Lacey's Jameson Soaked Raisin Bread Pudding

First and foremost: Heat up the left over coffee in a mug, pour a knuckles worth of Jameson's in, add some cream and sugar and get yer drink on. Drinking Jameson's while using it to cook is a must. A must.
Second, put 1/2 cup of raisins in a bowl and pour enough of the same Whiskey over them to just drown them. Cover with cellophane and set aside on counter for 48ish hours. Keep drinking those Jameson's and coffee (aka Irish Coffee). They are good and good for ya. I know from personal experience.
Jameson family motto "Sine Metu" - Without Fear. In other words -this Irish Family does not fuck around with their booze making. Drink it at home. At least that way you can stumble to your own bed if you drink too much of it. It can hit you hard and fast and you won't even know it. The good thing about this recipe is that the alcohol bakes off (I think), so it's safe to eat at for breakfast or bring to a potluck. (Slip a flask of the whiskey in your pocket and you're golden).

Ingredients

In a bowl mix the following:
2 cups milk
1 cup cream
vanilla
nutmeg
cinnamon
3/4 cup sugar (I prefer brown but only had white at the moment)
3 eggs
3 tbsp melted butter
1/2 sliced and diced peach (optional)
Jameson soaked raisins and the whiskey they marinated in
Another pull of whiskey (optional, but come on! Do it!)

Cut up half a loaf of french bread and dice it into cubes no bigger than an inch. Dump the bread in the bowl with the liquid and stir it up so bread is evenly coated.


Pour bread mix in a casserole pan. Mine is a pretty green deep set dish that will have to cook longer. I believe this much woulf fit into a 9x9 pan. (At this point I prefer to put the casserole pan in the fridge for 24 hours before I cook it so the milk miture really soaks into the bread and becomes more custard like, but I didn't have time for it today). Bake it for 35ish minutes on 350 degrees. Once the top is crusty and golden it is done.


If you don't have any Jameson's in the house and don't want to spend $25ish for it, you can buy a cheaper brand of whiskey, bourbon or even rum to use. If you don't drink simply leave the alcohol out all together.
I've never met a person who didn't like bread pudding in one form or another. Personally savory bread puddings are my favorite to make and eat, but this was a nice change. And since I had my parents over night it worked out perfectly to serve for breakfast!

Nikki's Savory Oat-Nut Pumpkin Bread

Ok so I love bread. I mean, I love ALL bread, whole wheat and white, rye and pumpernickel, sweet breads, savory breads, muffins, croissants, you name it, I'll scarf it down :) now... MAKING bread on the other hand... just the idea is enough to break out in hives while rushing to Panera to buy a fancy loaf, to heat up in the oven and claim I baked it (yes I have done that... and no, no one believed me...) the one and ONLY time I ever attempted to make bread I was 19 and had the bright idea to make a Thanksgiving dinner, from scratch, for 10 friends with little to no assistance and in between the mayhem I suddenly remembered my bread dough that I had left rising on the counter. I went to inspect it and it was just sitting there, looking exactly as I had left it... not even an 1/8th bigger... I poked at it a bit, choked back a few tears... and sent a friend to super walmart for rolls... it was an extremely disheartening experience and was one of my first real failures in the kitchen and I don't believe I had recovered from it...

So with MUCH trepidation I began researching online. My favorite breads are rich, and dense, moist and flavorful with just a touch of sweet. I looked outside and saw the leaves on the trees beginning to turn and a bit of a chill on the breeze and decided that pumpkin should definitely be involved. The only problem: google "pumpkin bread recipe" and you will find 1,370,000 hits for different variations of sweet dessert-style pumpkin breads. This created a slight problem as I had no clue what ratios of pumpkin vs. flour i would need. So I began hunting down savory breads with other moist ingredients like sour cream, cottage cheese, applesauce, ect... After much research, and more than a little nervousness I wrote my basic recipe, assembled my ingredients and got started:

