The space in sweet bread is important.

A space has never been so important in a food name. Sweet bread is vastly different than sweetbread.

Sweetbread, of course, being the thymus gland of an animal (delicious in Po Boys) and sweet bread being an actual loaf of bread that happens to be sweet.

It can be confusing in writing, but it’s much more confusing in speech.

A recent conversation I had with Betsy:

Bets: What are you cooking today?

Nick: Sweet bread.

Bets: Awesome! My favorite. I can’t wait to try it!

Many hours later…

Bets: I thought you said you were make sweetbreads?!

Nick: Sorry. I should’ve been more specific. I was making sweet space bread.

It turns out though that sweet bread is also a wonderfully delicious thing and one that I’d never made before it won the poll last week. I was really happy with how it turned out!

Portuguese Sweet Bread

Yield: 2 loaves

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 6 hours

Ingredients:

Starter:
1/2 Cup bread flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
2.25 Teaspoons instant yeast
1/2 Cup water

Dough:
6 Tablespoons sugar
1 Teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup powdered milk
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Large eggs
1 Teaspoon lemon (or almond) extract
1 Teaspoon orange extract
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Cups bread flour
6 Tablespoons water, room temperature

Egg Wash:
1 Egg, whisked with 1 Teaspoon water

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer

Directions:

1) Start sponge by mixing starter ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir until it makes a smooth batter. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 60-90 minutes, until the sponge is very foamy.

2) To make dough, combine sugar, salt, powdered milk, and butter in large bowl or with a paddle attachment in a stand mixer. Combine until smooth.

3) Mix in eggs, one at a time, and extracts.

4) Mix in the sponge and flour and switch to the dough hook. Mix on medium with the dough hook until the dough is very supple and soft. If it is at all wet or sticky add more flour by the spoonful. Alternatively, you can knead by hand on a floured surface until the desired consistency is reached. This will take 10-12 minutes with a mixer or 15-16 minutes by hand.

5) Add dough ball to a lightly greased bowl, cover and let ferment until it doubles in size, about 2 hours.

6) Remove dough from bowl and divide into two pieces. Form each piece into a tight round ball (a boule). Lightly oil two 9-inch pie pans and place one boule in each pan, seam side down. Cover loosely and let rise for another 2-3 hours, until the dough doubles in size.

7) Brush loaves with egg wash.

8) Bake loaves at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes until they are a deep brown and sound slightly hollow when thumped.

9) Remove from the oven and let cool on wire racks. Let cool for at least 45 minutes before slicing.

Adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Making the Starter

Like a lot of real bread recipes, this loaf involves a starter. Don’t worry, this particular starter is really easy and doesn’t take days to make. You just need a few ingredients.

The basics.

Mix these all together with some water and let it ferment for 60-90 minutes until it gets nice and foamy. This also has the added benefit of making sure your yeast is nice and lively.

After the rise time, it should be really foamy and on the verge of collapse.

It's alive!

Making the Dough

If there is one book for which I’m very afraid to alter the recipes, it’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The recipes are so specific that I just always feel like I’m committing some sort of cardinal sin if I change them.

So I feel obligated to disclose two changes that I made to this recipe. One I made on purpose and one I made on accident. Neither change made for a bad loaf.

First, I used 4 tablespoons of butter in my recipe while the original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of vegetable shortening. I made this change on purpose because I didn’t have any vegetable shortening!

Second, the original recipe called for lemon extract but I used almond extract in my version. The only reason I made this change is because I apparently cannot read.

Regardless, the one ingredient in this recipe that Mr. Reinhart says you 100% cannot substitute is powdered milk. I get that. It gives the final loaf a very specific flavor and texture. It’s not really negotiable.

Powdered milk is apparently important.

To start the dough, add the butter (or butter and shortening if you’re using both) to a bowl with the salt, sugar, and powdered milk and kind of work them together with a large spoon.

You could also add them to a stand mixer and beat them with a paddle attachment. You basically want to cream them together and I did kind of a piss poor job of it. Ideally, it would be one creamy texture.

Not my best job...

Anyway, then add your eggs one at a time, and the extracts and continue to mix.

Once all that is mixed together, add your starter that has been foaming away along with your bread flour and water.

That starter is cool stuff.

While you can definitely make this recipe with a stand mixer, I went ahead and made it by hand just to be different.

If you do use a mixer, switch to the dough hook after you get your ingredients together and stir it on medium for 10-12 minutes until the dough ball is a nice, soft texture.

If you’re doing it by hand, stir everything together until you get a rough ball. Something kind of like this…

Dough?

Scoop this out onto a lightly floured counter and start kneading! Here’s the bad news… this will take 15-16 minutes depending on your kneading skills. If the dough gets sticky at any point, knead in another spoonful of flour.

The resulting dough ball should be very smooth and soft and easy to work with.

Once you get it there, add it to a lightly oiled bowl so it can rise!

Dough!

The First Rising

Let the dough rise until it about doubles in size. This should take about two hours. This dough is incredibly soft and easy to work with. It actually reminded me of doughnut dough…

Doubling is about right.

A Strange Step

I was a bit confused about the next step. Actually, I’m still confused by it so I shoudln’t use past tense. The recipe calls to divide the dough into two even pieces and form loaves of dough. Makes sense, but then it says to add those boules to lightly greased pie pans.

I’m completely at a loss as to why you have to bake these in pie pans, but here it goes.

No idea why pie pans are needed.

The Second Rising

Once you’ve put your dough balls into the pie pans (seriously you can just use sheet pans as far as I can tell), cover them loosely and let them rise a second time.

Again, they should double in size which will take another 2 hours or so.

Then brush each loaf with a light coat of the egg wash.

For a nice brown crust...

Baking and Cooling

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 50-60 minutes.

After about 30 minutes they will start to get very browned. Have no fear. They won’t burn. Just let them keep cooking until the full 50-60 minutes is up. They should sound slightly hollow when thumped when they are done. If you’re in doubt, let them bake for another 5 minutes.

When you pull them out, let them cool on a wire rack. These are really pretty!

Pretty things!

I loved the crust on these loaves. After you let them cool for about 45 minutes, you can slice into them to reveal a nice crust and a very soft crumb which is awesome.

Makes great toast!

As you might guess, the dough is slightly sweet but also has great flavor from all the different extracts.

This bread is great on its own with some butter but is also good as toast with a dab of Nutella.

I hadn’t made a good loaf of bread in awhile so I was really happy with how these turned out!

Millions of cinnamon rolls!

You know you’re a food blogger when…

1) You are used to eating meals at room temperature because you had to spend 10 minutes photographing the darn thing.

2) You have the grocery store aisles memorized.

3) You bring baked goods to bars during happy hour just so you can get them out of the house.

Number three is exactly what happened with this delicious thing. I made it, photographed it, ate more of it than I should have and then rushed out the door to catch a beer with some friends.

I was about to leave when I decided… what the heck… let’s bring it to the bar! This was a good idea. People loved it because the tiny little rolls are bite-sized. Even our server snuck a few pieces!

While I was going to write that this recipe is really great for brunches, it also happens to be perfect for bars.

Chocolate Chip Monkey Bread

Yield: Serves 10.

Prep Time: 30 minutes + rise time

Total Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

Dough:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup milk, warm
1/3 cup water, warm
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3.25 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
2 teaspoons salt
3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (opt.)

1-2 tablespoons butter, soft for bundt pan.
1 teaspoon vegetable oil, for rising

Brown Sugar Coating:
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Helpful Equipment:
Bundt Pan

Directions:

1) Butter pan with 2 tablespoons softened butter and set aside for later.

2) In a large bowl, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar and yeast. Meanwhile, mix flour and salt in standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase speed to medium and mix until dough is shiny and smooth, 6 to 7 minutes. If at any point dough is very sticky, add more flour by the tablespoon.

If you don't have a mixer, just mix the ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a rough ball. Then turn out onto a floured surface and knead the dough until it forms a smooth ball, about 5-6 minutes.

3)Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form smooth, round ball. Coat large bowl with vegetable oil or nonstick spray. Place dough in bowl and coat surface of dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until dough doubles in size, about an hour.

4) For the sugar mixture, mix brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Place melted butter in second bowl.

