Homemade Donuts

Homemade Donuts

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 2 hrs
• Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients:

• 5 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of salt
• 4 tsp of instant rapid rise yeast
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 tsp of freshly ground nutmeg(optional) do not use regular ground nutmeg if you must then just use 1/4 tsp
• 2 cups of scalded milk
• 5 tbsp of vegetable shortening

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients together. Whisk to incorporate.

In a small saucepan combine your milk and vegetable shortening and bring to a simmer (scald). Once your vegetable shortening has melted, turn off the heat. Let the milk cool down to lukewarm. Make sure your milk mixture is not to hot or you will kill the yeast and the dough will not rise. (around 100 degrees F)

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a dough hook for 10 minutes or so. This is a very wet dough but the dough should clear the sides of your mixer. If the dough does not clear the sides of the bowl and is still very wet then keep adding more flour 1/4 cup at a time, until you get the right consistency. If you do not have a mixer and are kneading by hand this high hydration dough needs to be mixed by the stretch and fold method. You can watch Peter Reinhardt explain this technique. Use pam instead of olive oil as Peter does since we are making a dessert dough olive oil will be …well just weird 🙂 That all said and done this dough is not an 80 %  hydration dough and it is not quite regular bread dough (60%). Without doing the baker’s math right now I am going to guess-timate it to be around 68%  It should feel slightly tacky when you are done with the kneading.

Alright leave the dough rise for an hour in a greased bowl and cover the dough. I put plastic wrap right over my dough loosely then a tea towel on top of the bowl. The reason I do this is to prevent any of the dough from loosing moisture and developing a skin on top. After an hour take your dough and roll it out into a big rectangle approx 1/2 inch thick. Use two different size cookie cutters and start cutting out your donuts and holes 🙂

I also fried the donut holes and sprinkled them with powdered sugar when they come out. Yum. As you can see I also left some whole and piped in some jelly and lemon curd then dusted those with icing sugar as well.

Ok once all your donuts are cut out let them rise again till double in size.

In the meantime take out your fryer if you have one or else put vegetable oil in a heavy large pot, (dutch ovens work great). When you are ready to start cooking heat your oil to 375 degrees F.

Place 4 donuts (or however many will fit without overcrowding) If you overcrowd the donuts in the hot oil this will bring the temperature down drastically and your dough will absorb the oil and become greasy and heavy YUCK. So just a few at a time. The donuts will cook 1 min per side. Then let them cool on a wire rack.

The next step is the best step. Dip your donuts in whatever concoction suits your fancy or sprinkle with sugar, coconut etc. AND EAT!! YUM

I just used a little milk, icing sugar and few drops of vanilla extract to make my glaze. The chocolate glaze started off like the clear + chocolate chips and a pat of butter whisked over a double broiler until silky and shiny.

Carnival Food…..The Corn Dog

I told my kids we would have a carnival dinner for fun one night. So I decided on corn dogs and a Sundae Bar.  Let me just start off by saying I rarely ever deep fry food! Super unhealthy but if I only do this once a year with the kids then I can splurge a little.

As it turned out the corn dogs were very delicious but heavy on the stomach and I decided to save their sundae bar for another time. Pics will follow when I have this desert sometime soon.

Corn Dogs

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 1hr
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of corn meal
• 1 1/4 cup of flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of milk
• 4 tsp of baking powder
•  1/4 cup of sugar
• pinch of salt
• hotdogs on a stick (I used wooden skewers I had for the barbecue)
• cooking oil

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and skewer your hotdogs on a stick. I poured the batter in a tall cup so I can dip the dogs in easily and they get all covered with batter easily.  I placed enough vegetable oil to go up the side of the dutch oven aproximately 2 inches.Preheat oil to 375 degrees F. Gently lay the corn dog in the oil and rotate after 10 seconds so the batter adheres perfectly in thickness on all sides then allow to turn golden brown on all sides. I just kept rotating them.

Cool on paper towel for few minutes, serve with your favorite condiments 🙂

 

Oven Roasted Meatballs

Homemade meatballs are indeed time-consuming, I won’t lie ……. BUT once you have eaten homemade meatballs  you just can’t possibly go back to store-bought!  I hate the messy greasy job of  frying them in the pan, so I eliminated that step by throwing them in the oven instead.  To get the softest meatballs I have used a ratio of 3:1 (3 eggs for 1 lb of ground beef) Also this is where you want to splurge on calories and get 80/20 ground beef. Of course the addition of milk and bread crumbs also adds to the texture.

I usually buy a huge package of ground beef from Costco 7 lbs or so and I make a huge batch and take the morning to cook them up and then I have many meals of meatballs that I freeze.  I love just eating them with a bit of marinara sauce and fresh cheese, meatball subs, spaghetti and meatballs, sweet and sour meatballs etc 🙂

• Servings: 15-20
• Time: 3hrs
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 4 lbs of ground beef 80/20
• 12 large eggs
• 2 cups of milk
• 2 cups of panko bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup of fresh garlic chopped fine
• 1 1/2 cups of finely chopped onions
• 1/3 cup of parsley finely chopped
• 1/4 cup of basil finely chopped
• 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tsp of freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tbsp of kosher salt

Directions:

Turn oven on to 375 . Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.  In this instance clean hands will be your best friend to really get it mixed up well.  I use a cookie size scooper for getting the perfect amount of the mixture every time.  Roll in a ball and place on a lined half sheet pan.  Cook for 20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly and enjoy 🙂

TIPS:

• If you have a food processor use it for all the chopped ingredients, it really goes soooooo much faster.
• I take tinfoil to line my half sheet pans and use pam spray so they don’t stick!
• A small ice-cream scooper really get the perfect amount of meatball mixture every time so they cook evenly
• Don’t overcook! If you want that soft melt in your mouth texture watch the clock! I actually under cook them a bit because once you take them out of the oven to rest the heat will still be cooking them as they sit! Also if  I am going to freeze them, well-done meatballs will give you a firmer texture when you go to rewarm them.

Homemade Buns

Tips To Make Better Buns!

There are a few things you need to know to make better, homemade, melt in your mouth buns! I will share with you what I have learned in my bread baking adventures.

First off enriched doughs make better, soft, squishy buns than lean doughs. What does that mean you ask? A lean dough is just flour, water, yeast and salt. This will yield a crusty bread, so for all you baguette lovers I will eventually do a recipe on that in the future. A lean dough is all about the gorgeous exterior crust as the focus although the crumb is open and soft.  In an enriched dough there is additives to your basic flour, yeast and salt in order to soften the crumb and crust. Sugar will soften the dough but the additive of your fats will by far improve the texture of your crust and crumb. Adding milk, sugar and butter to the flour makes a big difference.

Secondly kneading your dough enough to produce a windowpane. We want to make sure we develop the gluten in our dough so that we get good structure and rise.

Thirdly if you are not pressed for time I would ferment the dough slowly AKA (Put it in the fridge). The dough will take longer to rise in colder temperatures, the slower fermentation will develop more complex flavors when you are ready to bake it. I make my dough in the mornings and then throw it in the fridge till late afternoon when I then take it out and let it get to room temperature and finish its rise.

Fourthly weighing your dough will ensure an equal cooking in the oven. I usually make 2 ounce buns. Once all pieces are equal size I then go to shaping them.

Fifthly lets talk about surface tension. What is surface tension? This is the shaping stage, whether you are shaping loafs, boule, baguette, buns etc. Having the dough shaped tightly that puts tension on the dough will produce up to a 25% better oven spring. Oven spring is how much our dough rises up in the oven. Up I say 🙂 Not out, not to the side but springing up producing a nicer more open crumb structure and lighter fluffier bread.

Ok see the not so smooth ball first picture? I take this and make a “c” with my hand and in small circular movements I apply downward pressure to the ball and this will form a nice tight firm ball.

Sixthly Do not over proof!! Your bread will fall during cooking and you will lose your 25% oven spring yielding a squat loaf.

Seventhly brush some melted butter on the risen buns before popping them in the oven, this really helps to brown the buns and the more golden caramelization we can get out of those starches the more flavor we add!

Ok so here is my recipe:

Homemade buns

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 4hrs
• Difficulty: medium
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Ingredients:

• 4 3/4 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of salt
• 2 tsp of instant yeast
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• 1 large egg beaten
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 1 1/2 cups of milk

Directions:

Take all dry ingredients and whisk together. Add your wet ingredients and knead dough till window pane test is achieved. Spray a bowl with Pam and place dough in the bowl, spray the dough with Pam and place plastic wrap directly on your dough ball. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and place it in the  fridge to ferment slowly.

Two hours before baking time. Take out of fridge and allow the dough to come to room temperature and finish its initial rise. This will take about 30-45 minutes.  Divide dough evenly for buns and shape as described above. Place on sheet pan to rise, spray once again with Pam and place plastic wrap directly on dough cover with tea towel once more and allow for the final rise. Aprox 30-45 minutes

Turn on the stove to 400 degrees F  Once your buns have risen brush the tops with some melted butter and place in the preheated oven and set timer for 15 minutes.  If you are using only 2 ounces of dough per bun like I do then they do not take long to cook! Once golden brown remove from oven and allow to cool on wire rack. Enjoy!

Meatloaf

Pass the ketchup! Loved by many and easy to make. It will feed your crowd:)

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of meatloaf
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of Panko bread crumbs (I like the seasoned ones for more flavor)
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
• 1 onion finely diced.
• 2/3 cups of ketchup
• 3 table spoons of brown sugar
• 1 table-spoon of Dijon mustard

Directions:

Saute your onions in a frying pan with a bit of butter till browned. Then take off heat.

In a large bowl combine the ground beef with the bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sautéed onions,  Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Mix together and place in a loaf pan.

Note: I like to make a sling for the loaf out of tinfoil so that once cooked it is easy to remove the loaf for cutting into slices. Just hit the tinfoil with some Pam spray first.

For the ketchup sauce combined the ketchup with brown sugar and Dijon mustard. Whisk together and slather on top of the meatloaf.

Place in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.

Meatloaf

• Servings: 6
• Time: 1 1/2 hrs
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 1 pound of meatloaf
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of Panko bread crumbs (I like the seasoned ones for more flavor)
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
• 1 onion finely diced.
• 2/3 cups of ketchup
• 3 table spoons of brown sugar
• 1 table-spoon of Dijon mustard

Directions:

Saute your onions in a frying pan with a bit of butter till browned. Then take off heat.

In a large bowl combine the ground beef with the bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sautéed onions,  Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Mix together and place in a loaf pan.

Note: I like to make a sling for the loaf out of tinfoil so that once cooked it is easy to remove the loaf for cutting into slices. Just hit the tinfoil with some Pam spray first.

For the ketchup sauce combined the ketchup with brown sugar and Dijon mustard. Whisk together and slather on top of the meatloaf.

Place in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.