Rustic Dinner Rolls

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Rustic Dinner RollsAs I mentioned a couple of weeks ago during the New Year’s round up posts, I’ve gotten a lot more into bread baking the past year. One thing I had the opportunity to make yet was crusty breads. To achieve that crusty effect, most recipes require a “sponge”, which usually is made the night before you plan to bake the bread. Which, of course – I never seem to have my act together enough to plan ahead for that.

We were having soup for dinner last week, and I wanted some French-type rolls to go along with. But, it was cold and rainy – really wasn’t feeling going to the store. So, I turned to my cookbook for inspiration. Cook’s Illustrated had a recipe for dinner rolls that claimed the crunch of a crusty roll, without the time commitment. It was a few more steps than your standard yeast roll recipe, but I was pretty sure the finished product was going to be worth it.

The rolls were airy and chewy on the inside, with a nice thick crunchy crust. This will definitely be my go-to bread when I want something with a little more body than a traditional yeast dinner roll. The batch made enough for one dinner’s worth for us, as well as another meal’s worth that I stuck in the freezer for a rainy day.

Rustic Dinner Rolls

1 1/2 cups plus 1 Tbsp water, room temperature
2 tsp honey
1 1/2 tsp instant dry or rapid-rise yeast
3 cups plus 1 Tbsp bread flour (16.5 ounces), plus extra as needed
3 Tbsp whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

Whisk water, honey, and yeast together in the bowl of a stand mixer until dissolved. Transfer bowl to stand mixer fitted with dough hook. Add bread flour and whole-wheat flour and mix on low speed until a cohesive dough forms, about 3 minutes; cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle salt evenly over dough and knead on low speed for 5 minutes. Increase speed to medium and continue to knead until dough is smooth and slightly tacky, about 1 minute. If dough is too sticky, add 1 to 2 tablespoons flour and continue mixing for 1 minute. Transfer dough to large, lightly greased bowl; cover tightly with plastic and let rise at room temperature until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Spray rubber spatula with vegetable oil spray. Fold partially risen dough over itself (in half)by gently lifting and folding the edge of the dough toward the middle. Turn bowl 90 degrees; fold again. Rotate bowl again and fold once more. Cover with plastic and let rise for 30 minutes. Repeat folding, replace plastic, and let dough rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes longer.

Grease two 9-inchround cake pans. Transfer dough to floured counter and sprinkle top with more flour. Using bench scraper, cut dough in half and gently stretch each half into 16-inch log. Cut each log into 8 equal pieces and dust top of each piece with more flour. With floured hands, gently pick up each piece and roll in palms to coat with flour, shaking of excess. Arrange rolls in prepared pans, placing 1 in center and 7 spaced evenly around the edges lengthwise, making sure cut side faces up. Loosely cover pans with lightly greased plastic and rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 500 degrees. Spray rolls lightly with water, bake until tops of rolls are brown, about 10 minutes, then remove them from the oven.

Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees; using kitchen towels or oven mitts, invert rolls from both cake pans onto rimmed baking sheet. When rolls are cool enough to handle, turn them right-side up, pull apart, and space evenly on baking sheet. Continue to bake until rolls develop a deep golden brown crust and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer rolls to wire rack and let cool to room temperature, about 1 hour, before serving.

Source: The Science of Good Cooking by America’s Test Kitchen

Bacon Stout Chocolate Cheesecake

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Bacon Stout Chocolate Cheesecake

Okay, okay – hear me out. I know what you must be thinking – bacon on a cheesecake? What the what? But just trust me, it works, especially since its beer-candied bacon. I first got this idea for a cheesecake at my favorite place for inspiration, Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats. In the spring months here on Delmarva, they have a restaurant week. If you are a restaurant in the area and would like to participate, you can offer a 3-course meal to your patrons for $30 a person.

