6 Pillow Dinner Rolls

Okay, corny name, right?  I swear you will agree that that's exactly what these are if you make these.  I nearly wept tears of joy when I took my first bite, and my husband's eyebrows went sky-high, and he said "Wow." (that's like jumping up and down for him.)  This recipe was adapted from AllRecipes.com, but I have made several changes.

4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups warmed milk
6 tablespoons room-temp shortening
3 tablespoons room-temp butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
3 teaspoons salt
6 cups all-purpose flour (up to 7 cups)

In a large mixing bowl, bloom the yeast in warm water. Add the milk, shortening, eggs, sugar, honey salt and 3 cups flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour cup-by-cup to form a soft dough (for me that was 6 cups - it will be sticky, but not too sticky and not liquidy.) If you have a stand mixer, beat for about 5-6 minutes or until the dough forms a ball.  Otherwise turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.  Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide into four equal pieces, and then each quarter will be again divided into four equal pieces (so you will get 16 rolls from half the dough, or 32 rolls total.) Shape each into a roll by pulling the sides down so it's round and smooth on top, and pinch the seam tightly at the bottom, and place seam-side down.

Place about 1/2 in. apart on greased baking sheets. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 30-45 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. During the last five minutes of baking brush with melted butter.  Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to wire racks.

If you don't need that many rolls at once, you can freeze the dough before the second rise.  Place the shaped rolls on a greased cookie sheet and freeze for 20-30 minutes and then combine into a sealed plastic bag. When ready to bake, remove from freezer and place onto cookie sheet, and let rise until doubled, then bake according to the directions above.

The shortening is what makes these so light and fluffy, and the butter gives it some extra flavor.  These are incredibly tender and fluffy, they are amazing!!  Serve with butter and honey.

5 Carrot Cranberry Bread

I happened to have class snack today, this last half-day of school before a whole two weeks vacation; vacation for whom, I'm not quite certain!  I made the kids this low-sugar organic carrot bread, in muffin form.  I didn't tell Ella that the secret ingredient was pureed carrot, because I didn't want her to say anything in class and dissuade anyone from trying it.  Good news is that every child, except one, (who is fundamentally opposed to muffins on principle) gobbled these down.  At least according to E, who is generally a reliable raconteur.  Until she's about 8, anyway.

I used the Spice Carrot Muffins recipe from Mommy's Kitchen blog, and followed it to the letter except for three changes (as I really try to do when baking things...otherwise things tend to go awry....)  The first change was insignificant, I changed the raisins to dried cranberries.  The second change was to halve the sugar.  The last change I made was entirely unintentional and was borne of my inattention.  I accidentally lost count when I was scooping the flour, and I believe I used 1/2 cup more than was called for.  Whoops!  But, they came out really nicely anyway, the texture was great, not too dry, but if you want to make my mistake, I'd recommend adding a little more spice.  I doubled the recipe and it made 24 muffins plus an 8x8 square baking dish.  The recipe below are the measurements exactly how they should be (including the full amount of sugar) for 12 regular-sized muffins.

You'll need:

1/2 cup sugar
1/2  cup brown sugar

3/4  cup plain yogurt 

4  tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 

1/2  teaspoon vanilla extract 

1  large egg 

1/4  cup milk 

3/4 cup pureed carrots
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2  teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2  teaspoon salt
2  teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2  cup raisins or dried cranberries, optional

Preheat oven to 375, and spray a muffin tin or line with paper cups.

In a large mixing bowl combine sugars, yogurt, butter, vanilla, egg, milk and carrot and mix well.  In another bowl mix together all remaining dry ingredients except raisins/craisins, if using.  Pour wet batter into the dry and mix until just combined, then add the fruit and gently fold in.

Scoop batter into cups and fill 3/4 of the way full.  Bake muffins for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  The 8x8 dish took 35 minutes.

And, voila!  I added used Hello Kitty cups and little jungle animal cupcake toppers to make them extra-fun for their last day of school.

I topped the square loaf with a little powdered sugar.

If I can get 16 unsuspecting kids to eat some carrots this way, so can  you!

3 Basic No-Knead Bread

If you follow me on Facebook, you'll have seen me post pictures of some of these last night.  I've been hankering to bake bread for a few days now, ever since I read the versatile basic bread dough recipe in Family Fun magazine.  To be honest, I really wanted to make my mom's recipe, but I didn't have any molasses on hand, so that will be the next one I do. Hers doesn't use eggs, which yields a totally different bread.  This recipe is very good, though!  The bread is nice and soft, and has a nice chew, and you can do lots of things with it, and, you can store the unbaked dough in the fridge for a few days.  I used the sandwich loaf method.

The first rise.

Shaping, or "cloaking" half the dough for the first loaf.

Loosely covering in plastic wrap for the second rise.

Ahh yeast, isn't fungus amazing?

After a light egg wash, and slashing the top.

The next part is where your house smells absolutely ammaaaazing.  With the other half of the dough I made a round loaf in a deep white ceramic casserole, which works perfectly.  

It's torturous waiting for things to cool enough to slice! 

There is nothing in this world like warm bread fresh out of the oven.

Slather with lots of butter and drizzle with honey.