.  A bacon loaf is next on the agenda, though!

It has rained for 4 days now. We are all stir crazy, so we made pizza. The kids did their own toppings. This one was just pepperoni. As they say in the papers, " A good time was had by all" .

My wife has been an instructor in some women's groups recently that have had, as one component, some instruction in cooking.  She was a bit surprised to find just how much interest there was among the women who attended these sessions in learning more about cooking.  For some, it was an opportunity to expand their repertoire with new recipes or techniques.  For others, it was a chance to learn basic skills that they had not been taught previously.  

Based on those experiences, she has begun a series of classes in our home that will cover a range of topics; including meal planning, cooking and baking.  The first class met yesterday and I found myself instructing three students on the finer points of how to make a honey whole-wheat bread.  (My work schedule gives me every other Friday off.)  It's an old pattern; she has an idea and I have work.  ;-)  

We kept everything low key.  I had baked a loaf yesterday morning prior to class so that they could see and taste the finished product.  They got to see the differences in measuring by volume and measuring by weight, and were more than a little surprised to see that their normal measuring methods produced some significantly different quantities of flour, on a weight basis.  We allowed the whole wheat flour a short soak (not a true autolyse) and explained how that would affect the texture of the dough and the finished bread, as well as the amount of kneading that would be required.  We also covered the basic differences between enriched, straight doughs (yesterday's subject) and lean and delayed-fermentation doughs.  Although we weren't focusing on sourdough yesterday, I showed them my starter and explained some of the differences between naturally-yeasted and commercially-yeasted breads.  While their dough was rising, we sampled the finished bread that I had baked.  My wife also demonstrated some spreads and toppings that they could easily make, and provided those recipes.  By the time we were done, each student had mixed, kneaded and shaped their own loaf of bread, which they took  home to bake.  Although I stressed the importance of allowing the bread to cool to room temperature, one already e-mailed back to say that her loaf disappeared that same afternoon.  However, she is planning to make more!  

There's already talk about future classes for cinnamon rolls, pretzels, bagels, and sourdough.  We'll have to see how all of that plays out.  The good thing is that there are now more converts to baking their own bread at home.  And, yes, I pointed them to The Fresh Loaf as an excellent resource for additional information and help.

Paul

Pictured below is a sourdough raisin walnut bread. the recipe i copies is from ehanner at http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6629/raisin-walnut-sd-delight. i sliced it thin, toasted + butter + a little extra cinnamon sugar on top = YUM! i was hoping to get a larger ovenspring but i dont think my oven was hot enough. i also didnt score the bread properly.

below is another attempt at baguettes. these were also sourdough using KA All Purpose flour. Once again, my oven was not at proper temp so i am sure that contributed to the lack of oven spring. also, this time i used a large alluminum pan to cover the bread and also placed a small cast iron skillet inside for additional steam. i still need to learn proper shaping technique and i want to try a better flour with 11.4% protein. does even a few tengths  of protein contribute to color and oven spring?

deep dish pizza for later that day. credit goes to BTB on pizzamaking.com. here is what i use for a 9Inch round pan 2 inches tall. i sauteed onions and green peppers, used italian sausage, red pack whole peeled tomatoes, preshredded maggio mozzerella, lots'a spinach, and a sprinkle of parmesian ramano. cooked at 480 for 30-35 minutes.

Flour and Semolina Blend* (75% 25%)
Water (47%)
ADY (.7%) convert to IDY use ~25% less
Olive Oil (6%)
Corn Oil (18.5%)
Butter/Margarine (1%)
Sugar (1.5%)
Salt (1.5%)