Showing posts with label Make Ahead Bread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Make Ahead Bread. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Sausage Jalapeño Cheese Kolaches #BreadBakers

These sausage jalapeño cheese kolaches are best made with quality beef franks, sliced fresh jalapeños and sharp cheese. They are the perfect filling for the soft, slightly sweet dough that surrounds them.

Food Lust People Love: These sausage jalapeño cheese kolaches are best made with quality beef franks, sliced fresh jalapeños and sharp cheese. They are the perfect filling for the soft, slightly sweet dough that surrounds them. This dough is a bit different from the one I made to fill with sweet apricots. It’s a little less enriched – no sour cream, for one – with a little less sugar per kolache. I adapted this recipe from one on The Brewer and the Baker.


Kolaches, as you might remember from my Bread Bakers post three and a half years ago, are breakfast treats that can be either savory or sweet. If you’d like to know more about how such a traditional Czechoslovakia baked good made its way to Texas, check out my apricot kolaches recipe.

I also mention in that post that my personal favorite kolac (<that’s the singular) is one filled with sausage, jalapeños and cheese. This month, at my instigation, my fellow Bread Bakers and I are sharing breakfast breads that are made the night before, so you can have freshly baked breakfast in the morning. True confessions: This theme was completely driven by my desire to make my favorite savory kolaches, since they rise overnight in the refrigerator.

Sausage Jalapeño Cheese Kolaches

This dough is a bit different from the one I made to fill with sweet apricots. It’s a little less enriched – no sour cream, for one – with a little less sugar per kolache. I adapted this recipe from one on The Brewer and the Baker.

Ingredients – to make 10 kolaches
For the dough:
1 package (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm water
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 large egg
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
 3 1/8 cups or 400g bread flour

For the filling:
1/2 cup or about 40g finely grated cheese
2-3 fresh jalapeños
5 good quality bun-length beef franks

For brushing the kolaches before baking:
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

Method
Sprinkle the yeast over warm water in the bowl of your stand mixer along with 1 teaspoon of the sugar and 1 tablespoon of the flour. Let prove for 5 minutes. It should start to foam up and get bubbly. If it doesn’t, start over with new yeast.



Meanwhile, warm the milk and butter until the butter just melts. Set aside.

Turn the mixer to low and add the milk and butter mixture, egg, sugar, and salt. Beat until they are mixed thoroughly.

Add the flour gradually until you have a soft but kneadable dough.

Knead for 5 minutes by machine or 8-10 minutes by hand, until the dough isn’t quite as sticky as when you started. Add additional flour as necessary, but try not to over do it.  We want a soft dough. You may not use all the flour.


Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for about an hour in a warm place, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Cut the beef franks in two equal pieces. Slice the jalapeños into thin rounds.



When the dough has doubled, punch it down and divide it into 10 equal pieces and tuck them into balls. Mine were about 70+g each.



Using your clean hands, press each ball out into a rectangle. Add some grated cheese and a few jalapeño slices to the middle of each one. Place the half frank on top then use a spatula or dough scraper to fold each long side in.



Crimp and tuck to close the ends. Place the kolache in your lined pan, seam side down. Continue until all the kolaches are filled and formed.




Cover them with cling film and pop them in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, remove them from the refrigerator and then set your oven to preheat to 375°F or 190°C. Fill your kitchen sink about an inch deep with warm water and set the pan in it, being careful not to get any water in the pan.



When the oven has preheated, brush the kolaches with the melted butter and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the kolaches are golden brown.



Let the kolaches cool for 15-20 minutes then pull apart gently to serve. I love mine with some yellow mustard but you can eat them plain as well, as my husband did. To each his own.

Food Lust People Love: These sausage jalapeño cheese kolaches are best made with quality beef franks, sliced fresh jalapeños and sharp cheese. They are the perfect filling for the soft, slightly sweet dough that surrounds them. This dough is a bit different from the one I made to fill with sweet apricots. It’s a little less enriched – no sour cream, for one – with a little less sugar per kolache. I adapted this recipe from one on The Brewer and the Baker.


Enjoy!

