Baking Biscuits

When my grandfather moved out of his home in Delaware after my grandmother passed away, my family was able to take whatever items they wanted before everything was donated to charity or sold.  I met my father at the train station in Wilmington in a rental van we would use to bring all my loot back to Washington D.C. 

My father and I had the run of the house for the day and we went through pretty much everything.  I was on the lower end of the priority list for taking things, so there wasn’t much left.  But when you are a college student who has just moved into an apartment the 60’s and 70’s décor, housewares, and furniture your grandfather owns is very exciting.  I chose with awe some of the golden colored wine glasses used only for special occasions – two sizes.  Which I later found out my grandmother had collected at gas stations as part of some kind of promotion in the early 60’s.  I nabbed the two twin beds for the new apartment, a turquoise Chinese tea set and some cookbooks.

I had just gotten into cooking, and so I did not understand the treasure trove of cooking references that my grandmother had collected over the years.  I figured I would grab some that looked interesting and then leave the rest.  I am sure I probably left behind a first edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  What I now have in my possession is an early copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, the one with the red checks and in 3 ring binder format as well as a first edition of the Physiology of Taste as translated by M.F.K. Fischer (this may actually be worth a little money).  But it is the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that I remembered fondly, and one that I use still for basic recipes. 

My grandmother studied home economics at Cornell.  She may have taught for a few years before having children and practicing home economy.  However, unlike where you think this story is going, my grandmother was not the “make it from scratch” home ec. teacher in June Cleaver attire.  She loved convenience foods.  A classic meal during the holidays or any family gathering was canned ham, canned pineapple, macaroni and cheese (this was just cooked elbow macaroni tossed with shredded cheese – no sauce, no gooey stringy cheese – I hated macaroni and cheese for a very long time) and canned crescent rolls.  Perhaps a salad or some frozen vegetables. 

So as you can see, I did not necessarily expect to find gastronomic treasures in my grandmother’s library of cookbooks – although I still wonder what I would have found had I known what to look for at the time.  However that Better Homes and Gardens cookbook did get a lot of play as a reference for cookies, roasting temperatures of meats and so on.  I prefer that cookbook with all its jewel-toned pictures and recipes for far more Jell-o molds than anyone could possibly need than any more recent edition.  And it is to this cookbook that I turn when I need recipes for biscuits or boiled frosting or everyday cake. 

Today I am going to tell you about the biscuits.  So many people are so ardent about biscuits that I was rather hesitant to try and make them.  What if they are not fluffy, what if they turn into hockey pucks, what if they just taste bad – all of these were very real fears that inhibited my biscuit making endeavors.  The trickiest part of it is those six words in each biscuit recipe – do not over work the dough.  How are you supposed to know!!  Where is that elusive fine line between not well mixed and over worked?  Will the dough change colors?  Will they become inedible?  Will the oven explode with terribly formed lumps of dough!  The horror!!

Biscuits are in fact not that scary.  The problem I realized is that most people don’t get tactile with the biscuits early on the in the process, and herein lies the secret to not overworked biscuits; use your hands!  After cutting in the butter, toss those two knives or pastry blender aside and rub the pieces of butter into the flour with your fingers.  This is (1) a lot less time consuming (2) a better way to determine the proper point at which to add the milk and (3) is the only sure-fire way to add love into your biscuits. 

Once you have the whole thing down, you will be able to whip up biscuits at the drop of a hat. 

Biscuits Supreme
As adapted from Better Homes and Gardens 1968

I have begun adding other ingredients and flavors to my biscuits.  Try adding any kind of fresh herb, or pesto to the biscuits.  Scallions and chives are wonderful for biscuits on top of chicken pot pie or other casseroles*. The green biscuits pictured above have a parsley pesto in them.

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ c. butter, cut into ¼” cubes
1 Tb and 1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. cream of tartar
½ tsp. salt
2/3 c. milk (anything but whole milk works fine), plus extra for brushing
2 Tb. Chopped herbs or pesto, optional

Preheat the oven to 450°.

Combine flour, baking powder, cream of tartar and salt in a large bowl.  Add butter and begin to cut in, when the butter pieces are reduced in size by half, begin using your hands.  Rub the pieces of butter quickly between your fingers to break them up, and toss the flour over the pieces.  Continue until the butter is mostly worked in, and the flour seems a bit heavier looking – there will still be a few larger clumps of butter, but that is ok. 