5) To finish bread, remove the dough from the bowl, and pat into a rough 10-inch square. Sprinkle chocolate chips on half of the dough and fold it over. Then roll out again to a square. Using a bench scraper or knife, cut dough into tiny 1/4-1/2 inch pieces.

6) Roll each piece into a rough ball and dip into the melted butter, allowing excess butter to drip back into the bowl. Roll in the brown sugar mixture, then layer balls in the Bundt pan. Try to stagger the balls so they form a single thing.

7) Cover the Bundt pan tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for another hour until the balls are about 2 inches from the top of the pan.

8) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap the pan and bake until the top is deep brown, about 35-40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a late and allow to cool slightly, about 10 minutes.

9) While the bread cools, whisk the confectioners’ sugar and milk in a small bowl until the lumps are gone. Using a spoon, drizzle the glaze over the monkey bread. Serve warm.

Adapted from a Brown Eyed Baker recipe.

The Dough

This dough is basically a cinnamon roll dough. It’s pretty much the easiest kind of dough to work with in my opinion. It’s really easy to mix and knead. It’s very soft and stretchy. It’s really easy to roll out and shape!

Start it by mixing all the dough ingredients except the salt and flour in a small bowl. Stir them together and let them sit for a minute or two to make sure the yeast is dissolved and active. It should start foaming a bit.

In a mixing bowl, combine your salt and flour and add in the liquid stuff. If you have a stand mixer, just mix this all together with the dough hook on low-medium speed until it comes together in a soft ball, about 5 minutes.

This is a really easy dough to make without a mixer though. Just stir the ingredients together with a wooden spoon and once they are all together, knead the dough on a floured surface until it’s a nice smooth and soft ball.

Mixer or no mixer, if the dough ever gets sticky, add more flour.

Pretty straightforward

Once your dough ball is formed, add it to a bowl that’s been lightly oiled. I just used some vegetable oil and coated the inside of the bowl. Turn the dough ball over in the bowl so it gets nice and coated and then cover the dough and let it rise for about an hour. It should double in size.

This was my finished dough ball.

After a short rise.

Making the Balls

Now for the fun part. Scoop the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out into a large square. Then sprinkle your chocolate chips on half of the square.

The chocolate is optional, but I thought it worked perfectly in the recipe. You can use almost any chocolate chip. I just used some semi-sweet chips that I had in my pantry.

You only need a few ounces to get some nice chocolate flavor.

No need to go crazy with chocolate.

Fold the dough over and pack it down so the chocolate chips are more or less enclosed in dough.

Folded and lightly rolled.

Then use a knife or a dough scraper to chop up the dough into bite-sized pieces. You should shoot for 60-70 little pieces. About 1/2 inch squares is a good goal.

It’s actually good to have different sizes though so don’t worry about them all being totally even.

Approximately a million.

Filling the Pan

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Also use a separate small bowl and gently melt some butter in the microwave.

Working with a few pieces of dough at a time, roll them into rough balls and dunk them in the melted butter.

No substitutions here...

Then toss them in the sugar and cinnamon mixture and roll them around. A light coating is all you need.

Like an inside out cinnamon roll

Then toss the finished balls in a bundt pan that has been pretty heavily buttered.

Keep going until you use all your dough. If you have a normal sized pan you’ll probably about half fill the pan which is perfect.

About half full is good.

If you don’t have a bundt pan, I don’t see why you couldn’t make this in a normal baking dish. It might not be quite as attractive, but it would still be delicious.

Regardless of the pan you choose, after you finish stacking all the balls of dough, cover the pan and let them rise a second time. About another hour should give you a great puffy dough.

While it might not look like these have risen much, keep in mind that they are also expanding to fill a bunch of little cracks that are in between all the dough balls. This second rise is really important.

A longer second rise.

Baking and Glazing

Once your dough has risen a second time, bake them at 350 degrees for about 35-40 minutes. They should be a nice golden brown and you might also notice some brown sugar bubbling up around the edges. That means it’s done!

This was my finished bread and it not only looked great, it smelled amazing!

Hello beautiful.

Let this cool in the pan for a few minutes and then invert it on a plate or platter.

Meanwhile, just stir together the powdered sugar and milk to make a very simple glaze.

Once the bread has cooled for 10 minutes or so, go ahead and drizzle the glaze all over it.

A simple glaze.

You could slice this, but I actually preferred serving it with toothpicks so people can just pick off the bread piece that they want.

Some people prefer the outer ones that get kind of crispy. Some like the inside ones that are soft.

So good!

For the delicious and show-stopping dessert that is produced, this thing really isn’t that hard to make. The dough is really easy to bring together and then it’s just a matter of rolling it, dunking it in butter and sugar and baking it.

In other words, you make do this. Anyone can make this.

And everyone should.

Whoa. Cool.

Ever since I was experimenting with (read: eating a lot of) my PB & J sushi last week, I’ve been on a huge peanut butter and jelly kick. I’ve eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day of the week for the last ten days or so.

Call it sappy, but it really does remind me of my childhood. These days I leave the ends on, but other than that it’s the same old sandwich.

Of course, I can’t help myself when it comes to thinking of ways to ramp up something that I like that much.

So I figured it would be fun to make an actual bread loaf with peanut butter and jelly rolled right into it. Then any slice of toast is, like, an instant peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

How could you not like that!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Loaf

Yield: 9 Inch Loaf

Prep Time: 15 minutes + 16 hour rise time

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients:

2 1/4 Cups bread flour, plus some for dusting
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Teaspoon instant yeast
1 Cup + 2 Tablespoons cool water
1/4 Cup unsalted smooth peanut butter
1 large egg
1/3 Cup seedless jam
1/2 Cup peanuts, chopped and divided

Egg Wash:
1 egg + 1 Tablespoon water

Helpful Equipment:
Loaf pan
Wire Rack

Directions:

1) Mix dry ingredients (flour yeast salt) together in a large bowl.

2) In a blender or food processor, pulse peanut butter together with water and egg until mixture is smooth.

3) Add wet mixture to dry stuff and stir to combine. It should be a pretty wet, sticky dough.

4) Cover dough loosely and let rise for 12-16 hours.

5) Dust dough with flour after it rises and dust a clean surface with flour as well. Turn out dough onto surface and shape it or roll it into a large rectangle (about 8x12).

6) Spread jam all over surface of dough, leaving about 1/2 inch around the edges.

7) Fold the bottom 1/3 of the dough over and then continue to roll the dough up to form a jelly roll of sorts.

8) To prep your loaf pan, butter it well and sprinkle the bottom with half of your peanuts.

9) When jelly roll is finished, tuck the ends under and place it seam-side down in your loaf pan. Cover it and let it rise for another hour.

10) Brush the loaf with egg wash and sprinkle the rest of the chopped peanuts on top.

11) Bake loaf at 450 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Remove from pan as soon as possible and let cool on a wire rack.

Adapted from My Bread.

Starting the bread

The nice thing about this loaf is that it’s based on a no knead bread recipe from Jim Lahey.

Which means that it takes almost no time to make, but it does require about 12-16 hours to rise.

Normal stuff plus awesome stuff.

Ingeniously, Jim recommends mixing the peanut butter in with the no knead dough which gives it a really nice peanut butter flavor and also a soft texture.

Unfortunately, it’s kind of tricky mixing peanut butter into flour. The easiest way to do it is to blend your peanut butter, water, and egg together to make a sort of slurry and then mix that together with your dry ingredients.

This will smell really peanuty which is good!

Dough is gonna rise.

Once your dough is mixed together, it should be pretty moist. Just stir it together until everything is mixed. No need to over-mix it.

Then cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 12-16 hours. It should double in volume.

Forming the Loaf

Once your dough has risen, dust it well with flour and also throw some flour down on a clean surface. Then scoop out your dough onto the floured surface and lightly roll it into a large rectangle.

You’re shooting for a rectangle that’s about 8×12 in size.

Then spread your jam all over the surface of the dough!

Needs a bit more jelly...

Try to leave about a 1/2 inch around the edge of the dough.

Fold the bottom third of the dough up and then continue to roll the dough away from you to form a tight jelly roll of dough.

Roll 'er up!

To prepare your loaf pan for baking, butter it liberally so the dough doesn’t stick and then sprinkle about 1/4 cup of roughly chopped peanuts right in the bottom of the pan.

See what I did there?

Once you have your loaf rolled up, fold under the ends to form a nice even loaf. Then just plop the roll right into your loaf pan with the seam-side down. That’ll prevent most of your jelly from exploding out of the loaf.

Loosely cover the loaf and let it rise for another hour or so. It should again double in size.

Then brush the loaf with a light egg wash (1 egg + 1 tablespoon water) and sprinkle on another 1/4 cup of chopped peanuts.

This guy is ready for the oven now!

Ready for the oven.

Bake the loaf in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for about 50 minutes. The loaf should be really nice and golden brown. If it isn’t, then bake for another 10 minutes.

Check the loaf halfway through and if the peanuts are browning really quickly (mine were) then cover the loaf pan loosely with foil which will keep them out of the direct heat.

The final loaf is a thing of beauty!

This will smell amazing.

Two things to note about this loaf:

1) It’s inevitable that some jelly will escape from the roll. When you pull your loaf pan out it might look as if a lot of jelly has cooked out of it. Have no fear. It’s probably fine as long as you rolled it tightly and cooked it with the seam side down.

2) When you pull the loaf out of the oven, immediately invert it on a pan or wire rack to get the loaf out of the pan. If you let it cool in the pan, it’ll turn really soggy. Ideally, you can cool it on a rack, but whatever you do, take it out of the pan as soon as possible.

This was my final loaf. As you can see, some jelly escaped, but it was still delicious.

Cool it down.

Getting Crazy

As soon as I cut open the loaf and saw the cool jelly swirl, I knew this was a keeper of a recipe.

Of course, I had to take it to the next level as soon as possible and make a double peanut butter and jelly!

Double PB & J Slam!

What do you think about that?!

A bit on the bready side.

I cooked some calzones over the weekend because they won last week’s poll and they were darn close to a huge mess. Honestly, I would probably lock this guy away in the “never to be posted” file except for two things:

1) You guys voted for a calzone so I felt obligated to post on one, even if it isn’t top notch.

2) The filling for this calzone is out of this world. So you need to know about it.

Unfortunately my calzone dough left a lot to be desired. I have a quick fix for that though… use a different recipe than I did!

Southwestern Calzones

Yield: 4 Calzones

Prep Time: 30 minutes + Time for dough

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Filling:
1.5 pounds chicken breasts, diced
2 ears sweet corn
1 anaheim or poblano pepper, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/4 Cup salsa
6-8 ounces pepper jack cheese, grated
Pinch of salt and pepper
1 egg, beaten with a tablespoon of water for egg wash

Calzone/pizza dough (I wasn't happy with the dough recipe I tried, so this is my standard pizza dough recipe which is surefire.)
5 Cups (22.5 ounces) bread flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons honey or sugar
3 Teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 Teaspoons instant yeast
3 Tablespoons olive oil (plus more for the dough later)
1 3/4 Cups room temperature water

Directions:

For dough...

1) Add all the ingredients except flour to a large bowl and let sit until yeast starts to bubble. Add in flour and stir together with a large spoon until the dough comes together.

2) Dip one hand in a bowl of warm water and vigorously knead the dough in the bowl, constantly turning the bowl, until the dough comes together and starts to firm up, about 4 minutes.

3) Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

4) Continue to work it for another 2-3 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth and very elastic.

5) Cut the dough into 4 pieces, roll each quarter into a ball, and add each ball to a plastic bag coated lightly with olive oil.

6) Let dough sit at room temp for 15 minutes and then store in the fridge overnight.

7) Remove the dough from the fridge 2 hours before making pizza.

To Make Calzones:

1) Char corn by placing it directly on a gas burner or on a grill. Turn every 30 seconds or so until the kernels are lightly charred. Remove and cut corn off the cob.

2) Add oil to a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until cooked through, about 8 minutes. Add peppers and cook for another few minutes until peppers start to soften. Add corn and salsa and stir until warm. Season with salt and pepper.

3) Roll a calzone dough out into a 6-8 inch round. Add grated cheese to bottom half of calzone and top with about a cup of filling.

4) Fold calzone over, being careful to press out as much air as possible. Crimp edges of calzone so it is sealed well. Slice a few slits in the top of the calzone so steam can escape. Brush calzones with egg wash.

5) Bake calzones on a greased/oiled baking sheet for 25-30 minutes at 375 degrees until they are golden brown and the filling is bubbling.

6) Let cool for a few minutes before serving.

Dough Issues

I’m not even going to link to the dough recipe I tried out for these guys because I found it to be not great. I guess it’s possible that I messed it up, but I found that it was way too bready and didn’t really brown correctly. Don’t get me wrong, it was completely edible, but I’m pretty sure we can all do better.

The recipe I included is for my standard pizza dough which I’ve used to make calzones many times with great results. I was just trying a new recipe this time around and it didn’t work out great.

Luckily, the process for making the dough is pretty much the same regardless of recipe. Start by combining the sugar, salt, yeast, oil, and water in a bowl and let it sit until the yeast starts to bubble, about five minutes. Then add that to your flour and stir it until it forms a ball. Knead the dough vigorously with your hand by dipping your hand in water and working it. Do this for about 10 minutes and the dough should be really soft but not sticky at all. If it ever gets really sticky, you need to add in more flour.

The dough.

You can also use a stand mixer to make the dough in which case you just work it with the dough hook for about 5 minutes until it’s soft, but not sticky.

Immediately cut the dough into your four pieces for calzones and then put them in a lightly oiled plastic bag. Let them sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes and then move them to the fridge for at least two hours, although overnight is best. Remove them from the fridge about 90 minutes before you want to make the calzones.

The Filling

While the dough was kind of a bust for me, the filling was right on. It was pretty basic, just some chicken and spicy peppers.

Part of the filling...

The really tasty part of the filling though was some Olathe sweet corn that is now in season. If you don’t know about this stuff, I’m pretty sure it’s the most advertised vegetable I’ve ever seen. There are commercials for it every 30 minutes here in Colorado. It’s in every store with huge signs over promoting it’s awesomeness.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s very good corn, but hey… it’s still just corn.

The most advertised corn in history.

I tried something new for the corn this time around. I husked it and just slapped it right on my burner like I would if I were roasting peppers. Normally I would’ve grilled it, but it was raining while I was making this recipe, so I tried this method out. Turn it every 30 seconds or so until it’s very nice and charred.

It worked like a charm!

Char baby char!

To make the rest of the filling, just add some oil to a large skillet and cook the chicken until it’s cooked through over medium-high heat. Then add the diced peppers and cook until they are slightly soft. Finally add in the charred corn and a good dollop of salsa.

Stir this all together and you’re ready to make some calzones!

Ready to fill!

Making and Baking Calzones

Once your filling is done for the calzones, roll out one of your calzone doughs into about an 6-8 inch round and put about an ounce or two of grated cheese on the bottom half of the dough. Then pile in as much filling as you think will fit! I wouldn’t use more than about a cup per calzone, but go crazy.

Stuffed full.

Fold the calzone over and press out as much air as possible from the inside. Pinch the calzone around the outside edges to seal it well and then cut a few slices in the top of the calzone so that steam can escape as it cooks.

As you do these, line them up on a well-greased baking sheet and brush them all with a bit of egg wash.

Don't forget to oil the pan...

Bake these guys for about 25-30 minutes at 375 degrees. They should be golden brown on the outside and the filling should be nice and bubbly.

Not the prettiest thing in the world...

As I said, I wasn’t 100% happy with the dough recipe I used. As you can see in the above photo, it was really doughy and didn’t quite brown enough for me. I like a really crispy crunch on my calzones. It was totally edible, but I think you’ll have better results with the recipe I listed above.

If you have leftover filling it goes great in quesadillas or tacos. Honestly, it’s so delicious you could just eat it with a spoon!

Can I interest you in the best sandwich ever?

Betsy and I used to be big time sandwich people for lunch. In my opinion, you can put almost anything on a sandwich and it’ll probably be decent as long as one thing is really good: The bread.

