Monkey Bread Cupcakes

As I've mentioned before, I subscribe to a wonderful blog called Cupcake Project, and Stef can literally make anything into a cupcake. She's awesome. This week, she made Monkey Bread cupcakes. And as I thought about it some more, I realized that not only have I never made Monkey Bread, but I really didn't even know what it was. People think that's crazy, but it's the truth! I had no clue. The recipe itself sounded delicious, somewhat time consuming, but fairly simple. A perfect project for my day off to keep me busy in between doing loads of laundry and cleaning the house. I started just before noon, and now it's 2:30pm and my cupcakes have about another 10 min to bake. So definitely make sure you have about 3 hours set aside to get these done.

Ingredients

• 1/2 C lukewarm water
• 1 T vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 t salt
• 1 T sugar
• 2 T instant yeast or rapid rise yeast
  
• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 C granulated sugar
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1 ripe banana, cut into small slices
• chocolate chips or baking chunks to taste (about 2 oz)
• 2 T unsalted butter, melted

Directions

1. Place water, vegetable oil, egg, salt, sugar, and yeast in a medium bowl and mix well.
2. Add 1 cup of the flour, stirring to blend.
3. Add the second cup of flour, stirring to make a cohesive dough.
4. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes; this gives the flour a chance to absorb the liquid, making it easier to knead.
5. Knead the dough — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — until it's soft and smooth.
6. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl or large measuring cup, cover it, and let the dough rise for 30 to 60 minutes or until it's doubled in size.
7. Gently deflate the dough.
8. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl.
9. Place cupcake liners into a cupcake tin and lightly grease them with butter or cooking spray.
   
10. Pull off a small piece of dough. How small? You should get 24 pieces out of the batter so that you can have two pieces in each cupcake. However, unless you are having a dinner party for exactly 12 people, it doesn't really matter and you can make the pieces whatever size you would like.
11. Stretch the piece out, put a banana slice and several chocolate chips or baking chunks inside, and then roll it into a ball.
12. Dip the ball in the melted butter.
13. Dip the ball in the cinnamon and sugar.
14. Put the ball into the cupcake liner. You should be able to fit two balls into each cupcake liner. Be sure to press the 2 balls together firmly, so they bake as 1 unit.
    
15. Cover the cupcake tin and let the bread rise for 30 to 60 minutes, until it's visibly puffy. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350 F.
    
16. Uncover the cupcake tin and bake the monkey bread for 25 to 30 minutes, until it's golden brown and feels set.
    
17. While the monkey bread is baking, prepare the glaze.

Cinnamon Glaze
Ingredients

• 1/2 C powdered sugar
• 1 T milk
• 1/4 t cinnamon

Directions

1. Mix all of the ingredients together.
2. Drizzle over the hot cupcakes.
3. The cupcakes are best served warm. If you can't eat them immediately, reheat them in microwave for about 15 seconds before serving.

Dough in cupcake pan, not yet risen.

After dough had sat for about 35 minutes, and risen quite a lot!

Finished product is a gooey, sweet, slightly crispy monkey bread cupcake. Delicious!

Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Pizza night! We love the pizza dough from Trader Joes but this week they were out of it when I went to pick some up. So off to AllRecipes I went, where I found this recipe for pizza dough. I love the addition of beer into this recipe. It gives the dough a nice bite. We topped our pizza with store-bought sauce, sliced onions and roasted garlic. Delicious! The dough makes enough for 1 large pizza. I don't have a stone, or a pizza pan, so I don't have exact measurements, but it was plenty for the 2 of us.

Ingredients

• 1 cup flat beer
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

Directions

1. Put beer, butter, sugar, salt, flour, and yeast in a bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough setting, and press Start.
2. Remove dough from bread machine when cycle is complete. Roll or press dough to cover a prepared pizza pan. Brush lightly with olive oil. Cover and let stand 15 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
4. Spread sauce and toppings on top of dough. Bake until crust is lightly brown and crispy on the outside, about 24 minutes.

