Breakfast bread with Potatoes

I have been traveling a lot for a few weeks and therefor not been doing much baking. My fingers are itching to do some experimenting in my kitchen! 

I made this bread for my husbands breakfast a little while ago, when we did a quick stop at home in between traveling. I said for my husband, because I'm one of a very few people in the country that are allergic to potatoes. This bread has potatoes in it. 

It's a yummy breakfast bread that goes perfect to your omelet, ham, egg or just a couple slices of cheese. The recipe is on a bigger scale. The bread is so easy to make that I usually make a lot of it and put it in the freezer. It's almost BETTER the second time you heat it up in he oven to serve it. It taste a lot better when served warm. This bread is also perfect for preparing in the evening and bake in the morning.

This is how you make it:

Mix with a fork ~

3 cups all purpose flour

1 cup quinoa flour

1/2 bag instant mashed potatoes with garlic

1tsp salt

1 oz instant dry yeast

add ~

1/2 cup canola oil

4 cups water (130 degrees Fahrenheit)

Mix with a wooden spoon 3min by hand, or 2min in a bread machine. Sprinkle some all purpose flour at the end of the mixing. 

Knead the dough by hand on a floured surface for 2-3min. The dough is a bit sticky.

Let the dough rest under cover for 30 min.

Cut the dough in pieces. This dough makes at least 24 buns. Don't make them to big, it's hard to bake them all the way through that way.

I usually just take a small piece of the sticky dough with a spoon and place it on parchment paper. If you like you can press your hands over the buns and make flat bread, instead of buns.

Let the pieces (that you placed on at least two different parchment papers) rest for another 30 min, in room temperature. Or over night in the fridge. This bread is perfect for preparing in the evening and bake in the morning.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 min.

Enjoy!

My First Business

I started to make money of my baking skills as a shy, 15 year old school girl. Read about my first business here: http://discoveringranchlife.blogspot.com/2013/02/my-first-business.html

Carneros Spelt Loaves

Carneros Spelt Loaves 

As I'm writing this I'm eating a slice of the bread with sharp shedder cheese and a cup of coffee (since it's early in the day. It would be wonderful with a glass of red wine too.) The crust is a little crispy and the inside soft and chewy. The spelt flour gives the bread it's character. My picky husband also liked it, which is a good sign! I baked it with my dinner plans in mind. I'm going to make a salmon dish for dinner; with orange/lemon aioli, the bread is going to be a side dish, along with a green salad. I had to try the bread myself before serving guests of course…I've never baked this bread before, I made up the recipe as I mixed the dough. It is worth trying. I'm making it again, soon. It takes a total of 2hours and 15min to make it. It's a long time, but out of that time the dough is resting 2*40mins and the baking in the oven is 25min. The recipe is easy and not complicated at all. I exercised a horse during the first resting period and fed the baby/edited pictures during the second resting period. It's a low maintenance bread and you can do other stuff while the bread takes care of itself. 

The recipe is for 2 loaves of bread.

2 cups organic spelt flour

2,5 cups organic all purpose flour

3/4 oz active dry yeast

2tsp salt

Combine with a fork in a big bowl.

Add 1,5 cup cold water and 2 cups boiling water (then the mixture will have the right temperature.) Beat the dough in a machine for 3min or 5min by hand. Add 0,5 cup all purpose flour during the process, and mix until you have a smooth dough. Knead the dough by hand (take some flour on your hands,) on a table for a couple minutes. 

Cover the dough and let it rise for 40min (it almost double it's size in room temperature.)

..after 40min

Place the dough on a floured surface, cut into two pieces. Form the pieces into loaves. (Pat the dough to 12*6 rectangle and roll up tightly.)

Place your loaves on parchment paper and cover again. Let the dough rest there for another 40min.

(For extra stylish bread, use a sharp knife and make some diagonal slashes across the bread before baking.) If you want a crispy outside brush some water on the loaves before baking. I didn't do it, but they turned out pretty crispy anyway. 

Bake the bread in the lower part of your oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-30min. 

Let the bread cool down covered, on the baking pan.

