I made these tonight. Wow. They're sooooo good! I've had the recipe a while and haven't made them in probably a year. We were craving something sweet and this is so quick and simple I decided to toss it together.
Like everything else I'm finding, following the recipe exactly - as far as combining ingredients in different bowls and then adding them together - is crucial to get this cookie coming out right. When it does, you'll LOVE them though. Hubby ate 8 of these after dinner!!! Don't tell, but I even snuck some of the dough.
In first bowl combine the following:
2-3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
In second bowl combine:
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup of softened butter
In third bowl combine:
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Mix second and third bowls together and blend well. Add in the contents of the first mixed bowl.
I've found that this recipe works best if you take the mixed dough and put it in the freezer for twenty to thirty minutes now. I turn the oven on to 375 now so it can start to warm while the dough starts to cool. I also put my cookie sheets in the freezer.
Once the dough has chilled, roll small balls of dough into balls about as big across as a nickel. The recipe will wind up making around six dozen cookies this way.
I like to roll my cookies in a sugar / cinnamon mixture before I put them on the cookie sheet. It's totally up to you. They make great plain sugar cookies if you prefer.
Grease your cookie sheet really well. I just spray it with the cooking spray. I know, that stuff is chemicals in a can and horrible for you, but that's what I use.
DO NOT flatten the cookies at all. As they cook they will flatten themselves out.
If you've got a glass window in your oven keep a close eye on them that way. If they start to turn golden brown at the bottom edge, they're done. Let them cool on the counter for at least five or ten minutes before you touch them. This lets them finish the last of the cooking without getting browned.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Basic pizza
This was spawned from my perfect white bread recipe. I made a double batch of the dough for Super Bowl Sunday. I made a loaf of white bread with half and then used the other half to make some hamburger rolls and pizza dough. The pizza wound up being a huge hit and hubby wanted me to make another the next night!
To start this recipe, make the dough in the previous post. After the last rise, knead it out until it's still a bit sticky but not so sticky that you can't work with it. You'll probably add another half to three quarters cup of flour in the process.
Put dough on a floured surface and roll it to the thickness you like your pizza dough. The dough / crust will rise some when you cook, so keep that in mind. If you like super, super thin crusts you'll want this as paper thin as you can get it. Also remember that the thicker you like your crust, the lower the temp you'll want to cook it on and the longer you'll need to bake it. We like ours half way between paper thin and thick crust.
Once your dough is rolled out, you'll want to butter the sheet or pan you'll bake it on. I use a cookie sheet. I also make my dough square. I don't waste time tossing it in the air, attempting to get a perfect rough pizza dough. The easiest way to move the dough, especially if it's super thin, is to fold it and then lift. Transfer to one end of the sheet or pan and unfold in place.
Add a thin layer of sauce. I use cheap basic spaghetti sauce for ours and keep it as thin as I can. We don't like a lot of sauce on ours. Next add your mozzarella cheese. For a small pizza we use two cups of finely shredded cheese. Hubby likes a lot of cheese, so about two thirds of the cheese goes on his half.
Next your toppings. Hubby likes his plain, boring cheese. I like a lot of veggies on mine but also add pepperoni or roast chicken or ham, depending on my mood.
Bake pizza for roughly 30 minutes at 375 for a medium thickness crust. I've found that timing it by the looks of the crust and cheese is the best indicator. Just remember if you've got a really thin crust you'll want to back the temp down to around 300-325 and for a super, super thick crust you'll want to bump it up between 400-450.
You can also melt some butter and toss in some garlic and brush that on the crust before you bake it as well. Sprinkling some parmesan cheese on the crust can be yummy too!
To start this recipe, make the dough in the previous post. After the last rise, knead it out until it's still a bit sticky but not so sticky that you can't work with it. You'll probably add another half to three quarters cup of flour in the process.
Put dough on a floured surface and roll it to the thickness you like your pizza dough. The dough / crust will rise some when you cook, so keep that in mind. If you like super, super thin crusts you'll want this as paper thin as you can get it. Also remember that the thicker you like your crust, the lower the temp you'll want to cook it on and the longer you'll need to bake it. We like ours half way between paper thin and thick crust.
Once your dough is rolled out, you'll want to butter the sheet or pan you'll bake it on. I use a cookie sheet. I also make my dough square. I don't waste time tossing it in the air, attempting to get a perfect rough pizza dough. The easiest way to move the dough, especially if it's super thin, is to fold it and then lift. Transfer to one end of the sheet or pan and unfold in place.
Add a thin layer of sauce. I use cheap basic spaghetti sauce for ours and keep it as thin as I can. We don't like a lot of sauce on ours. Next add your mozzarella cheese. For a small pizza we use two cups of finely shredded cheese. Hubby likes a lot of cheese, so about two thirds of the cheese goes on his half.
Next your toppings. Hubby likes his plain, boring cheese. I like a lot of veggies on mine but also add pepperoni or roast chicken or ham, depending on my mood.
Bake pizza for roughly 30 minutes at 375 for a medium thickness crust. I've found that timing it by the looks of the crust and cheese is the best indicator. Just remember if you've got a really thin crust you'll want to back the temp down to around 300-325 and for a super, super thick crust you'll want to bump it up between 400-450.
You can also melt some butter and toss in some garlic and brush that on the crust before you bake it as well. Sprinkling some parmesan cheese on the crust can be yummy too!
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Perfect white bread - seriously! It's perfect!!!
I had a basic French bread recipe that I've been changing a bit here and there for a couple years now. For the longest time it was WAY too dense. I mean, one slice of bread was a meal with that stuff. HEAVY. Then someone gave me a great piece of advice; stop following the recipe. Huh??
The recipe called for 6-7 cups of flour. They suggested I only use a couple cups of flour instead of adding it all at once. Then slowly add flour until you've got a very sticky dough and let that rise. You can always add more flour, and as you knead it you will, so don't start with that full amount. Cut it by a tiny fraction, then add slowly until it's a dough that does hold itself together but is very sticky.
I tried that and voila! It came out nice and light and fluffy. Since then I've been playing with that recipe to get the taste right. I've tried Italian bread and Portuguese sweet bread and a basic white bread but never was impressed with the taste of the Italian or white bread. The Portuguese bread is amazing, but again, when I was making it, it was way too dense. This week I'll be altering that recipe with less flour to see if I can perfect it next.
Anyway, tonight I decided to try this one again and altered the flour and salt and yeast amounts. By the time it came out of the oven and I sliced it and took the first bite I was impressed. And I'm NEVER impressed with my own cooking. My own worst critic type thing. Anyway, this is the edited recipe. It makes a small round loaf but you can always form it into a longer thinner loaf for a true French bread loaf. Or you can put it in a loaf pan and have a sandwich type bread to slice once cool for sandwiches. I hope it turns out as great for you as it did for me.
1 and a half teaspoons of yeast
1 cup of warm water - this is important! Water that's too cool or too hot won't activate the yeast!
1 tablespoon of a yeast food - I used brown sugar but you can use honey or white granulated sugar
I put the three ingredients combined in a 2 cup glass measuring cup and mixed gently. I've got one burner on my stove that vents the heat so I put a glass plate on it and put the measuring up on top of that. The heat from the oven when it's on (I had a pot roast in the oven) keeps the water warm enough to really get the yeast going!
Once you have a good head on the yeast it will look like this:
In a separate bowl:
2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Mix the flour and salt together well. Once there is a foam head on the yeast / water mix, dump it in the flour mix. Make sure it's totally mixed well. If the mixture seems too thin and it's holding itself together you can add flour 1/4 cup at a time. Just make sure you don't over add flour!! The more flour you add, the most dense your bread will be. Once it's a sticky dough that stays together in the bowl with no liquid floating around put the bowl back on the warmed stove or another warm area of the house. I cover mine with a hand towel. It will look like this when you sit it up to rise:
Allow to rise until it's doubled it's size. It can take anywhere from an hour to several hours, depending on how warm the area is that it's sitting. After rising mine went from the size above to this:
Dump onto a hard surface that's covered in flour. This is VERY sticky and messy. If you wear rings, trust me, you want to remove them. I use a spoon to scrape the dough out of the bowl and drop it right on the floured surface. Then put a bit of flour over the dough and start to knead. You'll need to add in more flour as you mix as each time you punch it down it's going to bring that sticky dough from inside the ball to the outside. You don't want to knead it or add so much flour to it though that it becomes unsticky. It should still be sticky after you've kneaded it.
Find another bowl that will easily hold double the amount of dough and then some. Butter the inside of the bowl and drop the dough in. Put the bowl back on the warmed stove or your warm place and cover with the towel again. This rise doesn't take too long, from five minutes to maybe twenty minutes depending on the warmth.
Butter the pan or cookie sheet you plan on baking your bread in. Bake at 350 degrees for roughly a half hour. If you've decided to make the loaf pan bread, I'd suggest dropping the temp to around 325 and cooking a bit longer. Mine took about 30 minutes when I cooked it at 350 degrees in a slightly flattened round ball.
Another tip I was told. If you can control yourself, don't slice until it's had a chance to cool a good bit. Then when you go to cut it, flip the bread over and slice it from the under side. The slices tend to come out cleaner that way!
I rolled some of the dough out that I made on Super Bowl Sunday to use as a pizza crust. Very first time ever I made a home made pizza and everyone went bonkers. Said the crust was the best part of the pizza. I also took some of the dough and made hamburger buns with it. I just rolled them into balls the size of a baseball and then flatted them so they were two to three inches high. I let those rise on the cookie sheet and then popped them in the oven. They came out so nice and light and airy, perfect for the pulled pork BBQ that I made for sandwiches. This is a great, versatile recipe!
The recipe called for 6-7 cups of flour. They suggested I only use a couple cups of flour instead of adding it all at once. Then slowly add flour until you've got a very sticky dough and let that rise. You can always add more flour, and as you knead it you will, so don't start with that full amount. Cut it by a tiny fraction, then add slowly until it's a dough that does hold itself together but is very sticky.
I tried that and voila! It came out nice and light and fluffy. Since then I've been playing with that recipe to get the taste right. I've tried Italian bread and Portuguese sweet bread and a basic white bread but never was impressed with the taste of the Italian or white bread. The Portuguese bread is amazing, but again, when I was making it, it was way too dense. This week I'll be altering that recipe with less flour to see if I can perfect it next.
Anyway, tonight I decided to try this one again and altered the flour and salt and yeast amounts. By the time it came out of the oven and I sliced it and took the first bite I was impressed. And I'm NEVER impressed with my own cooking. My own worst critic type thing. Anyway, this is the edited recipe. It makes a small round loaf but you can always form it into a longer thinner loaf for a true French bread loaf. Or you can put it in a loaf pan and have a sandwich type bread to slice once cool for sandwiches. I hope it turns out as great for you as it did for me.
1 and a half teaspoons of yeast
1 cup of warm water - this is important! Water that's too cool or too hot won't activate the yeast!
1 tablespoon of a yeast food - I used brown sugar but you can use honey or white granulated sugar
I put the three ingredients combined in a 2 cup glass measuring cup and mixed gently. I've got one burner on my stove that vents the heat so I put a glass plate on it and put the measuring up on top of that. The heat from the oven when it's on (I had a pot roast in the oven) keeps the water warm enough to really get the yeast going!
Once you have a good head on the yeast it will look like this:
In a separate bowl:
2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Mix the flour and salt together well. Once there is a foam head on the yeast / water mix, dump it in the flour mix. Make sure it's totally mixed well. If the mixture seems too thin and it's holding itself together you can add flour 1/4 cup at a time. Just make sure you don't over add flour!! The more flour you add, the most dense your bread will be. Once it's a sticky dough that stays together in the bowl with no liquid floating around put the bowl back on the warmed stove or another warm area of the house. I cover mine with a hand towel. It will look like this when you sit it up to rise:
Allow to rise until it's doubled it's size. It can take anywhere from an hour to several hours, depending on how warm the area is that it's sitting. After rising mine went from the size above to this:
Dump onto a hard surface that's covered in flour. This is VERY sticky and messy. If you wear rings, trust me, you want to remove them. I use a spoon to scrape the dough out of the bowl and drop it right on the floured surface. Then put a bit of flour over the dough and start to knead. You'll need to add in more flour as you mix as each time you punch it down it's going to bring that sticky dough from inside the ball to the outside. You don't want to knead it or add so much flour to it though that it becomes unsticky. It should still be sticky after you've kneaded it.
Find another bowl that will easily hold double the amount of dough and then some. Butter the inside of the bowl and drop the dough in. Put the bowl back on the warmed stove or your warm place and cover with the towel again. This rise doesn't take too long, from five minutes to maybe twenty minutes depending on the warmth.
Butter the pan or cookie sheet you plan on baking your bread in. Bake at 350 degrees for roughly a half hour. If you've decided to make the loaf pan bread, I'd suggest dropping the temp to around 325 and cooking a bit longer. Mine took about 30 minutes when I cooked it at 350 degrees in a slightly flattened round ball.
Another tip I was told. If you can control yourself, don't slice until it's had a chance to cool a good bit. Then when you go to cut it, flip the bread over and slice it from the under side. The slices tend to come out cleaner that way!
I rolled some of the dough out that I made on Super Bowl Sunday to use as a pizza crust. Very first time ever I made a home made pizza and everyone went bonkers. Said the crust was the best part of the pizza. I also took some of the dough and made hamburger buns with it. I just rolled them into balls the size of a baseball and then flatted them so they were two to three inches high. I let those rise on the cookie sheet and then popped them in the oven. They came out so nice and light and airy, perfect for the pulled pork BBQ that I made for sandwiches. This is a great, versatile recipe!
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