Next, make a well in the center of the flour, add in the milk and the herbs or pesto at this point if using.  To stir, use a fork and moving around the inside of the well, begin pulling in flour from all sides of the bowl.  Continue to stir with the fork until the dough is all wet and very difficult to stir. 

Move the dough out onto a floured board and knead a few times to combine the dough into a cohesive ball.  3-6 times should be all you need.  Roll the dough out to about 1” thick and cut into rounds.  Reshape the dough into a ball and roll out again, cutting new biscuits until there is only enough dough for one last biscuit – this one can be hand shaped. 

Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and brush with a little milk or melted butter.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating mid-way through if necessary.  Serve warm from the oven!

*You can add these biscuits to anything you plan to place in the oven to bake.  For an easy chicken and biscuit recipe use the above biscuit dough and place onto precooked chicken, veggies and a lightly thickened gravy.  Bake uncovered for about 20 minutes or until the biscuits are brown on top and the chicken mixture is thick and bubbling.

Buns in the Oven

I hope you are marinating your corned beef from last year’s recipe.  Mine is right now, as we ‘speak’ slowly braising away in my crockpot at home.  I actually managed to corn it for the appropriate amount of time this year… I know I may be jumping the gun on serving the corned beef tonight rather than on the 17^th, but why not right?  So this year, I have for you a hot cross buns recipe.  It comes from the cookbook as I got from a friend during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.  I shared with you her fish pie recipe.  But, I neglected to tell you about her. 

Joyce McRaye was a presenter during the Scotland exhibit in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival during the summer of 2003.  Imagine Mrs. Doubtfire.  Yup that’s Joyce.  And although this may sound corny, her and I became instant friends during her two weeks spent with me in a tent kitchen on the National Mall.  And here’s where I get really corny; in the Anne of Green Gables series (I know, it’s silly but I love them) there’s a phrase that sums it up nicely: The race that knows Joseph.  In the books they don’t really even explain it, but there are some people in life that when you meet them you just know they are a kindred soul. 

Joyce may have been 50 years my senior but we were kindred souls.  We got scolded multiple times for giggling too loudly behind the stage when other people were presenting.  And when I had to interview her during a cooking segment we would just laugh and tell each other inside jokes –it was not my best interview. 

As a parting gift Joyce gave me her apron, oven mitt, and a cookbook she had helped develop with the Scottish Women’s Rural Association.  I have consulted that cookbook many times for various recipes.  And the oven mitt is the only one I use, every day.  The wonderful thing about the cookbook however is the bluntness with which the recipes are written.  As a rural Scottish woman you were expected to know some basics and these recipes are mostly just ideas in paragraph form for various dishes.

I decided this year for St. Patrick’s Day to make hot cross buns.  I know using a Scottish cookbook seems a bit heretical, but what the heck right? The buns were hearty with a nice flavor.  Not at all like the rolls you see in the grocery store around this time of year.  If you need something to fill you up prior to imbibing gallons of green beer on Saturday, this is a great way to get things started.

Scottish Hot Cross Buns

The recipe calls for the milk to be ‘blood-warm’. Which I love. You would never see a temperature of an ingredient having anything to do with blood or death here in America. But a Scottish rural woman would know exactly how warm that would be, having probably slaughtered many an animal for dinner. I will spare you and call the temperature lukewarm. Also, this recipe is in grams – there are some conversion tools online if you don’t have a scale.

250ml lukewarm milk
¾ package yeast
2 Tb butter
1 Tb sugar
2 eggs, divided
½ tsp. salt
350 grams flour, plus more for kneading
50 grams golden raisins
50 grams candied orange peel, chopped (if you have lemon or lime, that’s fine too)
1 dash cinnamon
1 pinch all spice
1 pinch ground cloves

For the Glaze:
2 parts powdered sugar to one part orange juice

Dissolve the yeast in half of the milk, add sugar and let sit for about 5 minutes. Melt the butter in the remaining milk and add to the yeast along with the salt and one egg. Stir together to break up the egg, and then add in the flour. As the dough comes together, move onto a floured surface and knead for about five minutes, or until the dough is smooth and only slightly tacky.