Enjoy!

Grandma' Agnes Fudge Cookies

I've admired my Grandma' Agnes as long as I can remember. She was a cool Lady, something extraordinary and I'm not saying that just because she was my Grandma. She traveled around the world until she was 80 years old, because she loved it. Of course she wasn't 80 years old if you asked her…she was 19 years old all her life. I have so many great memories having fun with her. One time I had to bribe a guy that rented out surf boards so that he wouldn't rent her any, she was 78 at the time. She didn't have any limits what so ever. Another time she slapped me in the face for not introducing her as my girl friend, when we met some new people on a cruising ship. We traveled all over Southern Europe, Hawaii, Alaska and many other states together. She was the one giving me my first camera when I was 5 years old. Agnes was, believe it or not, an incredible baker. 

Today I'm sharing her Fudge Cookies. That's one of my favorite recipe's, for many reasons. They taste absolutely wonderful, but they are so sweet that your tongue kind of curls and you only want one cookie. I like that too. I rather have one awesome cookie than ten cookies that are so and so. Grandma' Agnes Fudge Cookies are also very easy to make AND it only takes 20 mins (altogether, mixing and baking in the oven.) The perfect quick fix that you can't go wrong with. My son learned to bake them by himself at age four. So far I haven't met anyone that doesn't like them. They are easy to make, like with all cookies it's very important to not over bake them. I think that's the only thing that possibly could go wrong. They are suppose to be baked for EXACTLY 12 mins.

Grandma' Agnes Fudge Cookies

4oz Butter

1/2 Cup Sugar

2tbs Maple Syrup

Cut the cold butter into pieces

Cut the butter in pieces and mix the ingredients. I mix them by hand with a fork. 

Mix 1,5 Cup All Purpose Flour and 1/2 tbs Baking Powder separately.

Mix all the ingredients together. I usually put them all on a table and mix them with my hands. That's how Grandma' did. If you want to you can add some vanilla extract. It gives them a nice touch, but it's not necessarily. Mix the dough with your hands until it's smooth and there's no big chunks of butter left.

Divide the dough into two equal pieces.

Two equal pieces of dough, rolled into strings
 and placed on parchment paper. 

Roll them to long strings and place them on parchment paper. Use your hands and put a little pressure on the strings. 

Bake them in the lower part of your oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes.

When they are done they are still soft, but only for less than a minute. Cut them into desired pieces at once. Leave them on the baking sheet to cool down, for at least 10 minutes.

I prefer to have one cookie to my coffee, the Swedish way. What do you like to drink to your cookies? 

Muesli Rolls

Muesli Rolls

Today my plan was to share a recipe of sweet fudge cookies, that my grandmother in Sweden taught me to bake when I was a little girl. I started to take out all the ingredients and when there was only flour left…there was no white flour in my cabinets! The look on my face must have been a funny one, my 5months old daughter started to laugh out loud.

Well, well..since I had many other kinds of flour I decided to bake something else instead. Funny how that works out, when I for once decide to do something a little less healthy the Universe steps in and say it's clear NO.

I opened all my cabinets to see what I  have in there and what ingredients that possibly would be a good match. My "whitest" flour was a spelt flour, that's a given choice. I love spelt bread. I didn't feel like baking my regular spelt bread though. My eyes lands on my jar of muesli that I have on my greek yoghurt in the mornings. I finally decide to make a bread with whole wheat flour, spelt flour and muesli. I often add muesli in my recipes. I never have the same muesli (I always mix the favorite grains/dried fruit I have for the moment), which gives the bread some variety. 

This is the bread I made tonight.

Muesli Rolls

Mix with a fork in a big bowl:

1,5 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 cup Muesli (your choice)

1 cup Spelt Flour

1,5 oz dry yeast

a pinch of salt

Heat up 2 cups of milk. Heat until just before the first bubble. Add 1/3 cup maple syrup and 2/3 cup olive oil. Pour over the dry ingredients that you mixed. Stir with a wooden spoon, slowly until mixed. Add 1,5 cup spelt flour and knead by hand for 3mins. I prefer to not use a machine when I bake with Spelt Flour. Spelt Flour have a fragile kind of gluten, if you knead it too hard, too long, the elasticity in the dough will be effected. If you knead it too little your bread will be hard/heavy. This dough is extremely smooth and a pleasure to work with.

Let you dough rest under cover for 30min.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Turn the pieces into big rolls and place them on parchment paper. Let them rest there under cover for another 30min.

Bake your Muesli Rolls 12min in the middle of the oven at 430 degrees Fahrenheit.

Feel free to freeze the rolls your not planning on eating today. They are good in the freezer for 3months.

Enjoy!

Quinoa and Cranberry Bread, part 2

When I woke up at 6am this morning I took my dough out of the fridge
 and poured it into a square shaped baking form.

I ended up baking it for 40 min at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

After baking the bread I let it cool down for one hour before cutting it into  sandwich size pieces.
This is what the bread looks like on the inside. The bread is very juicy and soft,
with a little crisp from the olive oil on the outside.

This is my brunch sandwich: Quinoa and Cranberry Bread with turkey, mozzarella and lots of avocado.

Quinoa and Cranberry Bread, Part 1

Tonight I made some exciting experimenting in my kitchen! I decided to put together a recipe for a Quinoa bread with Cranberries. I figured that have to be a great success! The nutty, full flavor of Quinoa combined with Cranberries would make for a soft, savory, healthy, yummy bread right?

I don't know if I'm right yet, because I decided to make a dough, put it in the fridge over night and bake it in the morning. I am however bold enough to gee you the recipe now. Try it now if you're brave, or wait until tomorrow when you'll get the results documented and tried out. How brave are you?

This is how I did it~

I mixed these ingredients with a fork in a big bowl:

 2 cups All Purpose Flour

2,5 cups Quinoa Flour

1,5 OZ Dry Yeast

A pinch of Salt

After mixing the ingredients above thouroghly, I added:

3 cups milk, about 100 degrees Fahrenheit

1 cup Olive Oil

14 OZ Cranberry Sauce (1 can)

I mixed all the ingredients by hand for 5min. It's OK to use a machine too.

After mixing them I sealed the bowl with plastic film and put it in the fridge over night. I'm very excited to see what it looks like tomorrow!

My plan is to simply put it in a square shaped baking form and bake it in the oven for about 30 min at 350 degrees. voila! Breakfast is served! I'll get back to you tomorrow with the results. 

This is what my dough looks like in the fridge right now.

Good Night!

Pizza for everyone!

Easy to bake pizza

I hesitated about posting this recipe, since pizza is food and not bread or pastry. However I decided that since pizza has dough and you actually bake pizza I´m sharing the recipe here. This is a very simple recipe (easy to bake) that I make as snacks or a light meal from time to time. One of the benefits is that you can use any leftovers that you have and all family members can choose toppings of their likings. You decide how healthy you want to be..You can make it in less than 30 min and it´s delicious (since you choose your favorite toppings you can´t complain!) In this recipe I used baking powder.

If you want to be fancy use ¾ oz. dry yeast and warm liquid instead, let the dough rest 30 min before baking.

The dough is suitable for three big pizza´s (meal) or 5-6 snack bites.

 

1½ cup all-purpose flour

1½ cup spelt flour

½ tbsp. baking powder

½ tbsp. salt

Mix with a fork in a big bowl.

Add 1 cup olive oil and 1 ½ cup water, stir until mixed. Stir as little as possible.  Don´t work the dough longer than necessarily.

Divide the sticky dough in three pieces and place them on parchment paper. Use your hands and warm water (otherwise the dough will stick to your hands) to form the three pieces (meal) into round, flat breads.

Top with your favorite pizza topping.

Today I choose a lime tomato salsa, black olives, leftover Christmas turkey and Swiss cheese. My son choose salsa and cheese only. I like baking pizza because even the pickiest kid eats when they get to make their own pizza.

Bake the pizza´s at 400 degreese Fahrenheit for about 16-20 min (until golden).

ENJOY!!

                                             KID FRIENDLY MEALS OR SNACKS!

Cranberry Brownies with Cheesecake topping

I hope everyone had a great Christmas with the important people in your life.

Joel and I made this yummy Christmas cake for our guests.

 

Cranberry Brownies with Cheesecake topping

For the Brownies:

5 oz. semisweet chocolate (chopped)

8 tbsp. unsalted butter

2 tbsp. cocoa powder

2 tbsp. instant coffee

1 cup cane sugar

A pinch of salt

3 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

 

For the cheesecake topping:

5 oz. Philadelphia Cheese

¼ cup cane sugar

¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1 egg

Dried Cranberries

 

 

Prepare a square baking pan with nonstick spray.

Preheat the oven to 350 degreese Fahrenheit.

Melt chocolate and butter on the oven at a low temperature. Add cocoa and coffee. Remove the pan from the heat and add sugar and salt while stirring. Add the eggs, one by one. Blend well with a wooden fork/spoon. (Don´t use an electric whisk, it might make the batter separate.)

Fold in flour and mix until barely blended. Spread the batter into the baking pan. Set aside and make the cheese topping.

 

When you make the cheese topping it´s easiest to use an electric whisk or mixer. Mix all the ingredients except the egg and the cranberries. Mix well until smooth. Add the egg. Spread the topping over the batter. Top with dried cranberries and bake 30-35 min in the oven.

 

 

Let the cake cool down. Cut it in squares. Cover with plastic film and place in the fridge. The cake is better after a few hours in the fridge. It´s good up to a week if it´s refrigerated. You can even freeze the cake. It´s the perfect cake to prepare in advance and treat your guests on a later occasion.

Enjoy!
 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

 

 

 

I wish you a very Merry Christmas with your family and friends!

Whole Wheat Bread for dummies

The Whole Wheat Flour I choose for this bread.

....or really smart people that want to make an easy, healthy bread!

Mix with a fork:
2 cups Whole Wheat flour
2 cups All.Purpose flour
1½ oz dry yeast
Salt


Melt 4 oz butter, add 2 cups of milk and 2 eggs. Heat (until about 110 degreese Fahrenheit.)


Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients + add ½ cup All Purpose flour.

Knead 3mins by hand or 2mins in a bread machine.

It´s suppossed to be sticky.

Cover and let rest for 30 min.

Pour into a rectangular baking pan that you prepared with no-stick spray

Cover and let rest another 30 min.

Bake in 350 degreese Fahrenheit 25-30 min.

 

 

 ENJOY!

Scones with Spelt Flour and Sesame Seed

 

Scones with spelt flour and sesame seed

Today I made a variation of yesterday´s scones. It´s basically the same recipe but with a different kind of flour and liquid. Spelt flour requires some extra liquid so I added a ½cup more in this recipe. This is my personal favorite of fast, healthy and easy to make bread.

 

Scones with spelt flour and sesame seed

1½ cup all-purpose flour

1½ cup spelt flour

½ cup roasted sesame seed

½ tbsp. baking powder

½ tbsp. salt

Mix with a fork in a big bowl.

Add 1 cup canola oil and 1½ cup plain nonfat Greek yoghurt and ½ cup water, stir until mixed. Stir as little as possible. When using baking powder you shouldn´t mix/stir/work with the dough any more than barely mixing the ingredients. Don´t work it one second longer than necessarily! (That´s a good rule to remember when using baking powder.)

Divide the dough in two pieces and place them on parchment paper. Use your hands and warm water (otherwise the dough will stick to your hands) to form the two pieces into round, flat breads.

Use a knife and made a cross on each bread, to make them easier to cut later.

Bake them in 440 degreese Fahrenheit for about 20 min (until golden).

Enjoy warm with butter, cheese, turkey, ham, tomatoes, avocados or jam. Tea or coffee is excellent choices of drinks to go with your scones.

If you try them please let me know! I love to hear about it!