Pizza - before going into the oven

After!

Best Bread Machine Challah

The price of bread at the grocery store is absurd! $3.99 for a loaf of bread? I think not. Maybe it's the fact that we spent 6 years living basically in poverty, but I just can't comfortably spend that kind of money on something I know I can bake myself, for much less money.

This recipe for challah is SO delicious. Better than the last recipe I made, and up until now, I thought that one was the best! This makes a 1.5 pound loaf that's eggy, slightly sweet, and just a great sandwich bread. It's so simple to make in the bread machine...as Ron Popiel would say, "Set it and forget it!" But make sure to set your machine on "light" so it doesn't get too crusty. I also used the "sweet" bread setting on my machine.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons margarine
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Directions

1. Add ingredients to the pan of the bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer.
2. Select Sweet (or Basic, if you don't have a sweet option) Bread and Light Crust settings. Start.

I forgot to take a picture of our loaf, which has since been devoured, so I stole this picture from the original recipe that's posted on Allrecipes.com.

Poppyseed Challah

It's been a while since I've made any bread, but I definitely miss it. This Challah recipe isn't quite as tender as a traditional loaf (it's slightly on the dense side), but it's sweet, and eggy, and very good for sandwiches, french toast, or just snacking! You can top it with just about anything. I made 2 loaves -- one topped with poppyseeds, and one topped with Kosher salt. You can also add golden raisins for added sweetness.

Ingredients

• 2.5 cups warm water (110 degrees - be careful it's not too hot, or it will kill the yeast)
• 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 2 whole eggs, plus 4 yolks
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 8 cups all purpose flour
• 1 egg, beaten with 1 Tablespoon water for eggwash
  
• 1 Tablespoon poppyseeds or sesame seeds for topping

Directions

1. Pour water in mixing bowl, and sprinkle yeast on top. Mix in honey, oil, eggs and yolks until well combined.
2. Add 2 cups flour, and salt, and mix with dough hook until combined. Continue adding flour, 1 or 2 cups at a time, until dough comes together and forms a tight ball. Knead with hook about 7 minutes on speed 2 or 3, until smooth and shiny.
3. Remove hook from bowl, shape dough into a neat round ball and place back in bowl, covered with a damp cloth, for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
4. Cut dough into 2 equal pieces (recipe yields 2 loaves). For a 6 stranded braid, cut each equal piece into 6 pieces. I found this video on YouTube that describes how to do a 6-strand braid very clearly. If you don't feel comfortable, just do a 3 strand braid.
5. Spray parchment with non-stick spray, and place braided loaf on greased parchment. Allow to rise an additional 20 minutes. Brush with eggwash and sprinkle poppyseeds, sesame seeds, or the topping of your choice on the bread. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes, until golden brown.

Best Bread Machine Bread

After working in a commercial bread bakery, I learned quite a few techniques to make a perfect loaf of bread. I can knead bread like it's nobody's business, form roll shapes, etc. But for loaf bread, I just don't want to take the time to proof it on the counter, punch it down, knead it, etc. Too much work for a loaf of sandwich bread. I much prefer the "set it and forget it" way of baking a loaf of bread for sandwiches.

So Justin got a bread machine a few years ago for his birthday, and we've been experimenting for a while to find the perfect loaf of white bread. This one is the winner! It's soft on the inside, crusty on the outside, but not too crusty, slightly sweet, and just smells delicious. We make a loaf of this every week for sandwiches, and then we toast the ends to make bread crumbs. Yum!