Place dough in a clean bowl and loosely cover with a kitchen towel. Allow to rise for about 45 minutes, or until doubled in size. Once rise, punch down the dough and add in raisins, candied peel and spices. Gently knead together; you may have to push in any escaping raisins or bits of peel.

Cut dough into 8 equal pieces and form into balls. Place in a parchment paper lined 9x13 pan, cover loosely with a towel and allow to double, about an hour.

Preheat oven to 450°. Beat the remaining egg with a tablespoon of water. Brush the buns with the egg prior to baking. Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through until golden brown on top.

While the buns are baking whisk together the orange juice and sugar. Once buns are cooked and cooled slightly, brush lightly with glaze, and if you are so inclined drizzle a thicker x over the tops of the buns.





The Have Knots

I don’t know if you have ever heard of garlic knots, but they are wonderful.  They blow “cheesy breadsticks” out of the water.  Or rather they make cement shoes for cheesy breadsticks and sink them in the bottom of a remote lake in New Jersey.  Yes, garlic knots have the mafia toughness of any decent snack or side dish in the tri-state area. 

Please let me explain my love for garlic knots. 

I am a firm believer in the after-school snack.  I used to eat a bowl of cereal every day upon returning from school when I was young.  Then when friends began driving, we were able to expand our dining options beyond the family kitchen – and I discovered the garlic knot.  My friends and I would visit various pizza places and this was always my menu item of choice.  Others got slices of pizza or even a shake or something, but I preferred a small order of garlic knots.

They are exactly what you are imagining right now.  Garlic + Something tied in a knot = boom garlic knot.  It’s like an Italian pretzel but a little more bad-ass. And they are amazingly easy to make at home.  Plus anytime you add something to a dinner that has been tossed in garlic butter, I think the entire meal gets elevated to a whole other level: French fries tossed with garlic and butter – pommes frites.  Need I say more?

It helps to serve garlic knots warm and covered in an unhealthy amount of butter and garlic.  And a side bowl of marinara sauce doesn’t hurt either.  You can make these with any kind of pizza dough you prefer, although I like fresh dough.  So the next time you make homemade pizza, pinch off a bit of dough and make a few garlic knots.  You won’t be disappointed.

Garlic Knots
This dough recipe is for one large pizza, so it will make about 12 - 16 garlic knots.  You can always make some pizza and save a little of the dough for the knots, or have a feast of garlic knots one night.

1 package yeast
1 c warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 Tb. Olive Oil, divided
2 ½ c flour
1 egg, beaten
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ c butter
Fresh chopped parsley, optional
Salt to taste

To make the dough, dissolve yeast in warm water in the bowl of a large stand mixer.  After about 5 minutes, when the mixture is a bit frothy, stir in sugar, salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Mix in the flour until well incorporated.  Move dough onto a lightly floured surface and work into a ball.  Clean out the bowl and then oil with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Place the dough back in the bowl, and toss to coat in oil.  Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and allow to rise for about 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.

When the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 425°.  Punch down the dough and divide into 4 pieces.  Take each piece and divide into 3 or 4 pieces.  Each piece should be the size of 1 ½ golf balls (I was going to say paddle ball from the game you play at the beach, but most people won’t get that reference).  Roll into a log and then tie into a knot, similar to making a pretzel, but pull the ends so that there is no gap.

Place onto a greased cookie sheet, and repeat with the remaining dough.  Brush each knot with beaten egg.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.  Meanwhile melt butter in a sauce pan over medium -low heat, add in the garlic and a generous pinch of salt.  Once the garlic knots are done baking, place them in a large bowl, and drizzle the garlic butter mixture over them, tossing to coat.  Sprinkle with salt and parsley, and serve immediately.

Hmm Bread

I love baking bread.  Well, specifically I love trying to bake bread.  I don’t know what it is, especially considering my almost constant failures at each attempt.  But I love it.  And I keep coming back for more.

Sophomore year of college offered me a unique opportunity to try out bread baking – I had a kitchen in my dorm.  This was still when I was actually a pretty terrible cook and I would experiment quite regularly.  I took my mother’s Homemade Bread Baking book back to college with me and began trying things out.  You may be thinking to yourself – what about studying Jamie? Yeah I didn’t do a lot of that.  I did however manage to read the Lord of The Rings trilogy.  And I made bread.