Check out all the other overnight breakfast breads my fellow Bread Bakers are sharing today!
#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all of our lovely bread by following our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated after each event on the BreadBakers home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

BreadBakers

Pin these Sausage Jalapeño Cheese Kolaches!

Food Lust People Love: These sausage jalapeño cheese kolaches are best made with quality beef franks, sliced fresh jalapeños and sharp cheese. They are the perfect filling for the soft, slightly sweet dough that surrounds them. This dough is a bit different from the one I made to fill with sweet apricots. It’s a little less enriched – no sour cream, for one – with a little less sugar per kolache. I adapted this recipe from one on The Brewer and the Baker.
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Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Christmas Morning Muffins #BreadBakers


With just a little preparation the day before, your family can enjoy freshly baked cranberry orange muffins on Christmas morning, with the bonus of filling your house with Christmasy baking aromas. What a joy to wake up to these!

The Christmas Day rule of my family growing up was that no presents could be opened before breakfast. I remember being happy with a bowl of cereal - and let’s get this show on the road! - but frustrated by the grownups who wanted eggs or pancakes or, most likely, freshly baked biscuits. Clearly they had their priorities askew! But don’t you know, when I became a mother, I kept the same rule. Turns out that it’s always a good plan to serve a decent breakfast when Christmas dinner won’t be on the table until three or four o’clock in the afternoon.

With just a little preparation, a hot, freshly baked breakfast is a cinch and you can get to the important part: Opening the gifts! This month our Bread Bakers host is Holly from A Baker’s House and she has challenged us to bake breads – quick or yeasty – which can be started one day and baked the next, giving you lots of lovely ideas for a perfectly easy holiday breakfast.

(And don’t forget my friend Donna’s great cookbook, Make Ahead Breads <Amazon affiliate link* which is also a wonderful source of recipes and inspiration for this theme and would make a fabulous Christmas gift for a baker in your life.)

This post is not technically part of Christmas Week but I would be remiss if I didn't tell you to check out my coconut praline post from yesterday, with details on how to enter to win one of three ($500, $250 and $50) Amazon gift cards up for grabs!

These muffins are adapted from this recipe by Nigella Lawson.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120ml whole milk
1/3 cup or 75ml canola or other oil
1 large egg
2 clementines (for zest and 1/3 cup or 80ml juice)
1 cup or 140g dried cranberries, plus 12 more for decoration, if desired.

Method
Prepare your muffin pan by greasing it with butter or nonstick spray or lining it with paper muffin cups. I usually line it with the paper cups and give the whole pan a quick spray. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.

Add in the dried cranberries, mixing well, and cover the bowl with cling film and set it aside with the baking pan.



Measure your milk and oil into a large measuring jug. Add the egg and beat until well combined.

Zest the two clementines with a fine grater or microplane straight into the measuring jug.



Juice the clementines and add 1/3 cup or 80ml of the juice into the measuring jug as well. If you don’t get quite enough juice, top up with more milk to reach your required measurement. Cover the jug with cling film and pop it in the refrigerator.

The next morning, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Give your liquid ingredients a good mix with a fork and pour them into the dry ingredient bowl.



Fold to combine, being careful not to over mix. If a little flour still shows here and there, that’s a good thing.



Divide the batter between the muffin cups. Add one more dried cranberry to each muffin, if desired. I like to see a little of what's inside on top of my muffins.



Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are golden and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful these smell while baking! The aroma will get the laggards out of bed and running to the kitchen.



Leave the muffins to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove them to a wire rack. Serve them warm with a hot cup of coffee or a glass of Champagne, if you are so inclined, in front of the sparkling Christmas tree.



Enjoy!

Check out all the other great recipes for Overnight Bread! Which one will you make first this holiday season?

BreadBakers
#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.


*Items purchased through an Amazon affiliate link cost no extra to the buyer but earn me a few pennies to buy more bacon. Thanks for the support.


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Stuffing Bread with Dried Cranberries

The perfect bread for turkey sandwiches or to use for stuffing, this tender flavorful loaf also slices up beautifully for Thanksgiving breakfast toast that hints of the delicious dinner to come later.