My first step was to put yeast in "warm-not-hot water". This proposed a bit of a challenge as my city's water tastes AWFUL so I used water from my brita pitcher which is cold, so I nuked it but I overnuked it (remember, "warm-not-hot"!) so I had to add more cold water, then pour off the extra, then I thought it was too cold so I stuck it back in the microwave for 5 seconds... I began to get nervous, this was already turning into an ordeal! I finally got the water to what I approximated to be "warm-not-hot" and dumped my packet of yeast in, stirred it up with a fork and then stared at it...

it didn't seem to be doing anything so I gave it another stir and stared some more... realistically only about 45 seconds passed but it seemed an eternity of nothing happened and my nervousness began to escalate to pre-panic mode... Finally I do what any sane girl does when she's freaking out about a recipe: (cue trumpets) I called Melissa! who didn't answer (booooo!) Next step is call my favoritest aunt who lives in Alabama and is a PHENOMENAL cook. She answers on the first ring (see Melissa, SHE was prepared for my panic!) I explain my ordeal and she says well you used "warm-not-hot" water right? (I love how this phrase is said as if its one word...) I said yes (very confidently of course, no need to let on to my "warm-not-hot" issues) then she says well all you need is the yeast the "warm-not-hot" water and sugar... Wait wait wait, why do I need sugar? she then explains that I need to "feed the yeast" or the bread won't rise... what's up with that?? this is a very high maintenance ingredient... I add a teaspoon of brown sugar, stir it up a little and stare at it... Aunt Diane nicely explains that it takes a few minutes and to just leave it be and move on to the next part of my bread... I think she just didn't want to listen to me breathe in her ear while I waited for the yeast to jump up and sing showtunes like that frog on that old cartoon (remember? "hello my baby hello my darling..." yes? no?) so I move on to the oat-nut flour.

In my handy little black & decker power chopper I throw in 1/2 cup of walnut halves and 1/2 cup of quick oats and pulse until its ground up fine... I make it 2 pulses before rushing back to check on the yeast, and GUESS WHAT!!! it DID something!!! nothing so cool as singing showtunes (how great would that be?? better than grilled cheese Mary!!) but it had developed a thin layer of foamy stuff that took it from the 1/4 cup mark to the 1/3 cup mark!!! Look!!

After confirming with my aunt that that's what its supposed to be doing I let her go and commenced with the breadmaking. Out comes my fabulously beautiful Kitchenaid Stand Mixer (any day that I get to use my Kitchenaid is a good day in my book, I inherited it from my Grandma who aside from being a really cool lady was an amazing cook, I spent many a summer watching and learning from her!). I finished pulsing the oats & walnuts to a fine powder I set aside about 3 tbs of the powder and dumped the rest in the bowl along with 2 cups of pumpkin from a can (mark this date my friends this is one of the few times you will ever see me use something from a can!!) my yeast-water mixture (which by this point has foamed up so much I'm worried it might start spilling over the sides of the cup!) 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/4 tsp of baking soda, 1 tbs cinnamon, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 cup of Hodgson Mills Gluten Free baking mix (it has good stuff like flax in it) and I start the mixer.

Once everything was mixed together nicely I began adding flour. Now I was told a few very important things about the flour one: there IS a difference between regular white flour and bread flour. I looked around and found Bob's Red Mill Unbromated (whatever that means) Unbleached White Flour and I will tell you I bought it mostly because it specifically said "Superb for breadmaking by hand or machine" now if Bob says something is superb, I trust him, he's never steered me wrong before (side note: have you SEEN how many different varieties of flour he makes??? I saw green pea, hazelnut and coconut!!) The other important thing I was told (by my aunt) was that you should make sure at least half of your dry ingredients are normal flour so that you'll have a "finer crumb"... I have no idea what that means but I made sure that I countered the cup of oat-nut mixture and the 1/2 cup of Hodgson Mills with at least that much white flour. Anyway so I started adding the flour a half cup at a time into the mixer until the dough started to hold together in a ball (I had added 2 1/2 cups) I sprinkled a light layer of flour on my counter and slapped my dough ball on the counter and began kneaing it, adding a little bit more flour any time it seemed too sticky (all together there was about 3 cups of flour in my bread) I kneaded it for about 8 minutes, until all the flour was incorporated into the dough and it wasn't overly sticky.

