Quick, Easy, Delicious Scones!

It's MLK Day and Inauguration Day and for some reason, I felt like making scones this morning... and I'm sure glad I did!  I just googled "easy scone recipe" and this link popped up... this is definitely going into the normal rotation.

I've altered the recipe a little bit since I wanted to use multigrain flour and I didn't have any heavy cream in the fridge, but it turned out so delicious topped with strawberry preserves.

INGREDIENTS
1 ¾ cups flour (I used Trader Joe's multigrain baking mix)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 orange- zested
1/2 cup milk
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 stick cold butter, cut into small squares
a pinch of salt

Heat the oven to 400F.

In a mixer, mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and orange peel.

Add the cold butter and mix until you get a crumb mixture. Pieces of butter will be corn size and not blended in. This is good.

Add the cream and milk and mix only until it begins to form a dough.

Gather the dough and transfer to a flat surface, bringing together to a solid mass.

Flour lightly and roll to 0.5 inch thickness. Cut into circles using a 2.5 inch round cutter (you can also use a glass) and transfer to a pan. Brush with the remaining milk/cream mixture and dust with some coarse sugar.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.

Sticky Pecan Caramel Cinnamon Rolls

The first signs of autumn have arrived in D.C. and I am in a baking mood!  So I pulled out my Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook and started drooling over recipes.

There are several different no-knead bread recipes you can make from scratch (these recipes are SO easy... all you need is patience to let the dough rise... and I, of all people, know patience is usually the hardest to come by when you want fresh-baked deliciousness right out of the oven).  So you can use the simple master recipe OR the AMAZING, buttery, calorie-packed brioche recipe from the book (What? 8 eggs and 3 sticks of butter??? Mmmm... believe me, it's worth it!)

This is what it looks like when it comes out of the oven...

This is what it looks like when you flip it onto the plate...

And this is what it looks like before you devour your first piece and try not the eat the rest (because you remember all the butter, sugar and eggs!)

The best thing is that the bread recipe makes at least 2 more loaves that you can keep in the fridge for a week or freeze.  I froze my extra dough because I wanted to fit into my pants this winter but I'm definitely making this again... maybe for Christmas when there are more people around to share the calories!

Brioche Recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packets)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
8 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
7 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Mix the yeast, salt, eggs honey and melted butter with the water in a 5-quart bowl, or lidded (not airtight) food container.

Mix in the flour, using a spoon until all of the flour is incorporated.

Cover (not airtight), and allow to sit at room temperature for about two hours.

Sticky Pecan Caramel Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

INGREDIENTS

The Dough
A cantaloupe sized chunk of dough (about 1.5 lbs)

The Gooey Sticky Caramel Topping
6 tbl unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
30 pecan halves

The Heavenly Sweet Cinnamon Butter Filling
4 tbl unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped and toasted pecans
pinch of freshly ground black pepper

On baking day, cream together the butter, salt and brown sugar. Spread evenly over the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan. Scatter the pecans over the butter-sugar mixture and set aside. (Note: If you have a pan with high sides, that might work best. Otherwise, place a pan (disposable or not) on the rack below your pan to catch the spillage.

Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1.5 lb piece. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go.

With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to a 1/8-inch thick rectangle. As you roll out the dough, use enough flour to prevent it from sticking to the work surface but not so much as to make the dough dry. If the dough is being stubborn, let it sit for 20 minutes, then come back to it with the rolling pin.

Cream together the butter, sugar and spices. Spread evenly over the rolled-out dough and sprinkle with the chopped nuts. Starting with the long side, roll the dough into a log. If the dough is too soft to cut, let it chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. With a serrated knife, cut the log into 8 equal pieces and arrange over the pecans in the prepared, with the “swirled” edge facing upward. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rest and rise 1 hour.

Bake buns about 40 minutes or until golden brown and well set in center. While still hot, run a knife around the inside of the pan to release the caramel rolls, and invert immediately onto a serving dish. If you let them sit too long, they will stick to the pan and be difficult to turn out.

First Loaves of Bread!

Once upon a time, (nearly 2 years ago) I tried making bread from scratch and failed.  But I'm not a quitter!  Michael and I can't go into Whole Foods without leaving with a loaf of bread - especially when you catch them fresh out of oven... mmmm - and I finally found a recipe that worked!

If you're a bread-a-holic, you need this cookbook: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  Dad and mom Merschat got it for me at Christmas and I've been in a carb coma ever since!

Check out that crust!

Look at those air bubbles!

It's so delicious... we're having it with Russian Cabbage Soup tonight!

And read this article to get some good background information on what ingredients are best, what tools you need, and the master recipe.  (It's long but not hard... I promise!)

INGREDIENTS
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1⁄2 tbsp granulated yeast (2 packets)
1 1⁄2 tbsp coarse kosher or sea salt
6 1⁄2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour
Cornmeal for pizza peel

1. Heat the water to just a little warmer than body temperature (about 100 degrees Fahrenheit).

2. Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl or, preferably, in a resealable, lidded container (not airtight — use container with gasket or lift a corner). Don’t worry about getting it all to dissolve.

3. Mix in the flour by gently scooping it up, then leveling the top of the measuring cup with a knife; don’t pat down. Mix with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor with dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer with dough hook, until uniformly moist. If hand-mixing becomes too difficult, use very wet hands to press it together. Don’t knead! This step is done in a matter of minutes, and yields a wet dough loose enough to conform to the container.

4. Cover loosely. Do not use screw-topped jars, which could explode from trapped gases. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flatten on top), approximately two hours, depending on temperature. Longer rising times, up to about five hours, will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and easier to work with than room-temperature dough. We recommend refrigerating the dough at least three hours before shaping a loaf. And relax! You don’t need to monitor doubling or tripling of volume as in traditional recipes.

5. Prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal to prevent the loaf from sticking to it when you slide it into the oven.

Sprinkle the surface of the dough with flour, then cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-sized) piece with a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on four “sides,” rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go, until the bottom is a collection of four bunched ends. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it doesn’t need to be incorporated. The bottom of the loaf will flatten out during resting and baking.

6. Place the ball on the pizza peel. Let it rest uncovered for about 40 minutes. Depending on the dough’s age, you may see little rise during this period; more rising will occur during baking.

7. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450 degrees with a baking stone on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on another shelf.

8. Dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour, which will allow the slashing, serrated knife to pass without sticking. Slash a 1⁄4-inch-deep cross, scallop or tick-tack-toe pattern into the top. (This helps the bread expand during baking.)

9. With a forward jerking motion of the wrist, slide the loaf off the pizza peel and onto the baking stone. Quickly but carefully pour about a cup of hot water into the broiler tray and close the oven door to trap the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is browned and firm to the touch. With wet dough, there’s little risk of drying out the interior, despite the dark crust. When you remove the loaf from the oven, it will audibly crackle, or “sing,” when initially exposed to room temperature air. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire rack, for best flavor, texture and slicing. The perfect crust may initially soften, but will firm up again when cooled.

10. Refrigerate the remaining dough in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next two weeks: You’ll find that even one day’s storage improves the flavor and texture of your bread. This maturation continues over the two-week period. Cut off and shape loaves as you need them. The dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking day.

Makes 4 1-pound loaves