If you’ve been reading along here for a while, you know that I like to bake bread. I love the smell of the yeast as it comes back to life in a little warm water. I love the heft of an enriched dough as I knead it and the springy bounce as I spin it in the oiled bowl of my mixer in preparation for the first rise. But the very best part of baking bread is the way the whole house smells as the bread bakes. When my girls were still living at home, nothing brought them out of their rooms and downstairs faster than the aroma of bread in the oven. Well, and the eating, of course!

But I understand that not everyone feels they have time to bake bread. So it is my great pleasure to introduce you to a book that solves the “no time to bake” problem. Make Ahead Bread divides the process into manageable parts, allowing you to make the dough ahead of time and leave it in the refrigerator overnight or even for a day or two, depending on the recipe, until you are ready to bake and enjoy.

Make Ahead Bread was written by the witty and knowledgeable Donna Currie of Cookistry, a blog you might already be familiar with. If you aren’t, do go over and say howdy. Donna never fails to crack me up with her quips and I often had to watch that I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee in the morning when she shared the antics of her husband, Bob, because he could make me snort coffee out of my nose. Sadly, Bob passed away suddenly just a few weeks ago. In typical food blogger fashion, a group of us decided we’d honor his memory by helping Donna promote her bread book, a project he deeply supported, as he did all of Donna’s endeavors, hopefully sending a few customers her way through the power of social media.

I’m not just recommending this book to be nice though. I really love it! I am quite the cookbook junkie but I’d like to tell you that this was THE ONLY cookbook I asked for for my birthday this year! Yep, it’s that special. I was so delighted when my mom arrived in Dubai with Make Ahead Bread that I couldn’t help but share a photo of me and it on Facebook.


I haven’t shared recipes from it before now but I have special permission from Donna to share this one and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! You can get your own copy of Make Ahead Bread at better bookstores as well as on Amazon.com.*

This recipe is from Make Ahead Bread – 100 Recipes for Melt-in-Your-Mouth Fresh Bread Every Day © Donna Currie. Used by permission. (I’ve added the metric adaptations.)

Ingredients
1 cup or 240ml lukewarm water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces) or 318g bread flour
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried chives
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup or 35g dried cranberries
Non-stick baking spray (the kind with flour in it)

Note: I had to subsitute fresh herbs so I doubled the amount since dried herbs are always stronger in flavor than fresh. Another confession, I wasn’t reading with my cheater glasses so I thought it was 1 tablespoon of both parsley and chives. I don’t think the extra chives were a bad thing though since I’m a fan.

On Prep Day
1. Combine all the ingredients and knead by hand (mix first in a large bowl, then turn out and knead) or in a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, until dough is elastic.



2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, or place it in a large plastic bag and seal the ends. Refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.

Going into the refrigerator.



The next day after a long, slow rise in the cold. 
On Baking Day
1. Spray the 9x5-in or approx. 23x13cm bread pan with baking spray. (I also chose to line the pan with parchment for easy clean up, something Donna mentions in the introductory part of her book as an option.)

2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat it into a rough 8 in or 20cm square. Fold the top half to about the middle of the dough and press the edge down to secure it. Fold the top over again, this time to within about an inch or so of the bottom. Press the edge to deal. Now pull the bottom of the dough up to meet the dough roll you‘ve created and seal the seam. Pinch the ends closed and place the dough, seam side down, in the prepared pan.



3. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set aside to rise. The dough is ready when it has risen about an inch or 2 centimeters over the top of the pan, about 1 hour in a warm room.



4. About 30 minutes before the loaf is fully risen, heat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.

5. When the dough has risen, remove the plastic. Bake until the bread is richly browned and the internal temperature of the loaf reaches 195°F or °90.5C on an instant read thermometer, about 55 minutes. Remove the bread form the pan and cool completely on a rack before slicing.


Enjoy!

The hardest part of this whole recipe? Finding space for the dough bowl in my ridiculously overstuffed refrigerator.

Make this bread. Buy Make Ahead Bread.* You won’t be sorry!

Check out the fabulous list of breads we've baked for Donna from her book:

UPDATE: Win your own copy of Make Ahead Bread
Follow this link to enter: http://bit.ly/1MHXidM





*Affiliate links.