If I get a sandwich and it’s made with some crappy flimsy bread, I just don’t care for it. I want my bread sturdy and ready for tons of condiments and toppings. I want to be able to wrap it up and eat it a few hours later without worrying about it falling apart.

We’re getting back into sandwiches these days after a brief stint in a quinoa salad and/or wheat berry salad phase.

So I took this as an opportunity to work on my sandwich breads.

These big, thin, sturdy loaves called stecca or “stick” turned out to make for some of the best sandwich bread I’ve had!

Stecca Sandwich Bread

Yield: 4 loafs

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes + rise time

Ingredients:

3 Cups (400 grams) bread flour
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon sugar
1/4 Teaspoon yeast (instant or active dry is fine)
1 1/2 Cups cool water (55-65 degrees F.)
Additional flour, olive oil, and kosher salt for dusting

Directions:

1) Combine flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Stir in water until combined. It should be a pretty wet dough.

2) Let sit, covered, for 12-18 hours.

3) Scrape dough onto a well-floured surface. Work the dough a bit by folding it over itself. After a few folds, form a loose ball with the dough.

4) Add the dough to a well-floured towel, seam side down. Drizzle dough with olive oil and top with a pinch of kosher salt.

5) Cover dough ball and let rise for 2 hours.

6) Cut dough into 4 equal parts. Lightly oil two 18 inch sheet pans.

7) Form 4 long, thin loaves with each quarter of dough. The loaves should be a few inches across and fairly thin. Don't worry about them being all the same though.

8) Drizzle each loaf with a bit more olive oil and another small pinch of salt. Let them rise again for 30 minutes.

9) Bake in a pre-heated 500 degree oven for 15-25 minutes until the loaves are golden brown. Mine took about 20 minutes.

10) Let cool for at least 30 minutes before eating.

11) To store, let cool completely, then wrap in plastic wrap and store in the fridge.

Adapted from My Bread.

The Dough

This dough comes together just like the normal loaf of no knead bread would. It takes maybe 60 seconds to get it ready, but it does need to sit for 12-18 hours before you can continue with the recipe. So a bit of planning is necessary unfortunately.

Don’t worry though, you’ll be well-rewarded for your planning efforts.

Start by mixing the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Add in the water and stir to combine. The dough should be very loose. It should be too wet to knead even if you wanted to.

This is what mine looked like after about 15 seconds of stirring.

No knead necessary!

Cover this with plastic wrap and let it sit for at least 12 hours.

During that time, the slow fermentation will basically knead the dough for you as the gases work through the dough.

You’ll come back to a dough that’s more than double in volume and very soft. It’ll be really wet, more wet than when you left it because the flour is now completely relaxed.

These are all good things.

After a night...

Shaping the Loaves

So now that you have this big bowl of dough, let’s make some great sandwich bread.

The thing to remember when working with this dough is that you’ll need to use a good amount of flour to make sure you can work with it. Otherwise, it’ll be too sticky.

So sprinkle a good amount of flour on a work surface. Then scrape out the dough from the bowl and turn it over itself a few times. Kind of press it down, then fold over the edges. Just do this a few times until you have a rough ball of dough that holds its shape. It shouldn’t take more than a minute.

Transfer this dough ball to a kitchen towel that’s been floured also. Once the dough is on the towel with the seam side down, drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle it with a pinch of kosher salt.

Don't worry about this part.

Cover this with the towel and let it rise again for 2 hours.

When this rise is done, take the dough and cut it into four even pieces. If you want to get exact, you could weigh them, but I kind of just went by sight.

Lightly oil two 18 inch baking sheets. Take each quarter of dough and stretch or roll it out to fit the length of the pan. So each piece of dough will stretch to 18 inches and should be a few inches across. It’s fine if they are very thin at this point.

Also, don’t worry about the loaves being perfectly uniform. Go for the rustic look.

Once the loaves are shaped, drizzle them with a bit more olive oil and salt and let them rise again for 30 minutes.

Don't worry about this part either.

Baking and Sandwich Making

Bake these guys in a preheated in a 500 degree oven for 15-25 minutes. You might need to rotate the pans if they are looking like they are cooking unevenly.

Mine took about 20 minutes before they were golden brown on the top.

Really good.

I was worried that mine were getting burned on the bottom, but it turned out to be perfect.

This was what the bottoms looked like after 20 minutes.

The backside.

After you let these cool for at least 30 minutes, you can chop into them.

Mine had a beautiful crumb structure. Perfect for sandwiches!

Some of the best I've made!

Betsy likes turkey, but I was on a pastrami kick last week.

One loaf of the bread makes two really big sandwiches actually.

As you can see, this is one mean sandwich. I’d guess this would cost $10 at a deli and I made it for around $3-$4.

Beautiful.

If you’re not a sandwich person, this bread would be great for just dipping in some olive oil as well. It’s a pretty good all-purpose loaf that is a heck of a lot easier to make then, say, a traditional French baguette.

Once my loaves were cooled completely, I stored mine in the fridge, wrapping them twice in plastic wrap. They kept really well for the whole week!

Pretty things.

You probably think I’m confused. Here we are in the middle of March and I’m posting a roll recipe. These are normally reserved for holidays only. But I just couldn’t wait. These were too good and you need to know about them.

You might wonder why I’m making sheet pans full of rolls this time of year. Don’t worry. I haven’t gone crazy. It was for charity. Betsy’s office does an event occasionally at the local homeless shelter where they cater a meal. It turns out there’s a lot of good cooks in her office! Betsy and I were on roll duty so these were the ones I made.

They turned out so good that I just had to post on them. The good news is that Easter is right around the corner which these would be great for, but also you could just make them because they rock. They work great as small sandwiches and freeze just fine.

Herbed Wheat Rolls

Yield: 30 Rolls

Prep Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 3 hours

Ingredients:

2 heaping Tablespoons active dry yeast (or instant)
3/4 Cup sugar
3 Cups warm water
3 large eggs
3/4 Cups olive oil
6 Cups all-purpose flour (plus extra)
1 1/2 Cups whole wheat flour
3/4 Cups oat flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons salt
2-3 Tablespoons fresh herbs, diced (I like rosemary and oregano)
Butter for shaping rolls and melted butter for brushing rolls

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer

Directions:

1) Add water, yeast, and sugar to a mixing bowl and stir together. Let sit for a few minutes until yeast starts to foam.

2) Add oil, eggs, and salt and stir to combine. Make sure everything is dissolved.

3) Add flour in two cup batches, stirring between each batch.

4) If using a mixer, use a dough hook to mix for 5-6 minutes. If dough is really sticky, add more flour 1/4 Cup at a time. Dough should barely stick to the sides of the bowl. If using hands, add flour until dough is together, then add dough to a really well floured counter and knead dough. You'll have to add a good amount of flour for that.

5) Transfer dough to a well oiled bowl and cover. Let rise until it doubles, about 2 hours.

6) Shape rolls into 2 1/2 inch balls (about 4 ounces). Add rolls to a half sheet pan.

7) Cover rolls with a warm damp cloth and let rise a second time for 30-40 minutes.

8) Bake rolls at 350 degrees until they are golden brown, about 15-20 minutes. Make sure the rolls in the middle are cooked through.

9) Let cool for a minute and then brush rolls with melted butter.

Adapted from a Once Upon a Plate recipe.

Mixing the dough

This dough mixes really well in a stand mixer, but if you don’t have one, you can definitely just stir everything together in a large bowl and then knead it lightly on a floured surface, but a mixer makes it a lot easier.

One thing that I like about this recipe is that it uses a few different flours which give the final rolls a great texture. If you want though, you could use just all-purpose flour and still end up with great rolls.

Various flours make a good texture.

Start this recipe by adding your yeast, sugar, and water to a large bowl or the mixing bowl. Stir it all together and then let it sit for a few minutes to make sure the yeast is active. This is such a big recipe that it’s important to test your yeast or else you run the risk of wasting a lot of ingredients.

Once it’s bubbling and you’re sure the yeast is good, add the oil, eggs, and salt to the bowl and mix everything together well. Make sure all the sugar is dissolved and not just sitting on the bottom of the bowl.

Starting the dough...

Then start slowly adding your flour, about 2 Cups at a time, mixing for a minute between each flour batch. After all your flours are added, the mixture should be pretty moist still. If it’s really sticky, add more flour 1/4 Cup at a time.

You want a dough that’s still a bit sticky, but not liquid at all if that makes sense. If it’s sticking to the sides of the bowl really badly, add more flour. For example, this was my batch and I added probably another 1/2 Cup of flour to it.

Still a bit wet.

Continue to mix this together. If you’re doing this by hand, you can turn your dough out onto a very well floured surface and knead it for a few minutes. You’ll need to add a good amount of flour if you do this because the dough will be pretty sticky.

The Herbs

My favorite part of this recipe is folding in some fresh herbs. This gives the rolls a great flavor. You can use almost any fresh herbs for it. Personally, I like rosemary and oregano.

A little goes a long way.

A Good Rising

Once the herbs are mixed into the dough, it needs to rise for a few hours. Add some oil to a large bowl and add your dough to the bowl. Make sure the dough is coated with oil and then cover it and let it rise until it doubles in size. It’ll probably take two hours.

I doubled the above recipe because I was shooting for around 60 rolls. Just for a reference for how much dough that is, the cup in the below photo is a ONE CUP measuring cup.

It’s a lot of dough.

That's a one cup measuring cup...

After a few hours, my dough was at least doubled in size.

It’s like The Blob or something.

WHOA.

Shaping the rolls

Shaping rolls like this is half-art half-science. The science part is making sure all your rolls are the same size. Until you get the hang of it, I recommend weighing your rolls. About a 4-4.5 ounce roll is good.

To actually shape the rolls, rub your hands down with butter (this is the artistic part) and form the dough into a ball. The best way to do this is take your thumb and index finger and form a small circle. Push the dough up through this ring, as it goes through your finger and thumb, it’ll create surface tension on the roll, forming a perfect ball. Then you can just pinch it off and you’ll have a perfect roll.

Since the dough is pretty sticky, the key is to make sure your hands are well buttered so the dough doesn’t stick.

Then add the rolls to a sheet pan!

The best pan for these rolls is one of those disposable half sheet pans you can buy in the store. 30 rolls fits perfectly in it.

Butter is your friend.

Cover the rolls with a warm, damp towel and let them rise for another 30-40 minutes.

Bake the rolls at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. They should be golden brown all over and evenly puffed.

When they come out of the oven, let them cool for a minute or two and then, as an optional step, brush them all with some melted butter.

So good.

Ok. So I don’t consider the butter at the end optional, but I guess you could not do it.

So these would obviously be great for a holiday meal, but get creative people. You could use them for a million things. Slider buns? Mini breakfast sandwiches? Bribes? You get the idea.

My point is that you don’t need a holiday for an excuse to make good food. And these were really good.

Kind of like pasta bread!

If you’ve ever been in an Italian bakery and seen rustic loafs of bread covered in sesame seeds, you might have thought to yourself, “Huh. Now there’s some bread covered in sesame seeds.”

Little did you know that that bread is most likely semolina bread. It’s made from a completely different kind of flour than normal bread. In fact, it’s made from the same flour that’s traditionally used to make pasta.

The resulting loaf has a really dense, chewy texture that makes it perfect for serving up with a good butter. Seriously, you need nothing else to have a good snack. A few slices of this bread and some real butter and you’re in for a treat.

Unfortunately, you don’t see too much semolina bread in bakeries these days, so you’ll just have to make it!

Semolina Bread

Yield: 1 loaf

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 60 minutes + rise time

Ingredients:

1 Cup water, lukewarm (105-110 degrees)
1/2 package active dry yeast (1 1/4 Teaspoons)
1 1/2 Cups semolina flour
1/2 Tablespoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 Cups bread flour
1 egg, for egg wash
Olive oil, for while the bread rises
Cornmeal, for baking
Sesame seeds (opt.)

Directions:

1) Stir together yeast and water in a large mixing bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes and stir again to ensure yeast is well dissolved.

2) Add semolina flour to bowl and salt. Stir well to combine.

3) Add one cup of bread flour and mix to form a rough ball of dough. Turn this out onto a lightly floured surface.

4) Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then knead for 10 minutes, sprinkling on more flour if the dough gets sticky. After ten minutes, the dough should be smooth and soft.

5) Move the dough to a bowl with a good drizzle of olive oil. Turn the dough to coat well with oil. Cover with a towel and let rise until it triples in size, probably 3 hours.

6) Punch the dough down, knead for another minute, and return to bowl to rise until it doubles, probably another 45 minutes.

7) Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, punch it down, and roll it into a rectangle about 18 inches high and 12 inches wide. Fold left 1/3 in and then right 1/3 over the top to form a cylinder. Form it into a smooth loaf.

8) Sprinkle a baking sheet with a good layer of corn meal. Add loaf to baking sheet seam side down. Let rise for 30 minutes.

9) Brush loaf with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

10) Preheat at 425, put dough in the oven, then turn temp down to 380. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until dough is a very golden brown and is hollow when thumped.

11) Let cool for 30 minutes at least before slicing.

Adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook.

Starting the dough

This is a really standard, basic dough to make. The only trick is that you substitute a good amount of bread flour for semolina flour which makes the dough a bit harder to work with.

Basic stuff.

Start by adding your water and yeast to a large mixing bowl. Stir this together and let it sit for a few minutes until the yeast dissolves completely. You’re looking for kind of a yeast slurry.

Dissolve the yeast.

Then add your salt and semolina flour to the mix. Note that you could do this all in a stand mixer, but I decided to make this loaf by hand just for kicks.

When you stir in your semolina flour, it’ll look like scrambled eggs. You could play a very mean trick on someone at this point or just continue with the recipe.

Scrambled eggs! Not!

Next, add a cup of bread flour to the dough and stir it until it forms a rough ball. If it’s really dry, add a bit more water and if it’s really sticky then sprinkle on some more flour.

Roll this out onto a lightly floured surface. It should be pretty firm at this point.

Rough dough...

The key to working with semolina is to let it relax and absorb some of the water before working with it. So, let the dough rest for about 5-10 minutes before trying to knead it. Then it should be a lot easier to work with.

Knead this dough for about 10 minutes until it’s very elastic and really smooth and soft. If the dough gets sticky at any point, sprinkle with more flour. You might need to add another 1/2 Cup or so throughout the kneading process.

After a few minutes though you should have a very smooth dough ball.

After a workout...

Add this to a large bowl and coat it well with olive oil. Cover it with a towel and let it rise until it triples in size.

Depending on your temperature and environment this might take a while. It took my dough about 3 hours to get to the right size.

Rise baby rise.

Take the dough out of the bowl, punch it down, knead it for another minute or so, then return it to the bowl and drizzle it with more olive oil. Let it rise a second time until it doubles in size. It’ll rise a lot faster the second time. It’ll probably take only 45 minutes to an hour to get there.

Making the loaf

You could shape this loaf into almost any shape you wanted at this point, or even bake it in a loaf pan. I went for a kind of rustic loaf shape.

I started by punching down my dough and then rolling it into a rough rectangle, about 18 inches high by 12 inches wide.

All rolled out.

Then fold over one side of the rectangle until it’s 2/3s of the way in.

Get it?

First fold.

Then fold the right half over the left half and flip it over the seam is on the bottom. Kind of tuck the edges in so you have a nice smooth loaf.

I was pretty happy with this.

Not a bad loaf!

Getting ready to bake

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and sprinkle a baking sheet with a good amount of cornmeal. Add your loaf to the baking sheet and let it rise a third time for about 30 minutes. It shouldn’t double in size, but it should puff a bit.

Then whisk together your egg with a bit of water and brush the entire loaf with the egg wash mixture. If you’re using sesame seeds, sprinkle the whole loaf heavily with them.

As a final touch, use a sharp serrated knife to slice some narrow diagonal slits in the loaf.

Pretty thing!

Slide your loaf into the oven and turn the temperature down to 375. Bake the loaf for 40-45 minutes until it’s golden brown and is hollow when you thump it.

Let it cool for at least 30 minutes on a rack before trying to cut into it.

It turned out to be a very pretty loaf in my opinion!

Golden brown and lovely.

The texture on this loaf is like no other I’ve had. It’s pretty dense and chewy which I really liked. It makes out of this world toast and I imagine, although I haven’t tried it yet, french toast.

If you’re getting sick of your normal loaf, give this a shot. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Gimme the blues anytime!

Last week’s poll was a list of pizzas from a local pizza joint here in town. They make really unique and delicious pies so I thought I’d try my hand at recreating one of them.

Let me start this post by saying that I’ve never actually had their version of the winning pizza, The Delta Blues, but I figured I’d try my hand at it anyway. It’s described as a red sauce pizza with mushrooms, bacon, blue cheese, and spinach.

I figured I could handle that. This turned out to be a very flavorful pizza. My favorite part of it was actually the spinach, but we’ll get there.

Delta Blues Pizza

Yield: 2 pizzas

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour + time for dough

Ingredients:

1 recipe of pizza dough, below (makes two pizzas)
1 Cup pizza sauce, below
16 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
8 ounces bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 pound mushrooms, sliced and sauteed
4 Cups baby spinach, chopped
Salt and pepper

Basic red sauce:
1 Cup tomato sauce or strained tomatoes
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 Teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon dried parsley
1/2 Teaspoon onion powder
Pinch of salt and pepper

New York Style Pizza Dough (From American Pie)
Makes 2 large pizzas.
5 Cups (22.5 ounces) bread flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons honey or sugar
3 Teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 Teaspoons instant yeast
3 Tablespoons olive oil (plus more for the dough later)
1 3/4 Cups room temperature water

Helpful Equipment:
Pizza stone
Pizza peel

Directions:

TO make the dough...

1) Add all the ingredients to a large bowl and stir together with a large spoon until the dough comes together.

2) Dip one hand in a bowl of warm water and vigorously knead the dough in the bowl, constantly turning the bowl, until the dough comes together and starts to firm up, about 4 minutes.

3) Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

4) Continue to work it for another 2-3 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth and very elastic.

5) Cut the dough in half, roll each half into a ball, and add each ball to a plastic bag coated lightly with olive oil.

6) Let dough sit at room temp for 15 minutes and then store in the fridge overnight.

7) Remove the dough from the fridge 2 hours before making pizza.

Making the pizza...

1) Combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl. Feel free to add other ingredients to your liking.

2) Cook bacon in strips in a large skillet, until they are browned, but not quite crispy. Remember that the bacon will cook in the oven as well.

3) Pour out the bacon grease but leave a tablespoon or two. Add your sliced mushrooms and cook for a few minutes over medium-high heat until the mushrooms release their liquid and turn soft and browned.

4) De-gas dough, roll it into a 14 inch round, and add it to a prepared pizza peel. Dust the peel with a bit of flour or cornmeal so the dough slides off easily.

5) Add a light layer of sauce to pizza followed by mozzarella cheese, bacon, mushrooms, blue cheese, and a pinch of fresh ground pepper.

6) Slide the pizza into a very hot, pre-heated 500 degree oven for 14-15 minutes.

7) When the pizza comes out of the oven, add chopped spinach to the top.

8) Let cool for a minute or two and then slice and eat!

Adapted from a Pablo's pizza.

Making the Dough

You could use store bought pizza dough for this, but for my money nothing beats homemade crust. Once you get the hang of it, it really only takes about 10-15 minutes to whip up. Of course, for a really good dough, you do need to let it sit overnight, so there’s some planning involved.

Sometimes I use my stand mixer for this, but on this day I did it by hand.

Get it?

Start by adding all the dough ingredients to a large bowl. Mix them together with a large spoon until they come together (top left). Then dip your hand in a bowl of warm water and knead the dough vigorously. After a few minutes the dough will start to firm up (top right). At that point, let it rest for 5 minutes which will let the dough relax.

Continue to knead it in the bowl with your hand. After another few minutes you should end up with a really soft dough that’s very elastic and stretchy (bottom left). Cut this dough into two even halves and stick them in some large plastic bags with a good drizzle of olive oil (bottom right). Let these sit at room temperature for 15 minutes and then store them in the fridge overnight.

Yes. That’s right. Overnight. That requires you to do some planning, but trust me. It’s worth it.

Making the sauce

I kind of mess around with red sauce and the above recipe is my most current version. Seriously though, I recommend that you just add a cup or two of tomato sauce to a bowl and stir in dried spices until it tastes good! If it tastes good straight, it’ll taste good on a pizza!

Saucy!

The Toppings

There are only three toppings for this pizza: bacon, mushrooms, and spinach. The bacon and mushrooms need to be cooked before going on the pie. Some people don’t cook the mushrooms before adding them to pizza, but I’ve found that this makes the pizza kind of watery because the mushrooms release a lot of liquid as they cook.

If you saute them for a few minutes though, they release most of their liquid and you don’t have that issue.

I cooked my bacon in strips in a large skillet until it was not quite crispy, but definitely browned. Remember that it’s going to cook further in the oven.

Then I used a few tablespoons of the bacon grease to saute my sliced mushrooms for about 5 minutes until they are soft and lightly seared.

The cooked stuff.

You’ll obviously need some cheese also. For this pizza, mozzarella and blue cheese are what you need! Shred the mozzarella and crumble the blue cheese if it isn’t crumbled already.

Cheesy!

Making the pizza

A few tips for making the pizza to really make it exceptional.

The first thing, and most important, is to make sure you get your oven as hot as possible. Hopefully you have a pizza stone you can preheat in the oven, but heat it up to 500 degrees and let it get hot for 20 minutes or so.

Second, be sure to take your dough out of the fridge about 2 hours before you want to make the pizza. Letting it come up to room temperature will make it easier to stretch and shape.

Third, when you’re shaping your pizza, feel free to use a roller to get it in a rough circle, but the dough should be very strong and you should be able to pick it up and fling it around without worry.

Once it’s the right size (probably 14 inches across), lay it on a pizza peel or a baking sheet that’s been coasted lightly with cornmeal or flour.

Fourth, go light on the sauce. A light coating of sauce is all you need.

This is my pie, shaped and ready to go!

Shaped and sauced.

Then I added on some mozzarella, my bacon and mushrooms, the blue cheese, and some extra mozzarella on top. I also added on a good pinch of fresh black pepper.

High and deep!

Slide this beauty onto your very hot baking stone and cook it for about 14 minutes. The crust should be a nice golden brown and the cheese nice and bubbly.

This is about as perfect as it gets.

14 minutes later...

What about the spinach?!

Don’t worry. I didn’t forget the spinach. The key to adding greens like spinach to a pizza is to add them right when the pie comes out of the oven. If you actually cook the pizza for 14 minutes with spinach on top, they’ll just shrivel up and burn.

But if you chop it up roughly, and add it to the pizza right when it comes out of the oven, the heat from the pizza will wilt it slightly, but it’ll still be a tiny bit crunchy.

Chop the spinach first!

You’ll want to let this cool for a minute or two, but then you should slice it up and eat it as soon as possible!

A slice of the blues.

I used a bit of a thicker crust for this pizza than I have with some other pizzas I’ve made because the toppings on this guy were pretty heavy. It turned out to be the perfect combination though. I really liked this pizza!

Homemade pizza is one of those things where the little details make all the difference. Homemade dough, a hot oven, and fresh ingredients can really make something special.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a FAN of The Delta Blues!

As good as it looks.

I wanted to bake some bread this week and I was happy that ciabatta won last week’s poll, mainly just because I’ve never made it before! While it may have been a good idea to just try a normal loaf for my first time, I thought I’d go ahead and go out on a limb and spice up my first ciabatta loaf by adding in some caramelized onions and herbs.

In general, it turned out great! Usually ciabatta has a nice crispy crust and really big holes in the crumb that can catch lots of olive oil. My crust was really nice but I didn’t quite get the big crumb I was looking for. Even with that though, it was very good bread.

Caramelized Onion Ciabatta

Yield: 2 loafs

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 7 hours + overnight rise

Ingredients:

Poolish (starter):
2 1/2 Cups (11.25 ounces) bread flour
1 1/2 Cups water, room temp
1/4 Teaspoon yeast

Bread:
Poolish starter from above
3 Cups (13.5 ounces) bread flour
1 3/4 Teaspoons salt
1 1/2 Teaspoons instant yeast
6 Tablespoons to 3/4 Cup water, lukewarm (I actually used 1 Cup)

Onion filling:
2 onions, sliced
1/4 Cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 Tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced

Helpful Equipment: (You can make this recipe without any of these)
Baking Stone
Baking Peel
Digital Scale
Stand Mixer
Pastry Scraper

Directions:

1) For the filling (which is optional), add oil to a large skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and cook until they start to brown, about 10-15 minutes. Then stir in sugar until dissolved and add a splash of balsamic vinegar. Finally stir in herbs and cook for another minute or two. Let cool completely before adding to dough. You can make the filling a day in advance.

2) For the poolish starter, add ingredients to a large bowl and stir to combine. Let sit at room temperature for 3-4 hours to rise, then store in the fridge overnight.

3) Remove starter from fridge one hour before making dough.

4) Add flour, yeast, and salt to large bowl or a mixing bowl. Stir to combine, then add poolish and about 1/4 Cup water. Mix on low with a dough hook attachment or with a large spoon until dough comes together in a ball.

5) You might need to add more water as you mix. The dough should be really soft and sticky, but not slimy. If you're using a mixer, it should stick to the bottom, but not the sides. If you're mixing with your hands, dip a hand in water and use it to vigorously mix the dough until it reaches the right texture, probably 5-7 minutes.

6) Scrape dough onto a clean surface that's been heavily coated with flour. Stretch dough out into a large rectangle. It should stretch really easily.

7) Add 1/2 of the onion filling to dough. Fold the dough into a book fold, folding left side to the center and right side over the left side. Rub the dough with a bit of olive oil, cover it, and let it rest for 30 minutes.

8) Stretch the dough out into another rectangle. It should easily stretch. Add the last 1/2 of the filling and do the same fold again. Rub with oil, cover, and let rise for 90 minutes. It might not double in size, but it will swell.

9) Cut dough in half with a serrated knife or a pastry cutter. Seal the edges so the filling doesn't come out and shape each half into a long rectangle. My loaves were about 6 by 12 inches in size.

10) Set the loaves in a couche, which is just a floured towel that's been bunched up so the loaves can't touch each other.

11) Preheat oven to 500 degrees with baking stone in it for 25-30 minutes.

12) Flour a peel or the back of a baking sheet. Add a loaf of dough to the peel and slide it onto the hot stone.

13) Using a spray mist bottle, spray the sides of the oven with water creating steam. Repeat this process every minute or so 3-4 times. Then turn the oven down to 450 degrees and cook the bread for about 20 minutes until it's a deep golden brown.

14) Remove loaf and cool on a rack for an hour before slicing.

Adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Making the Filling

The filling for this bread is optional, but it adds a ton of flavor. I think that my crumb maybe suffered a bit because of the filling, but I won’t know that for sure until I try it without the filling.

In any event, you can’t go wrong with caramelized onions so don’t be afraid to give it a shot.

Simple, but good.

Add your olive oil to a large skillet over medium high heat and add your sliced onions. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are starting to get nice and brown. Then add in the sugar and stir until it’s dissolved.

Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and the chopped rosemary and cook for another minute or two. It should smell really good.

Let this mixture cool before adding it into the dough. You could make it a day in advance if you want.

Lots of flavor here.

The Poolish

This recipe uses a starter of sorts which adds some great flavor to the finished product. It also adds on a day to your prep time which is kind of annoying, but not terrible if you can plan ahead.

Basically, just combine your poolish ingredients in a large bowl. As always, I highly recommend measuring ingredients by weight so you can make sure to get good results.

The poolish should be very wet. Once everything is nice and combined, cover it and let it rise at room temperature for 3-4 hours until it swells up, then store it in the fridge overnight.

This was my poolish after a night in the fridge.

Poolish is a strange thing.

Making the Dough

Remove your poolish from the fridge about an hour before you want to make your dough. You want to make sure it comes to room temperature before working with it.

You can use a stand mixer or your hands to mix the dough. To start, add the flour, salt, and yeast to a large bowl and stir it well to combine. Then add in all your poolish along with 1/4 Cup of water.

Mix this on low or stir it with a large spoon until the dough comes together in a ball.

The thing to remember about ciabatta dough is that it should be really wet. You actually want the dough to be sticky. Don’t be afraid to add more water until you get to a sticky dough phase.

If you’re using a stand mixer, use the dough hook on low-medium to mix the dough. If you’re using your hands, dip your hand in water and work it vigorously until the dough comes together. Either way, it should take 5-7 minutes to get the dough in the right shape.

This was my dough after I mixed it. To get the right feel for the dough, I actually added about a cup of water which is way more than the recipe called for. I think I needed the extra water because I messed up a bit measuring my flour.

Anyway, my dough was a nice soft texture though and was sticky without being slimy.

Sticky stuff.

Shaping the Dough

Once your dough is ready, sprinkle a good amount of flour on a clean surface into a large square (maybe 12×12 inches). Scoop the dough out into the flour and start working it into a large rectangle.

Once you get it into a rectangle, sprinkle on a bit of olive oil and add half of your onion mixture to the bread. Spread it out evenly.

I wasn't sure about this...

Next, fold the dough over into thirds (called a book fold). So take the left edge and fold it into the center, then take the right edge and fold it over the left edge.

Rub the dough with some olive oil to keep it moist, cover it with plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Folding and flouring.

Letting your dough sit for 30 minutes or so will help it relax.

Then stretch it out into a rough rectangle again. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The dough is so soft that you shouldn’t need a rolling pin or anything. Just use your hands to gentle pull it out.

Add the rest of your onion mixture evenly over the bread!

More onions!

Then do the same book fold again: left to center and right over left. So basically what we’re doing here is creating lots of different air pockets and also layers of fillings.

NOTE: If you don’t want to use the fillings, still do the stretching and folding. Don’t skip that step just because you don’t have a filling to add.

Once your dough is folded over for a second time, rub it with a bit of oil again, cover it, and let it rise for about 90 minutes. It might not double in size, but it should swell noticeably.

Hard to tell how big this is.

Making the loaves

Use a pastry cutter or serrated knife to slice your dough in half. Pinch together the edges so the filling doesn’t come out and stretch out each half to make a loaf of ciabatta. You could make the dough in a lot of different shapes, but I like a long flat shape.

Mine were about 6 inches wide by 12-14 inches long.

To get these ready for baking, get a clean towel and sprinkle it really well with flour. Add the loaves to the towel and bunch it up in the middle so the loaves can’t touch (called a couche).

Cover these with another towel and let sit for about 45 minutes while you prepare your oven.

The Couche!

Prepping the Oven

When I’m cooking loaves of bread, I always prep my oven in the same way. The goal is to create a really moist, hot environment which will create a great crust for the loaf. Of course, it’s impossible to recreate the really high heats of a professional bakery, but we can get close.

Pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees with the baking stone in it. If you aren’t using a stone, still pre-heat the oven. Let it heat for 25-30 minutes to make sure it’s nice and hot.

Then transfer a loaf of bread to a peel that’s been sprinkled with some flour or cornmeal. If you don’t have a peel you can also use the back of a sheet pan!

A peel helped here.

Slide the bread onto the stone. Right after the bread goes in, take a spray bottle filled with water, open the oven door and quickly spray all the oven walls. Lots of steam will be created which is what we want.

Repeat this spraying process every 30 seconds 3 or 4 times. Then turn the oven down to 450 degrees and bake the loaf until it’s golden brown. I baked mine for about 20 minutes. It’s pretty hard to burn these guys though. They are sturdy. So don’t worry about leaving them in for a minute or two longer.

Cool It Down

When you pull your loaf out, let it cool on a rack for an hour before slicing into it.

Crispy crust.

One of my loaves turned out perfectly and one was a tiny bit undercooked in spots. I think maybe the liquid from the filling made the bread soft in a few spots.

The dough wasn’t raw, but it wasn’t as firm as I would’ve liked. Definitely edible though!

Sliced open.

Baking bread from scratch like this may seem like an insurmountable thing. I definitely thought it was when I first started doing it, but if you take your time and do your best, you’ll almost certainly end up with something that’s as good as you can buy in the store and it’ll cost a fraction of the price.

This bread was so good dipped in some olive oil. It was out of this world good.

Anybody a ciabatta lover? Leave a comment!

What's a long john??

I told Betsy I was going to make Long Johns a few weeks ago and she quickly replied, “What’s a long john? Like the underwear?”

After I picked myself up off the floor I explained to her the joys of the Long John. For those that aren’t familiar with it, it’s basically a big long donut. The benefits of having a long straight donut are numerous.

First, it’s easier to make. There’s no strange shapes to deal with like circles and holes. Heck no. Second, because of its shape, it’s perfect for filling with a delicious cream filling.

To which Betsy replied, “Sounds like a lot of work.”

Fine. Maybe they aren’t a quick breakfast dish, but they’re great for a weekend brunch! They’re worth the work people.

Vanilla Cream Long Johns

Yield: 12 long johns

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes + rise time

Ingredients:

1 (1/4-oz) package active dry yeast (2 1/2 Teaspoons)
2 Tablespoons warm water (105–115°F)
3 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour plus some for working the dough
1 Cup milk, room temperature
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3 large egg yolks
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 Teaspoons salt
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
Canola or other neutral oil for frying

Chocolate Glaze: (Enough for 12 long johns)
1/4 Cup unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons milk
1 Teaspoon light corn syrup
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1-2 Cups confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)

Maple Glaze: (Enough for 12 long johns)
1/4 Cup unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 Cup real maple syrup
1-2 Cups confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)

Vanilla Cream Filling: (Enough for 12 long johns)
4 large egg yolks
1/3 Cup sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 Cups milk
1/4 Cup cream
1 vanilla bean
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract

Helpful Equipment:
Candy Thermometer
Stand Mixer (You could just use a wooden spoon to mix everything together and then just knead the dough lightly for a few minutes until it came together. There were donuts before there were mixers. But a mixer helps!)

Directions:

1) For filling, whisk eggs with sugar in a medium bowl until they are nice and light. Then whisk in flour and cornstarch. In a medium sauce pan, combine milk, cream, and vanilla bean (scraped). Heat over medium-low heat until it's just simmering.

2) Carefully whisk hot milk mixture into egg mixture, working with a bit of liquid at a time to slowly bring up temperature of eggs. Once both mixtures are combined, stir in extract and return everything to sauce pan.

3) Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens, about 2-3 minutes. You can store this in the fridge for a few days. Place plastic wrap right on top of filling so a film doesn't form.

4) To make donuts, combine milk and water in a mixing bowl. Add yeast and let sit for 5 minutes until yeast foams.

5) Add all other ingredients, flour last, and mix with a dough hook until dough forms a soft, but not sticky ball. If it's sticking to the bowl, add more flour. If you don't have a mixer, you can just use a wooden spoon.

6) Dust dough with flour and let rise for 2 hours or until it doubles in size.

7) Roll out dough on lightly floured surface into a 12x18 rectangle. Slice into 12 even rectangle pieces. Let pieces rise for 15 minutes or so.

8) Fry donuts at 350 degrees for 2-3 minutes per side. You'll have to flip them because they float. Remove donuts to drain on a paper towel or on a wire rack.

9) For glazes, mix liquids in a saucepan over low heat until hot. If you're using chocolate, melt it in pan. Then whisk in powdered sugar until glaze is thick, but pourable.

10) To fill donuts, use a long narrow knife to hollow out a cavity. Then pipe in filling using a pastry bag. It's helps to have a helper for this part.

11) Dip donuts in glaze after they are filled (or you can skip the filling). Let glaze harden for a few minutes. Eat as soon as possible!

WHOA. Longest ingredient list ever right? Well, don’t freak out. It really isn’t that bad. For starters you don’t need to do both the chocolate and maple glaze obviously. Just giving you options. And if the filling is intimidating, there’s nothing that says that these have to be filled. They are perfectly delicious without it.

But assuming you do want to make the filling, it’s really tasty and can be made a day or two in advance.

Making the Filling

If you’ve ever made any kind of custard before, this is basically the same process. The only difference is that the addition of some flour and cornstarch makes the filling really thick which is what we’re going for.

For the filling.

Start by whisking your yolks and sugar together until they are nice and light. Then whisk in the cornstarch and flour and set this aside.

In a medium saucepan, add the milk and cream and scrape out all the insides of a vanilla bean. Bring this to a slight simmer over medium heat. Stir it constantly to make sure the milk doesn’t scorch.

Once the liquid is simmering, temper the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture. If you’ve never done this before, basically just whisk a tiny amount of the hot milk (1/4 Cup maybe) into the eggs. Whisk furiously. Keep doing this a bit at a time and it will slowly raise the temperature of the eggs without cooking them solid.

Once your milk mixture and egg mixture is combined, add in your vanilla extract and return this to the pan over low heat. Whisk continuously and after a minute or two it should really thicken up until it’s hard to stir.

That’s when it’s done! It should be really thick and creamy.

Nice and thick!

You can store this in the fridge for a few days without a problem. Just be sure to press some plastic wrap directly on top of the filling to prevent a thick film from forming on it.

Making the Long Johns

Ok. Down to the main event. Donut dough is an enriched dough which just means it has eggs and milk in it that make it a lot easier to work with than a standard bread dough.

Start the dough by adding your milk and warm water to a bowl of a stand mixer, or just a large bowl if you don’t have a mixer. Add the yeast to the liquid and let it sit for 5 minutes. If it starts foaming then you’re ready to go, if not then you need new yeast!

Slowly stir in all the dough ingredients, adding the flour last. Mix with a dough hook for a few minutes until the dough comes together. Again if you don’t have a mixer you can just stir it all together with a wooden spoon. The final dough should be soft, but not sticky. Keep adding flour until you get to a dough that’s not sticking to the sides of the bowl.

Enriched doughs are easy.

When your dough is done, dust it with some flour and let it rise for about 2 hours. It should more than double in size.

After a rise.

Then turn the dough out onto a floured surface, roll it into a large rectangle. I went for one that was about 12 inches by 18 inches.

Then take a pizza cutter, dough cutter, or just a knife, and slice the dough into 12 even pieces.

This part is easier than donuts if you ask me.

Easier than donuts!

Let these guys rise again for maybe 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile you can prep your fry station. I like to use a heavy pot for frying and you probably only need about a quart of oil.

As with any frying situation, the really important part is the thermometer. It’s pretty hard to get a good fry set-up without one.

Anyway, fry these guys for about 2-3 minutes per side (you’ll have to flip them because they will float) at 350 degrees.

When they’re done, take them out and let them drain on some paper towels or on a wire rack with paper towels underneath to catch any dripping.

This will smell good.

Filling/Glazing.

Once you get all your long johns fried up, you can glaze and/or fill them! One thing I learned, if you care about how the donuts look, fill them before you glaze them. Filling them after you glaze them will cause the glaze to crack a lot and they just won’t be quite as nice looking.

To Fill, assuming that you probably don’t have an official donut filler, you’ll have to improvise with a pastry bag. Just shove all your filling into a clean bag and put on a pretty big tip so the filling can come out easily.

A helper helps for this.

Then take a long narrow knife (butter or steak knife works well) and hollow out a cavity in each long john. Try to be careful not to puncture through the donut. Then hold the donut in one hand and the pastry bag in the other and fill it up!

In practice, I found that it helps to have a helper for the filling part. So maybe recruit a friend. You can pay them in long johns.

To Glaze, for both glazes heat the liquid ingredients and butter until they are hot, but not simmering over low heat. If you’re doing chocolate, melt the chocolate into the liquids. Then remove from heat and whisk in the powdered sugar until the glaze is nice and thick. You can play around with the consistency. Ideally, you’re looking for a glaze that sticks well to the donut but isn’t super-heavy.

Then just dip the donuts in the glaze and let them sit for a few minutes to harden.

Messy maple.

The finished product with the glaze and filling is really almost a work of art.

Umm... delicious.

It should go without saying that these are best to eat as soon as possible. Even 24 hours later they lose some of their amazingness. If you need to store them though, do so in the fridge.

Donuts are really fun to make and there’s really nothing like a fresh donut out of the fryer, especially if it’s filled and glazed!

What do you think? Too much work or a fun weekend project?