Now for the scary part: I spread a little butter into a big bowl, stuck the dough in the bowl and lightly covered it with plastic wrap. And then I stared at it...
After a few minutes of nothing happening I finally left it be and cleaned up the kitchen then went to read for the hour it was supposed to rise. After my hour was up I rushed back to the kitchen and IT ROSE!!!!! I cannot tell you how excited I was, I actually had to go back through my camera to check and make sure it really was bigger! So a bunch of the recipes I looked at said to punch it down, re-cover and let it rise again for "a finer crumb" agian, I have no clue what that is but I'll go with it. I punched it down (breadmaking is therapeutic, I mean when you kneed it you really put your strength in there and then you get to beat it and on top of that you get a lovely sense of accomplishment when you see its doubled in size!) I covered it up again and pored myself a celebratory glass of wine and went back to my book (book 3 in the Twilight series if you're wondering...) and after 40 minutes i peeked again and will wonders never cease? it rose AGAIN!

I pulled the dough out (after very lightly dusting my counter again) and rolled it into a rectangle roughly 9x12 and then using my pizza cutter I sliced it into three strips, leaving the tops attached.

I then braided the strips (this part is a bit of a pain) and tucked the ends under the dough and transported it to my buttered cookie sheet, covered it again and went back to the vamps. after another 40 minutes I came back and yet AGAIN it had nearly doubled in size! (I wonder if that works on other things? beat on it, ignore it and it doubles in size? your thoughts?)

I pre-heated my oven to 375, cracked an egg in a bowl and whipped it with a fork and spread a light layer on the bread (I had to use a spatula, my nifty basting brush has gone missing... I suspect the dogs...) then sprinkled the oat-nut powder, a little bit of brown sugar, a little bit of cinnamon and some more non-ground up oats on top and stuck it in the oven for about 35 minutes.

I pulled it out and tapped and was rewarded with a lovely hollow sound, signaling proper done-ness, let it cool and sliced a piece off to share with hubby (cue angels singing) it tasted great! not overwhelmingly pumpkiny but rich and dense, a bread that won't get lost in a sandwich. Hubby rated it an A plus :)



So Nikki's official recipe for Savory Oat-Nut Pumpkin Bread:

1 packet active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm-not-hot water
1 tsp plus 1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup walnut halves
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup Hodgeson Mills Baking Mix (really not necessary but I had it in the cupboard, sub another 1/2 cup flour if you don't use this)
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 tbs cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 greased/buttered bowl
1 greased/buttered baking sheet
plastic wrap
mix yeast and 1 tsp brown sugar into warm-not-hot-water, set aside for 5 minutes
put oats and walnuts into food processor and pulse into a fine powder, reserve 3 tbs for topping
Check to ensure yeast is foaming up (ie: alive) if so pour into a large mixing bowl, add oat-nut flour, baking mix (if you're using it), pumpkin, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Blend until mixed. Add flour, 1/2 cup at a time until dough forms a ball.
Place dough on a floured surface and kneed for 8-10 minutes adding flour in small increments until its no longer really sticky. Form into a ball and place in greased bowl, loosely cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place (I pre-heated my oven to 200 then turned it off and kept the bowl near the burner that the oven vents out of) leave for 1 hour. recommend cleaning up the mess you made of the kitchen during this hour... but if you're not as messy as me (I'm really messy) you can find other more... constructive... things to do with the time...
After the hour is up return to the bowl and you will see it has doubled in size! (woo hoo!!!) punch the dough down a few times and re-form the ball, cover again and leave it for about 45 minutes (until it doubles again)
** This next part is optional, if you don't want a braid just stick the dough in a greased loaf pan (its a lot of dough you might need two loaf pans...) and skip on to the cover/let rise part**
Take dough out and put it on a lightly floured surface, roll it out to a 12x9 rectangle, cut into 3 strips, leaving the tops attached and braid. Fold the ends under and carefully transfer to a greased cookie sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rise for 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375. Lightly beat egg and spread on top of bread dough sprinkle oat-nut flour, more oats, a little brown sugar, and cinnamon (use your taste/judgement, if you want a lot sprinkle a lot!) and bake for 35-40 minutes (until bread sounds hollow when you tap it) place on wire rack and allow to cool, slice it up and serve it however you wish, I toasted it and topped it with butter & honey:

Melissa's "F" Bread

The "F" Bread

The “F” Bread

I recently watched a documentary titled, “How To Cook Your Life” featuring Zen Priest Edward Brown. He “…demonstrates that cooking is a feast of the senses.” I can totally buy that. In the documentary he goes on to say we as a society do not use our hands and hands were meant to be used. Our hands have become idle. They say idle hands are the devil’s tools. I’m not sure I buy that. I only get in trouble when I USE my hands. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that statement is not valid in MY home to begin with…we use our hands quite a bit…some more than others. However, I get his point, and one of the most perfect uses for hands, is the art of bread making, although hubby may beg to differ. I just love to roll in…I mean roll THE dough!

I love to bake and breads are at the top of my list, both sweet breads and savory. (Sweet breads as in cinnamon rolls and the like; not to be confused with internal organs. Gross.)

Next, the hard part…Decisions, Decisions! Would I make a pear and bleu cheese braid? …A Parisian Diplomat? …Monkey Bread? …A Croatian Walnut Roll? (mouth watering over that one!) …Dosa, Flatbread, Foccacia, Povitcia, Chiabatta, Challa, Stollen, Pannetone, Hot Cross Buns? …should it be a loaf, a baton, baguette, roll, boule, Swiss roll, crescents, knots? If we’re going by personality a twisted knot would fit beautifully, however, I decided to go with one of my all time favorite and most fun recipes… Fig Bubble Bread. Huh? Yep! It’s fancy, fun, fresh, figgy and FABULOUS…. all the good “F” words! Watch and see how much figgin’ fun you can have with this bread and I hope you try this at home!


FIGGIN’ BUBBLE BREAD (…Thanks Lacey!)

1 package Fleischmann’s yeast
¼ cup warm water
1 cup warm milk
2 cups fruit preserves
½ cup sugar
2 tbsp. sugar
4 cups flour
½ cup butter
2 eggs

Glaze:
1/3 cup honey
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp. vanilla


First, dissolve the yeast in warm water about 5 minutes. Make sure the water is room temperature. If it’s too warm it will kill the yeast (similar in nature to Monistat) and you will have very, cardboardish, flat bread. You cannot revive your yeast. You will have to start over.

Next, add the milk, sugar, eggs, flour and half of your butter. Mix it until well blended and a soft dough forms. You can perform this step in a mixer with a dough hook, but I prefer to get my hands dirty! It reminds me of being a kid and playing with paper mache…ewwwww fun! Hopefully it will not turn out like paper mache or your figgy bread will be a figgin’ speed bump!

When done, turn your dough out onto a floured board or surface and knead about 6-8 minutes. To knead the bread, start by folding your dough in half. Push the dough away from you with the heels of your hands. Make a quarter turn with the dough and fold in half again, always folding towards you. Continue this method of folding and pushing by quarter turns and you are officially kneading your bread. You’ll know when the process is complete when the dough becomes smooth and shiny. To test, press two fingers in the dough. If the indent stays, it’s ready to rise.

Place the dough in a greased dish, turning to coat both sides. Cover and let rise in a warm, safe place about 1 to 1 ½ hours or until it’s doubled in size. Punch down the dough…this is a GREAT way to rid yourself of built up hostility… and turn it back out onto your surface.

Next, divide your dough into 24 pieces or dough balls. We can NEVER seem to get away from our balls can we? Flatten and fill each piece of your dough with 1 tsp. preserves, pinching each closed, forming your balls. (Men, I’d skip reading this next part… said covering eyes.) Put ½ your balls into a bundt pan and brush them with butter, then sprinkle with sugar. (Oh the visual!) Place the remaining dough balls into your pan and repeat butter brushing and sugar sprinkling.

Allow your balls to rise about 35-45 minutes, then bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Mix the ingredients for your glaze and pour over your bread. Let cool and serve. I hope you and yours enjoy this fine figgy creation! I think MY prisoners will approve.

Lacey's Thank Gawd It Turned Out Sundried Tomato 'n Carmelized Onion Sprouted Grain Bread

Bread. The final baking frontier. To many, me included, baking bread is a daunting task. Hell to be honest baking anything is a daunting task for me. I can make white banana bread. I'm beginning to think it is a "gift from God" to have that ability. Don't ask my how I do it either, cuz I haven't a clue...I have waited until the bananas are so freaking stinky they make me gag, and following my mothers recipe to a T, the shit still turns out white. At least I can take solace in the fact that I AM NOT ALONE. Thus, YOU are not alone either if you too have turned out white banana bread (although I am sure that I am a rarity in that regard), burnt cookies or just go for the Pillsbury can instead of making biscuts from scratch.

For a long time I gave up on baking. I just didn't do it. But my three year old daughter does much better when she doesn't eat wheat or too much dairy (and by better I mean she doesn't get ear infection after ear infection), so I've made the 110 mile trek to Whole Foods to stock up on gluten free stuff, soy yogurt, rice pasta and gads of other highly priced "non wheat" products. And about six plus months ago I picked up the book Essential Eating Sprouted Baking by Janie Quinn. I skimmed it once I brought it home and then it sat on the shelf for quite a while. I mean, it was about baking. Shudder...Baking.

Luckily I belong to a snazzy group of Four Chicks who encourage each other in the kitchen, even though we recently confessed to eating a shit ton of halloween candy early, and now here I sit typing up a freaking blog about baking bread. Go figure.

Since I'm supposed to be the Organic Chick in the group, here's what I got for the week:

I am using both buckwheat flour and sprouted wheat flour. Buckwheat is gluten free. That's really all I know about it, except for the fact that the consistency is like silt. It is super fine and not fluffy like regular flour at all. Sprouted flour is pretty cool stuff. Due to the way the grain is...processed...for lack of a better word, sprouted flour digests more like a vegetable than a starch. And from what I understand some people who have a gluten intolerance can eat sprouted grain products without issue. The word "enriched" does not come into play with sprouted flour. At all. Whatsoever. For that, we loves it much. (Read more about it here: http://www.essentialeating.com/, or google sprouted flour). Unfortunately sprouted flour is freaking expensive, and I've only been able to buy it online.

I'm also using organic milk, organic olive oil, organic sucranat, organic onion and garlic.

Recipe:
1/2 lbs total sundried tomatoes diced, sauteed onion and roasted garlic (I used my handy dandy weigher thingy)
1 1/2 olive oil
2 1/4 active dry yeast
2 tsp sucranat
1/4 cup milk
3 1/4 cup sprouted flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
2 1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp herbs de provence (rosemary and thyme)
1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese



Chop the onion and saute it. Set it aside to cool.

While the onion is cooking, place water in large bowl, add sucranat and stir to disolve. Next add the yeast to the bowl and let sit for ten minutes until it bubbles. Add milk to bowl and stir. (I used a Kitchenaide mixer)

Take out two cups of sprouted flour and start adding it to the wet mix slowly.

In a second bowl combine 1 1/4 cup of sprouted flour with the buckwheat flour, salt and dried herbs. Add this flour mix to the other slowly..I read something about salt slowing down the yeast processing, you don't want to add it too soon, so add it to the mix in the second batch of flour, blah blah blah -so I'm trying it.

Once you've added all the flour into the bowl and it is mixed up, add the onion/tomato/garlic and mix. Now add the cheese and mix. The dough at this point should be sticky - like when you put your hand to a Stick It Note sticky.

Place the dough on a lightly floured counter and start kneeding. Push the dough away from you with the heel of your hand, pull the flap back over, turn 1/4 turn and repeat. Do this for like 8-10 minutes. I set my kitchen timer so I wouldn't forget. At the end of all that, the dough should be elasticy and your hands should hurt. At least mine did. And bakers do this for a living? My God!

It should look like this:




Next coat a clean bowl with some olive oil, plop the dough in it, cover with saran wrap and let it sit. It needs to rise double its size. It took mine about and hour and a half to do that, and I had the oven going baking a butternut squash.



Now take out some aggression, but not too much, and punch the dough a couple times to alieve some gas. You'll hear a fizz/whiz sound when you do it.
Take the dough out, shape the bread into a round and put it on a lightly floured baking sheet. Cover (I used a warm towel that I nuked..yes I really did), and let it double in size again.

Preheat the oven, if you haven't already, to 450. Once the dough has doubled in size add some nice salt to the top with more herbs de provence, put it in the oven. Bake for ten minutes, reduce heat to 400 and let it cook.

Wa-la: BREAD!



The hubby and I both agree that the bread is damn good. The sundried tomato flavor is strong, but the onion and cheese balance it out nicely. The original recipe I used called for bread flour, and since I subbed that out for sprouted flour I added some sucranat, also not called for. It was a total guess on my part, but after studying up the bread recipes in Essential Eating, every bread recipe in that book calls for maple syrup or sugar (which can be subbed for sucranat and vice versa) and I've read on a few websites that sugar can help the yeast out - so I tried it. Go big, or throw it away I guess. And it worked.
I still think I might have been a bit too impatient on the second round of dough rising. I know that I definitely let the dough double in size the first time - I took pics for this blog and looked back at them to see (ha ha)..but I might have listened to the timer in my head a little too closely the second time. Next time I think I will be a bit more patient. Either way, the flavor of the bread is fantastic. And now that I've been successful in making bread, I will be ordering more expensive sprouted flour and trying even more recipes.
If there is any left over, I'll be using this bread for our sandwich blog next week. As it is such a strongly flavored bread, it will surely be a challenge attempting to pair it with veggies and/or meat to be successful. Looking forward to it!

WEEK 2: Yeasty Concoctions aka BREADS!

What do you call a bunch of blondes with yeast infections? A whine and cheese party! What do you call an anorexic with a yeast infection? A quarter pounder with cheese.


Sure. There are tons of jokes out there about yeast. But it’s a major component in this week’s experiment. The Four Chicks will take a basic bread recipe, and manipulate it, finger it, knead it, pound it, then let it rise again and pound it some more (maybe even add cumquats?). The finished product will be mouthwateringly soft and delicious, and make you want to lick every little white morsel off your fingers after you swallow it.

BREAD is the theme of this week’s blog. So pull yourself out of the gutter and concentrate. We will provide our perspectives on working with a basic dough recipe in our own cooking styles

What can four completely different chicks, scattered across America, come up with using basic bread dough? Stay tuned and see…we guarantee a completely calorie-free, carb-less, breadgasm that can cause mastification and jactation (look it up).

What toy will the Hooker Cooker choose for this session? Which personality will the schizophrenic Wild Card use this week? Can the Gifted Gourmet compete in a category that contains food typically fed to prisoners? and what kind of organic crap will the A la Carte girl decide to use? Stay tuned...and keep your vagisil handy.

Here is the basic bread ingredients that we will use and abuse and make our own.  Stay tuned to see how our loaves develop!

BASIC BREAD INGREDIENTS

• 6 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 envelope active dry yeast
• 2 cups very warm water, about 120°
• 2 tablespoons softened butter


(Fine Print: Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this World Wide Web site, mistakes will occur. Four Chicks will not be responsible for any damage done to your diet or your waistline following consumption of these recipes… We can't be held responsible for your actions. We are not acting in any way to force you to consume bread products; you are choosing to eat it! Continuing to read further means that you understand and accept responsibility for your own actions, thus releasing the creators of this Web page and our bread products from all liability.)