We’ve been to a few places, as it’s always fun to try something new, but we always end up back at Dogfish. There’s the amazing beer, obviously. But, the food is always awesome – as well as the service. It’s a great place to go with the kids, with fun activity menus to keep them busy. They even make their own homemade birch beer! They source as many local ingredients as much as possible, displaying the farms proudly on a chalkboard. Sam and his wife Mariah (founders of Dogfish Head) are the nicest people in the world. We’ve seen them in there many evenings where their family was enjoying dinner with friends, or just hanging out – and Sam chatted with Jon about homebrew for a while. They also host our local homebrew chapter, Delmarva United Homebrewers, at the brewpub in the winter months. Which, is just another notch on their lipstick case of coolness in my book.  Okay, I digress…let’s just say that I love them, and everything that they stand for.

The cheesecake was on their prix fixe menu that night as a dessert choice. Of course I couldn’t resist, and I’m eternally grateful that I didn’t. They used their Chicory Stout in the batter, which led to a  denser cheesecake than I was accustomed to. It definitely stuck in my mind, and I always wanted to recreate it at home. Enter Jackie, who posted a chocolate stout cheesecake on her beer blog a while back. I knew it was  going to be the perfect base for this monster. And, it was. I added a bit of the beer-candied bacon to the batter, as well as to the top (along with some hot fudge sauce to make it easier to adhere). Just enough to make you think – Oh, bacon! And the pretzel crust? Insanely good, and seemed to retain a better crunch than your standard graham cracker variety.

Desserts are often overlooked at Super Bowl parties – but this is one that is most definitely notable. Make this, and you’re sure to be the talk of the party. Or with it in hand, will get you into any party you like! Who’s going to turn down a bacon stout chocolate cheesecake with a pretzel crust? #nobody

Bacon Stout Chocolate Cheesecake

For the Crust:
4 standard sized graham crackers
1 cup pretzel rods
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
6 Tbsp butter, melted

For the filling:
7 oz dark chocolate (60%)
1 cup stout (a chocolate stout or coffee stout is lovely)
3 (8 oz) packages of cream cheese, softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tbs flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tbs espresso powder
3/4 cup beer-candied bacon, finely chopped

For the topping:
2/3 cup hot fudge sauce
1/2 cup beer-candied bacon, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp granulated sugar

Place one oven rack in the middle position, with one rack below. Preheat oven to 350.

In a food processor add the graham crackers, sugar and the pretzels and process until it’s the consistency of crumbs. Turn the food processor on, and slowly stream in the butter and process until it resembles wet sand.

Spray the inside of a 9-inch spring form pan with non-stick cooking spray. Pour the processed crumbs into the spring form pan. Using the bottom of a heavy, flat bottom glass, press the crust very well into the bottom of the pan until well compacted.

In a pot over medium high heat, add the beer and the chocolate, stir until melted and remove from heat. Allow to cool.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add the cream cheese and the sugar and mix until smooth. One at a time, add the eggs, scraping the bottom of the bowl between additions. Pour the cooled chocolate into the mixer and beat until well combined. Lift the head of the mixer and add flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and bacon over the batter, stir on low speed until just combined.

Pour the batter into the pan over the crust.

Place the pan in the oven in the middle position. Place a baking dish on the rack below the cheesecake, fill with water.

Bake the cheesecake until the center no longer jiggles when you shake the rack, about 45-50 minutes. This isn’t a situation where a tooth pick inserted in the middle should come out clean, you just need the center to set and it will continue to set as it cools. Remove from oven.

For the topping, warm your hot fudge sauce so that it is pourable. Pour onto the center of the cheescake carefully, and allow to sit and solidify for 15 minutes. Top the chocolate with the chopped bacon. In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the whipping cream until soft peaks form. Add the sugar, and continue whipping on high until stiff peaks form. Place in piping bag fitted with a decorative tip (I used Wilton 2D) and pipe border of whipped cream around the edge.

Source: inspired by Dogfish Head Brewings and Eats, base cheesecake recipe from The Beeroness

Raspberry Truffle Brownies

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Raspberry Truffle Brownies

I don’t know about you guys, but my local grocery store has been getting in some gorgeous berries the past couple weeks. It’s my idea of California Dreamin’ in these bleak winter months. What a wonderful state – right? To produce this kind of produce all year long? Seems like the cold has finally REALLY set in here, and I’m ready to pack my bags!

So, yeah – these brownies. They’re nothing short of amazing. I changed the original recipe up a bit by adding whole raspberries to the brownie batter, and also by adding some pureed berries in place of the raspberry jam in the topping. The result was a moist chocolate brownie, studded with tart raspberries – and topped with a not-to-sweet raspberry chocolate frosting. That’s important, because I was a bit concerned they’d be too sweet – but it really was just right.

These would be perfect for Valentine’s Day, but honestly I don’t think you’ll want to wait another month and a half to make these. If the berries in your store are looking good, pick some up and make them this weekend. You won’t regret it!

Raspberry Truffle Brownies

For the brownies:
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 and 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp instant coffee crystals
2 Tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup fresh raspberries

For the filling:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 package (8 ounces) softened cream cheese
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup fresh raspberries

For the chocolate drizzle:
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 tsp shortening

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8×8-inch baking pan and set aside.

In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate chips over low heat. Cool slightly.

In a small bowl combine the flour and baking powder, whisk to combine. Set aside.

In stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the eggs and brown sugar until combined. Add vanilla extract. Dissolve the coffee crystals in hot water and add to chocolate mixture. With mixer on low, slowly add the chocolate to the eggs and sugar. With mixer still on low, add the flour to the bowl and until just combined. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the raspberries.

Pour into prepared baking dish and place in oven to bake for 30-35 minutes. Until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

For the filling, melt the chocolate chips and let cool slightly. Puree raspberries using a food processor until smooth, them push through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds. Set pureed berries aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until fluffy, with mixer on low add the powdered sugar, melted chocolate, and pureed raspberries. Mix until well combined. Spread the filling evenly over the cooled brownies. Refrigerate for a couple hours before slicing and serving.

For the drizzle, melt the chocolate chips and shortening – stirring well to combine. Drizzle glaze evenly over cooled brownies. Garnish with fresh raspberries.

Source: adapted from The Curvy Carrot via Cooking Classy

Perfect Pizza Dough

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Perfect Pizza Dough

Who doesn’t love pizza? I know we do. Once a week in our house, usually Friday nights, is pizza night. I make the dough in the afternoon while the boys are napping, enjoy a cup of tea while the dough rises (or maybe try to catch a little catnap myself!), and then I let the boys help to top the pizza before we put it in the oven.

Turning out a pizza as good (if not better) than your local pizza joint’s requires a few things: #1 – a hot oven. #2 – a pizza stone. And, #3 – practice. When I first started making pizzas at home, I had a really hard time rolling out the dough. They’d tasted great, but were severely mishapen. I think that was my problem; I was rolling, not stretching with my hands and letting the dough do all the work.

After a couple of attempts I was producing perfectly round pizza doughs, and all was right with the world. It’s a rarity for us to order a pizza out anymore; partly because there aren’t any decent pizzerias in our small town, and also because they’re just so dag-gone fun to make at home!

If you haven’t found the perfect pizza dough recipe yet, look no further. Using bread flour is the key to a crispy, chewey crust. And, it’s a dream to work with! Let the pizza delivery guy pass your house by next time you’re craving pizza, and make it at home. I’m sharing my recipe for homemade pan pizza next week, so make sure to check in then!

Perfect Pizza Dough

1/2 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp. instant yeast
4 cups (22 oz.) bread flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cup water, at room temperature
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Measure the warm water into a 2-cup liquid measuring cup. Sprinkle the yeast over the top. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the bread flour and salt, mixing briefly to blend. Measure the room temperature water into the measuring cup with the yeast-water mixture. With the mixer on low speed, pour in the yeast mixture, as well as the olive oil. Mix until a cohesive dough is formed. Switch to the dough hook. Knead on low speed until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat. Cover with clean kitchen towel and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Press down the dough to deflate it. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Form each piece of dough into a smooth, round ball. Cover with a clean kitchen towel. Let the dough relax for 20 minutes.

To bake, preheat the oven and pizza stone to 500? F for at least 30 minutes. Transfer the dough to your shaping surface, lightly sprinkled with cornmeal. Shape the dough with lightly floured hands. Brush the outer edge lightly with olive oil. Top as desired. Bake until the crust is golden brown, and cheese is bubbling, 8-12 minutes.

Source: adapted from Baking Illustrated, via Annie’s Eats