Quinoa and Flaxseed Scones

This morning when I was experimenting in my kitchen I wanted to make quick and healthy bread. I looked in my kitchen cabinets and found quinoa flour and flaxseed. I decided to make scones. It´s fast, and to my family scones is something we eat on Sundays and holidays. It´s really easy to make and anyone can do it but it has kind of a festive feeling about it. The possible variations you can make are only limited by your imagination. You can easily choose other kinds of flour, add raisins/cheese/bacon/honey/herbs or anything you like. I choose milk as liquid but water, yoghurt or even beer is great too. I will post other variations later on.

Flaxseed is packed with Omega-3 fatty acids. Using flaxseed in your bread is a great way to increase your daily fiber.

Quinoa is also full of fiber and contains all eight essential amino acids. I like using quinoa flour for the sweet, nutty flavor.

This is the scones I made today (for the first time).

 

Quinoa and Flaxseed Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup diced almonds

½ cup quinoa flour

½ cup flaxseed

½ tbsp. baking powder

½tbs salt

Mix with a fork in a big bowl.

Add 1 cup canola oil and 1½ cup milk, stir until mixed. Don't over stir! When using baking powder you shouldn´t mix/stir/work with the dough any more than barely mixing the ingredients. Don´t work it one second longer than necessary! (That´s a good rule to remember when using baking powder.)

The dough is very sticky, it´s supposed to be like that. If you add more flour the bread will be dry. Divide the dough in two pieces and place them on parchment paper. Use your hands and warm water (otherwise the dough will stick to your hands) to form the two pieces into round, flat breads.

Use a knife and made a cross on each bread, to make them easier to cut later.

Bake them at 440 degreese Fahrenheit for about 20 min (until golden).

Enjoy warm with butter, cheese, turkey, ham, tomatoes, avocados or jam. Tea and coffee are excellent choices to go with your scones.

If you try them please let me know. I would love to hear about it!

 

Spelt and Honey Rolls

All the ingredients you need for Spelt and Honey rolls

This morning I wanted to make a welcome home breakfast that my son would enjoy. He is very picky with food.. I decided to bake Spelt and Honey Rolls I love baking bread with spelt flour. It tastes better than baking with only wheat flour and the health benefits are huge. I wrote about the health benefits on my other blog earlier this year.

http://discoveringranchlife.blogspot.com/2012/10/spelt-bread-with-mixed-beanlentil-soup.html

 

The bread I made this morning is very easy to make. Perfect for a lazy Sunday morning!




Spelt and Honey Rolls


¾ cup milk
¾ cup water

¼ cup honey
3 small pouches of yeast
¼ cup olive oil
1 ¾ cup white baking flour (ex all purpose)
2 ¼ cup spelt flour
¼ cup nonfat, dry milk
1tsp salt
 
Mix all the dry ingredients with a fork in a big bowl.
Mix milk, water and honey in a pan on the stove. Heat until 110 degreese Fahrenheit. Add olive oil.
Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly for five minutes by hand. Cover the dough and let it rest 30 min.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cut the dough in 12 pieces. Roll them into balls.

Place them on the baking sheet. Cover them and let them rest for 45 min.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the rolls in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes until they are light brown.
Enjoy!!

Baking With Kids

My son have spent some time with his father in Sweden but right now he´s on the plane on his way to California. It´s terrible to be apart from him but SO wonderful when he finally comes back. It makes our time together very valuable. I´m so grateful for every minute with him.

My son loves baking. He´s been baking with me since he was newborn, just like Hayley. Some of the things we love to bake together are: pizza, cinnamon buns, bread, chocolate cake and cookies. He enjoys baking almost everything. He truly loves making his own pizza. I think he enjoys baking pizza more than anything else, I have to ask him when he gets here.

Some things that are important to think about, to make baking with kids a success are:

·       Make sure you have plenty of time, it´s not fun if you´re under time pressure.

·       Choose to bake something that you can master without too much trouble. You want your main focus to be on your child.

·       Don´t wear your best clothes! It can be messy sometimes.

·       Place all the ingredients you are planning to use in front of you before you start baking.

·       Talk to your child and explain what you are doing. They learn so fast. Take the time to answer questions.

·       Let the child help with everything that it´s possible for a child his/her age to do. Baking is an excellent opportunity to make math fun for your child. There´s so much math in baking (measuring, temperature, dividing the dough in pieces, counting how many pieces there are etc...)

·       Let the child have his/her own tools.

·       Don´t mind the mess! You can clean afterwards. Concentrate on the fun instead.

·       Give a lot of praise for every effort your child makes.

 

Is there anything else that you find useful to consider when baking with kids? What do you enjoy baking with your kids?

A Swedish Christmas Tradition; Lussekatter

Lussekatt, an important part of a traditional Swedish Christmas.
You start eating them on the day of St.Lucia, Dec13.

Dec 13 is an important day in Sweden. It´s the day of St.Lucia. Lucia means “the one who comes with the light”. She died as a martyr for her Christian faith. Her incredible faith is celebrated Dec 13. It´s an old Swedish tradition to drink glögg a warm, spicy wine and eat Lusse Katter which is a delicious pastry with saffron during Lucia. The saffron gives the pastry a yellow color, a symbol of light.

There´s many different stories about lussekatten. According to one story St. Nikolaus gave them as gifts to the children.

Several stories have to do with worshipping the sun, like the Vikings did. The pastries yellow color is here a symbol of the sun.

For most people it´s not at all about the origin. Lucia is an interesting celebration. A bright light in the winter darkness. The celebration takes place very early in the morning. According to some beliefs there are many dark forces in action on Dec 13 and you´re supposed to stay awake all night to watch out for them, in the morning you celebrate Lucia (the light).

Every year each town, school and most companies vote for their own Lucia. Most often this “competitions” turns in to beauty competitions and a blond, blue eyed girl wins. She wears a white nightgown and has burning candles in her hair leading a caravan of girls that also wear white gowns but without candles in their hair. The girls wear a red scarf around their waist as a symbol Lucia´s death as a martyr. There are boys among them too; they are dressed up like Santa´s helpers or gingerbreads! The whole caravan sings a special Lucia song and other Christmas Carroll’s.  They sing for elder people and people in need. Some go from house to house and sing for neighbors. Children often sing for parents.

 
Many organizations have their own Lucia caravan to sing for a good cause.

After the celebration everybody eats Lusse Katter Some people have parties, social gatherings in the evening were they drink glögg and eats Lusse Katter. It´s common to eat gingerbread as well.

My daughter Hayley and I baked Lussekatter yesterday on Lucia. According to the tradition you start eating them at Lucia (Dec 13) and eat them until Christmas. You can´t find them during the rest of the year. It´s a very popular pastry and many people are counting the days to Lucia so they finally can eat them.

 

 



This is what you need for 18 big Lussekatter:

A pinch of Saffron (if you like the taste of saffron use more)

6oz unsalted butter

2 cups milk or half and half

3/4 cup sugar

2+1 eggs

1½oz dry yeast (6 small pouches)

2½lbs white baking flour

Raisins

o   Mix 2lbs of the flour with the yeast and the sugar in a big bowl.

o   Melt the butter on the stove, add the milk. Heat the liquid until right before the first bubble (very hot!). Add saffron. Stir. Add two eggs.

o   Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix the dough thoroughly until it´s very smooth and easy to work with. Add some more flour if needed.

o   Let the dough rest under a cover for 15 minutes.

o   Cut the dough in 18 pieces.

 

 

 

o   Form the pieces like in the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

o   Put the pieces on baking sheets. Add two raisins in the middle of the buns. (Some people add extra raisins in the dough for a sweeter bun.)

 

 

o   Let them rest for 20 mins.

o   Paint them with the extra egg.

o   Bake them in the middle of the oven at 480 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes, or until they have a beautiful golden color.

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to be really Swedish you enjoy them with warm wine, glögg, but they taste great with coffee or tea as well.

Maybe you want to add Lussekatter to your family´s Christmas traditions?

Tell me about the one pastry you can´t be without during this Holiday season! Feel free to share the recipe if you want too.

XO Maria