Now most of the ‘bread’ I am referring to was largely inedible.  I used different flours and completely disregarded proportions of whole grains to all-purpose flour.  Typically, a recipe for bread will yield two loves; mine never did.  I wound up with small loaf pan shaped bricks of varying shades of greyish-brown.  I do not recommend trying to make 100% buckwheat bread.  It’s not good. 

In fact most of my attempts ended in such failure that my college roommate at one point begged me to stop making bread.  Her exact words upon coming into the room one day were “Did you try making bread again?” and I had to sheepishly admit that yes, despite it smelling like freshly baked bread in our dorm, I had produced a 3 pound edible brick (edible being negotiable).  I think I single-handedly kept the demand for flour at the Watergate Safeway grocery store much higher than usual.

I have since gotten a little bit better.  Well, I am still not great at making bread.  I can make a really good Challah thanks to hundreds of tries during my run with the Jewish Cookbook author.  And I can make some other passable breads.  But I am by no means an expert.  So I wanted to share a bread recipe with you.  As long as you follow the directions (very few) and allow the dough to rise (which I forgot once) then you will have some very health and (almost) fool-proof bread. 

Whole Grain Bread

As adapted from Mother Earth News December 2009

This bread works on a pretty simple formula.  However, there are no sweeteners in the recipe, so the bread will be very “healthy” tasting.  I think it is very nice toasted and slathered in butter and jam.  Feel free to experiment with different grains and flours but be sure to keep the ratio the same each time.

5 cups flour (I use all white-whole wheat, but a combo of all-purpose, whole wheat, bread flour etc. could work as well)

2 cups other grains (such as Bob’s Red Mill hot cereals, bran, wheat germ, instant oatmeal etc.)
¼ c vital wheat gluten
2 packets yeast (1 ½ Tb)
1 Tsp. Kosher salt
2 cups warm water

Wisk together all of the dry ingredients in the bowl of an electric stand mixer.  Add warm water (about 90-100°F), and using the paddle attachment, mix until the dough just starts to come together in a ball. 

Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and allow to rise for about 2 hours, or until the dough has risen and then collapsed back in on itself.

Next, loosely cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 

When you are ready to bake, take about 1/3 of the dough from the bowl and return the bowl to the refrigerator, and use the remaining dough throughout the week (yup it will keep).  Working quickly, shape the dough into a ball, without kneading.  Using your hands, tuck the edges of the dough up under and towards the center of the mass.  Then, place the ball onto a piece of parchment paper and push into a cylinder shape. Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and allow to warm up and rise for about 90 minutes. 

At 60 minutes in, preheat the oven to 450°.  Place a baking stone  on the center rack and a heavy duty cookie sheet on the very top rack.  After 30 minutes, make several diagonal cuts into the top of the bread. 

Place the dough on the parchment paper onto the baking stone.  Pour 1 ½ cups of water into the cookie sheet in the top pan and quickly shut the oven door.  Bake bread for about 45 minutes, turning the cookie sheet as necessary to brown evenly.  About 10 minutes before it is done, slide the bread off of the paper and directly onto the stone. 

Allow the bread to cool and serve.  Repeat baking steps throughout the week with the remaining dough.  Baked bread can be frozen as well, so if you bake it, store it wrapped in plastic and aluminum foil in the freezer.

Happy New Year. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are ready to begin another new year. To get things started right I thought I would share another breakfast recipe with you. Because, if breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then it must be at least equally so for the first breakfast of the New Year.

I know some people like to eat foods that will bring them luck in the New Year; black eyed peas, marzipan pigs, and my personal favorite, pickled herring. Yes, that’s right pickled herring. Now, I am not one to turn away foods, but this is one point where I might make an exception. I can clearly remember my grandmother plucking a slimy silver chunk of fish from a bowl at the stroke of midnight, tilting her head back and swallowing. Well, she most likely used a fork and a small plate, but in my childhood memories, she used her fingers and swallowed those suckers whole. I have no idea if she liked pickled herring, but I do know that she liked disgusting her granddaughters with them.

Apparently my grandmothers’ family believed that eating pickled herring at midnight on New Year’s Eve would bring good luck and good fortune in the coming year. And it would be just like her to make sure she ate one every year at midnight whether she wanted to or not. It was the proper thing to do. Since my grandmother passed away no one has even mentioned procuring a jar of pickled herring, and I don’t think anyone misses the smell.

For me ringing in the New Year is about having fun with family and or friends. And as long as I can stay awake until midnight (naps are allowed in my book) then it was a successful night. This year Joe and I had friends come visit us in Maine for the holiday and it was wonderful. Complete with sparkly New Year’s Eve tops for all the girls and coordinating Crayola hair extensions purchased from the local grocery store. Yes Crayola apparently makes hair extensions.

And then in the morning we all awoke at a reasonably late hour, decided to nix the polar bear plunge idea, and cracked open the last two bottles of champagne for mimosas. Using up the holiday Panettone in French toast was a great way to get ready to sit and watch hours upon hours of sports.

French Toast Panettone
Panettone is a sweet Italian egg bread studded with candied fruits and nuts and can be found in pretty much any grocery store around the holidays. The idea for this came when Joe and I had purchased a large panettone and were unable to eat it before it went stale. Any kind of stale bread makes great French toast.

1 panettone
4 eggs
¾ c whole milk (or half and half)
¼ c cugar
1 tsp. vanilla
Bacon grease or butter for cooking.

Slice the panettone into reasonable sized pieces, or if you like the comedic large slices, go ahead and use those. If the bread is fresh allow it to sit out for about an hour before cooking so that the slices are a bit stale.

Whisk the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl until thoroughly combined.

Preheat a griddle over medium heat and add bacon grease or butter (I usually make bacon in shifts to keep the griddle perpetually coated in grease – remember the pancakes recipe? Yeah.)

Dredge the sliced of panettone in the egg and milk mixture and carefully place onto griddle. Cook for about 2 minutes per side, flipping occasionally. Be sure the bread is cooked through - it should be a little stiff and should not ooze any of the egg when you press it with the back of a spatula.

Repeat dredging slices and cooking until all of the bread has been used up. Place cooked French toast on a platter and keep in a warm oven until ready to serve.

Maui Musings

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you. In fact I even had grand plans to post from Maui.  But let’s be honest, when you’re in Maui the idea of sitting in front of a computer for a couple of hours is not very appealing.  There were sunrises and sunsets to watch, sea turtles to swim with and lots and lots of mai tais to consume.  A girl can stay pretty busy on vacation.

This is not to say that we did not cook anything while away.  In fact after our friends’ (fabulous) wedding we prepared most of our meals in the rental home.  And aside from preparing far too much food for the eight people staying in the home, it was quite nice and relaxing to make, or help make dinner each night. 

But there was one recipe in particular that I had been thinking about before going off to Hawaii.  This actually happens to me quite a bit.  I think of a recipe and I play around with it in my head, and it won’t leave my thoughts until I make it.  This is what I day dream about on down time – food.  So I had this idea to make a Hawaiian style French toast.  I am going to share it with you here, although it is not quite perfected yet, so if you have any suggestions or modifications you think I should make, please let me know. 

The nice thing about this French toast is that it is very simple to make, and smells wonderful in the morning.  We had a little sugar ant problem and on the morning I made this French toast, they were running around the door of the oven furiously.  I think if they could have gone in after the pans they would have.  And if ants know anything, it is where to find the most sweet and delicious foods in a kitchen. 

Also, I would like to apologize for not having pictures of the French toast, but alas, the light wasn’t quite as good (and I was slightly embarrassed to be lining up beauty shots of breakfast). 

Maui Toast

A friend suggested adding shredded or desiccated coconut to this.  Personally I am not a huge fan of shredded coconut, but if you are, please try it.  I also thought that adding a small amount of cream of coconut to milk and eggs might enhance the coconut flavor.  Oh and you will need to prepare this the night before and let it sit in the fridge, so plan accordingly.

1 loaf King’s Hawaiian Bread (or other soft sweet bread)

1 can coconut milk
2 eggs
½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped macadamia nuts
Butter for greasing pan(s)
 

Slice the bread into long slices and allow to dry out for about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile grease a 9x13” pan with butter, using more pans if necessary.  In a large bowl, whisk coconut, eggs, cinnamon and vanilla until combined. 

Place sliced bread into the pan(s) and pour the egg mixture evenly over all the slices.  Press the slices down to make sure every part has come into contact with the egg mixture.  Cover pan(s) and refrigerate overnight. 

In the morning, take the pan(s) out of the fridge and let warm up, while you preheat the oven to 350°.  Sprinkle the chopped macadamia nuts over the top of the slices and bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until the bread is golden and the smell is waking people up.  Serve with maple or coconut syrup.

A Pursuit of Sweet Potato Perfection

There are certain food items that I am on a quest to find the perfect version of. A recipe that replicates Entemann’s chocolate chip cookies (original), a risotto that once finished you pour red wine into and sweet potato rolls. I’m sure that there are other items on the list, but these come to mind first.

Allow me to elaborate on each of these sought after foods.

First, original recipe Entemann’s cookies. These were (and still are) a family staple on vacation and during holidays. Somehow we can consume insanely large quantities of these cookies, and I refuse to know what the nutritional values are for them because of it. When Joe first came on family vacation he was horrified and secretly pleased when no one batted an eye about plowing through a box of cookies a day. I mean, there are 14 of us, so that’s not improbable to accomplish. If I could make these cookies – well then we could potentially save like $30 a week on cookies.

Next, the risotto recipe. When I was living in Germany, my friends and I took turns cooking dinners at one another’s dorm rooms. Produce was extremely cheap there but refrigerator space was not. Thus, multiple trips to the store or farmer’s market happened every week. If someone was too excited and bought a ton of produce, then we would have a large meal for everyone so that nothing went bad. One evening, a friend was making her family’s risotto recipe for us. I seem to remember that it was a traditional Milanese style risotto, but once it was served, we poured a bit of red wine onto the side of the bowl and let is seep into and around the risotto. It was glorious.

It may have been one of those meals that is the perfect combination of friends, ambience, food and fun to make the dish stand out even more so than usual. Plus, that evening we managed to go through numerous bottles of wine, so much in fact that in pictures all of our mouths are a deep purple. But when you can buy a bottle of wine for 2 or 3 euro – how can you pass up the opportunity to stockpile.

I’ve never seen a recipe like that. Ever. And perhaps it was a different version of risotto that I am not accustomed to, or maybe it was just something her family happened to do. I just remember it being so interesting and flavorful that I may have had more than my fair share at the time.

Lastly, the sweet potato rolls. This has no fun story, I just really want a good sweet potato roll. I want it to look gorgeously orange and taste like sweet potatoes. I want to unveil them at Thanksgiving and have people swoon. So far I have tried at least 4 unsuccessful attempts, using recipes I found.

This weekend, I decided to take the challenge upon myself. I cut the amount of flour in half and increased the amount of sweet potato. The results were a lovely orange, but alas no strong sweet potato flavor. I thought I would share them with you anyways, and perhaps as I continue working on them, we will reach the end of my quest together.

Sweet Potato Rolls
I like to roast the sweet potatoes in their skins to get the most flavor from them. A medium-large sweet potato, pricked all over with a fork and wrapped in aluminum foil, can be roasted at 375° for about 45 minutes, or until the potato is very tender. Then cool it and scoop out the flesh from the skin.

1 packet yeast
1/3 c. warm water
2 tsp. honey
¾ c mashed sweet potato
½ tsp salt
1 c. bread flour
2 c. white whole wheat flour
1 tsp. olive oil
1 egg beaten (for brushing on the rolls)


Combine the yeast and water in the bowl of an electric mixer, let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add honey and sweet potato, again let sit for 5 minutes. Next, with the paddle attachment running, add salt and flours, one cup at a time. Continue to work the dough until it all holds together and does not stick to the sides of the bowl, about 5 minutes.

Remove dough from bowl, then wipe out bowl and add teaspoon of olive oil. Return dough to bowl and turn to coat in the oil. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for an hour, or until doubled in size. Punch the dough down and allow to rise again, until doubled in size, about 40 minutes.

Grease a 9” round cake pan. Shape the dough into balls slightly larger than a golf ball and place in cake pan with just a little space between each ball, until the entire pan is full. Cover and allow to rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375°. Brush rolls with beaten egg, and repeat just before placing into the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the tops of the rolls are golden and the rolls make a thump sound when you flick them with your finger. Allow to cool slightly then remove from pan, pull apart and serve.

The Bakery

When Joe and I were living in California, I worked at a bakery. I believe that I have mentioned that here before, but never directly referenced the bakery. It’s funny actually, when we were making our way across the country I must have mentioned to Joe that it might be nice to work at a bakery. You see, I had read some book about a woman who leaves her job, heads to a new state and works as a bread baker. The book wasn’t that good, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of working in a bakery.

Getting settled in CA was a pretty big obstacle for me; terrible neighborhood, no money, no job, no internet but lots of cockroaches. Sounds dreamy doesn’t it? But we made it through, fairly unscathed and now I have some fun stories about it – so that makes it all worthwhile.

After getting the gas turned on in the apartment, the next most important thing was finding a job. In applying for jobs, I scoured newspaper ads, and walked to the public library to wait with the other colorful residents of Long Beach for internet access an hour at a time. This forced me to streamline my applications and made me a wizard at blocking out the loud mutterings of a homeless man that always seemed to need the internet at the same time as me.

Before I got the job at the bakery, I had applied to a company that sells items to prison commissaries (travel to prisons included) and an internet dating site (which asked me if I would be able to lie to people in order to convince them to continue paying for the program). I got neither of these jobs, thank goodness. But when I looked online and saw a bakery sales person position open, I jumped at the chance.

Rossmoor Pastries is in Signal Hill, and has been going strong for over 20 years. After I interviewed, one of the owners of the bakery told me that as soon as she saw me she knew I belonged at the bakery. Now, don’t get me wrong I had some ups and downs there, but overall it was a wonderful (and tasty) experience. I sampled my way through endless pastries, goodies, and pant sizes all while making friends and becoming part of the Rossmoor family.

But onto the point of this post (before I get too nostalgic): Breakfast Bread. Breakfast Bread was a recipe unique to Rossmoor Pastries and one of the few things that was healthy. Now when I say healthy I’m not talking about convincing yourself that a slice of carrot cake is healthy, I mean it is full of fiber and protein healthy.

The owners of Rossmoor Pastries are both very active and health conscious. We went on walks up Signal Hill’s hill, kick boxed in a park and generally had a very good time. Both owners love to bike and Charlie was featured in Bicycling Magazine back in 2009. This recipe comes from that magazine article, and I can tell you that it is very similar to the original. But if you happen to be in the Long Beach area, I highly recommend stopping by Rossmoor Pastries for a quick treat, and this breakfast bread. And maybe you can say ‘hi’ to my bakery family for me.

German Breakfast Bread
As adapted from Bicycling Magazine July 2009
The original recipe calls for spelt granola – I could not find spelt granola. So I used whole spelt kernels, which don’t really soften in the bread. I would suggest grinding the spelt kernels up a bit with a mortar and pestle or in a food processor. To serve this, slice it thin (it is dense and heavy), toast, and spread with cream cheese or a nut butter for a filling breakfast. Or spread with butter or nutella for a snack you can still feel good about.

1 c warm water (100°-110°F)
2 Tb honey
2 Tb olive oil
1 package dry yeast
2 c spelt flour, divided
¾ c white whole wheat flour, divided
1 ½ tsp salt
½ c spelt kernels, crushed
½ c raisins

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine water, honey, oil and yeast. Mix gently until the yeast dissolves, about 1 minute. Then add in 1 cup of the spelt flour, ½ c of the whole wheat flour, and the salt, mix for 3-4 minutes. It will be a very soft mixture. Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and let rise in a warm draft free place for about 30 minutes, or until it has doubled in size.

Next, with a dough hook, add in the remaining flours and spelt kernels, mix until thoroughly combined and the dough is smooth and elastic, adding more whole wheat flour as necessary. At the very end of mixing, toss in the raisins and mix to combine. (If you do not have an electric mixer with a dough hook, this can be done by hand on a floured board.)

Form dough into a loaf-shape and place in a loaf pan. Cover again with the damp kitchen towel and let rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 350°.

Bake the bread until golden brown, 30-40 minutes.

Makes 1 loaf.