Breads and Doughs Archives

Quick Warm Scones for a Breakfast Treat

Quick Warm Scones

I graduated from Immaculate Heart High School in Hollywood, California. So did Meghan Markle, now Duchess of Sussex. You know, when one of the girls gets married to Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and the wedding is shown on live television, you have to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning to watch. That was the first time I made scones because I wanted something to celebrate and have with my winter forest tea. I have always been biscuit challenged, they come out flat as a pancake. It seems, however, that scones, which are in the biscuit family are not beyond me, and actually come out pretty good.

Pain de Mie or Pullman Bread – Winter is Coming

Winter is coming

You can’t walk down the street without seeing or hearing someone say this. Good for Game of Thrones, their catchphrase really caught on. But, there is more to it than a catchphrase.

Winter really is coming, and with it comes colder weather, shorter days and longer nights. If you are like me, winter brings something really wonderful. It brings baking season. The winter is cold, but my oven is nice and warm churning out cakes, cookies, and bread. My favorite is Pain de Mie, and I’m going to show you how I make it.

Cinnamon Raisin bread with Cardamon Raisins

Cinnamon Raisin Bread with Cardamom Raisins

Cinnamon Raisin bread with Cardamom Raisins

When I started making bread many years ago, it was plain French bread. It was good, I made it every week. My boss’s wife even insisted that I have a professional stand mixer that I got for Christmas. Wow, that machine worked, and worked and worked! Then, I had more stuff to do, volunteering, a new job, a new boyfriend, etc. Bread making kind of went out the window. I still had the mixer though, and it was doing duty mixing up meatloaf and the occasional cake.

A long time later, my mixer was about 15 or 20 years old, in the middle of mixing a batch of frosting, it made a horrible grinding noise and I saw that the bolt on the top of the machine was gone! It did a lot of damage to the motor, and my trusty mixer was kaput.

Oddly enough, my food processor, that had once proudly stood at the ready at a local restaurant, also breathed its last breath. It took me some time to thoroughly check food processors, especially when the “S” blade of the Cuisinart was recalled. Finally, I found a great food processor, a Braun, available on Amazon (I’m not being compensated, just like the product). But, as great as this machine is, I still let my KitchenAid do the heavy lifting for stiff doughs like bread dough, pizza dough, and cookie dough. So, yes, I’m back to making bread, and I’ve got a few recipes here you can try. Enjoy!

Boswell Refrigerated Pizza Dough

I really like this dough because I can make one recipe of it, and have two crusts. Since we usually have our meatless day on Friday, we can have a veggie pizza on Friday, and then we can have a nice sausage pizza later on in the week. The dough stays nicely refrigerated until it’s ready to use. It also develops a nice slightly sour flavor in that time.

Wonton Style Pizza

Asian Delights! We love Chinese food in our house, and I frequently make fried rice and Kung Pao Chicken. I thought we would try something different this time around. I really can’t wait to try this. When I was looking over at Fleishman’s today for my preferred pizza dough recipe, this caught my eye, and …

Apple Yogurt Raisin Bread – Beautiful and Easy to Make

I don’t usually do things that are complicated, and when I started making this bread, I thought it would be complicated, but in truth, it wasn’t. If this is your first time making bread, you might be intimidated by this, but trust me, it’s going to be okay.

Cheesy Jalapeno Cornbread with Creamed Corn

Cheesy Jalapeno Cornbread with Creamed Corn is rich, moist, and flavorful. Have it with chili, or just by itself.

Stuffed Ciabatta Garlic Bread – Great with Antipasto

Stuffed Ciabatta Garlic Bread makes a great appetizer or side for a big salad.

We are very lucky living in Glendale, where there is a wonderful bakery that makes the best bread, including a Ciabatta bread. When I picked Spane up this afternoon and needed some things at the store, I passed by the bread aisle and couldn’t help smelling the fresh bread.

This bread was pillow-soft with a crisp crust very reminiscent of the true Ciabatta bread found in the Lake Como region of Italy. It is nothing like the stuff that comes from mass bakeries.

Since the bread is small but rather flat and elongated, I knew it would be perfect for Stuffed Garlic Bread to go with our Antipasto Salad with Original Brown Derby Dressing.

Suggestions on Making Stuffed Ciabatta Garlic Bread

When making this, you could use a relatively soft Italian bread or even sourdough would work well. Choose the cheeses that you like. Some sun-dried tomato would be good with this. Some homemade pesto would be another option. If you want to have an alfresco dinner with the grill, then wrap the bread well with foil to void burning it. Enjoy!

I highly recommend using Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset instead of Italian seasoning. It’s the perfect blend and I find myself using it a lot. It’s salt-free and has a much fresher flavor.

Stove Top Cooked French Sweet Tart Dough

This has got to be the easiest way to make sweet tart dough. It makes a dough that is almost like a good cookie, just delicious! My food processor is in very poor health, like not working, might be able to be fixed. So, I needed to find a way to make tart dough without using the food processor. I found a recipe at David Lebovitz that looked promising – it required melting butter in the stove. Hey, it’s summertime in Glendale, California, and I didn’t want to make my house any hotter if I could help it.

I figured that I could melt the butter on the stove top, and use the Kitchen Aid mixer to actually make the dough. I was right, it worked out perfectly. This will be my go-to recipe for sweet tart dough from now on. Because of the caramelization of the butter and sugar, the crust had a slight caramel flavor and color that was perfect for my Blue Cheese Stuffed Fig Tart with Balsamic Honey Glaze.

Recipes in this Post

Tri-Color Lemon Basil Tomato Bread

I used to make bread every week when I was Chef Farion‘s roommate, simply because he liked to have bread with his meal. I’m not that much of a bread person, seeing that at the time of this writing, I had to make a new category for bread. Well, today that is going to change.

My wonderful neighbor gave me some Lemon Basil this morning, I looked at it and said to myself, “Yes, you are going to put this in bread!” Then I thought that tomato goes so well with basil, and I have tube of tomato paste in the refrigerator. I am going to make three doughs, one with basil, one with tomato paste, and one with roasted garlic. Then I am going to braid them together, sprinkle sesame seeds on top, and throw it in the oven. I think it will be good. We will see!

I like making bread for a few reasons:

I know what’s going into it.
Kneading is a good way to relieve stress. Take out your aggression on the dough!
The wonderful smell of bread baking is second to none.
Finished bread gives you the feeling of a job well done.

Spane examining “Caesar” the tomato paste dough ball
Bread is a great science project for kids. Kids can learn about yeast, and how the yeast is alive and how it makes the bread. If you are lucky, like I was, your child may volunteer to do some of the kneading for you. Spane was so happy to do it that he even named the tomato dough, “Caesar”.