We usually make white bread, but I posted the whole wheat variation too. Both are good, we just prefer the white to whole wheat. Though if we do make a whole wheat loaf, I always add some cornmeal, cracked wheat and bulgar to add flavor and texture.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups warm water, about 110 degrees
  
• 2 Tablespoons and 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 3 teaspoons yeast
• 1/3 cup Olive Oil (it's not nearly as good with vegetable oil)
• 4 cups flour (or 1.5 cups whole wheat flour and 2.5 cups bread flour)
• 2 teaspoons salt

Directions

1. In a bread machine, place water, oil and salt.

2. Add flour on top of liquids. Pour sugar into one corner of the bread machine basket. Then make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the yeast. Set your bread machine for "basic" loaf, and let it do the work for you!

Lower-Sugar Blueberry Corn Muffins

I'm not normally a Splenda fan, but I had a bag of the Splenda for Baking left over from a special brownie order. After looking at the Splenda website, www.splenda.com, they had a great recipe for blueberry corn muffins. My last batch turned out a bit cakey and I really wanted something softer, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The Splenda recipe on the website uses 3/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener, but I used 6 Tablespoons of the Splenda Baking mix instead. They turned out perfectly and taste great! This might just be the start to more Splenda recipes in the future...who knows!

If the recipe is prepared using Splenda for Baking, each muffin has 1/3 less sugar than if using regular sugar. If using pure Splenda, each muffin has 2/3 less sugar than the "real deal" version. So while these aren't completely sugar-free, they can be altered easily to make a less-sugar version that tastes just as good.

Ingredients

• 1.75 cups flour
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1.25 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 T Splenda for Baking (or 3/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup egg substitute (I whisked 2 eggs in a small bowl and measured out 1/3 cup. 2 eggs generally measures 1/2 cup, so there isn't much waste here)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup buttermilk (we are lactose intolerant, so I made faux buttermilk by adding 1 tsp lemon juice to 1 cup Silk soy milk, and letting it curdle for 5 minutes)
• 1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen -- no need to thaw if frozen)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Blend dry ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.

3. Blend butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg slowly. Scrape sides and continue to mix until butter forms small lumps. Add vanilla and buttermilk. Mix well. Add dry ingredients in three batches. Mix well and scrape the sides of the bowl after each addition. DO NOT OVERMIX. When the dry ingredients are about 80% mixed into the butter/egg mixture, gently fold the blueberries into the batter. This will help prevent over mixing.

4. Scoop batter into muffin cups, filling cups to the top. I used an ice cream scoop to portion them out so they bake more evenly. Makes 12 muffins.

Rustic Blueberry Muffins

These are sort of a mix between a muffin and a scone. The original recipe came from my culinary school instructor (no clue where he got it from), but I've modified it a bit over the years, so I guess you could call it mine...? It works well with cranberries, blueberries or other fruits too. I use fresh when available, but this time of year I had to use frozen berries. No need to thaw first, just dump them in and bake away. I made a batch of these today to eat for breakfast during the week. Mmm....

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 Tablespoons sugar
• 4 Tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh/frozen berries

Directions

1. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners or grease pans with butter.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Stir in the sugar.

3. Mix butter, eggs and milk together and pour into flour mixture. Mix gently until ingredients are just barely combined, then add berries.

4. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake in preheated oven at 400 for 20 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Easy Cheesy Focaccia

Though I spent a few years baking bread commercially, I still prefer to make dough with the bread machine instead of by hand. I find it more consistent and the dough proofs more evenly when compared to proofing on the counter. If you don't have a bread machine, mix the dough in your stand mixer, or by hand, until it comes together (about 8 minutes). Proof until the dough is doubled in size, punch down, and proof again. Then move to your baking pan and continue to follow the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water (not hot)
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp chopped garlic
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1.5 tsp active dry yeast

• 2 T olive oil
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese mix (I use Asiago, Provolone and Parmesan)

Directions

1. Place water, 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, garlic, oregano, basil, garlic powder, bread flour and yeast in bread machine pan. Select Dough cycle.

2. Remove dough from bread machine and place into a greased 9x13 pan. Press dough into pan with fingertips. Drizzle with olive oil and top with cheese.

3. Cover dough with plastic wrap. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove plastic wrap when oven is preheated and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes.