Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Starter Dough Bake Off - Part 3...

8:06 pm - 34 degrees out - calm night...

10 days ago, my daughter challenged me to a bread bake off and here is the first one...


Using the Amish Friendship Bread started that I started 10 days ago, I divided it into 5 bags - 1 went to a friend, 3 went to the freezer, and 1 went to make this delicious Cinnamon Bread, which everyone loved!


Caitlyn's recipe is more complicated than mine, and she'll be baking her bread tomorrow.

Here is the recipe I used:

Amish Friendship Cinnamon Bread

1 cup Amish Friendship Bread starter
2 cups flour
3 eggs
1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon 
2 tablespoons brown sugar 

Preheat over to 350°. 
Mix everything together (minus the cinnamon and brown sugar). In a separate bowl, mix the cinnamon and brown sugar. Grease 2 loaf pans. Pour about half an inch of batter into each loaf pan, then top with a light layer of the cinnamon mix. Pour another batter layer, followed by a light cinnamon mix layer. Continue to do this ending with cinnamon mix layer.
Bake for 1 hour or until done.
Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Starter Dough Bake Off - Part 2 – Amish Friendship Bread Starter...


11:17 am - 33 degrees outside - blue sky, sunshine, 3-4" of snow on the ground...

Who can make the better bread starter...? That is the current question right now in our house.

I want to make sure that our kids know how to cook, so they pretty much have free reign to experiment in the kitchen – as long as they clean up after themselves! Our daughter has been on a sourdough bread kick lately, and that somehow got turned into a challenge of who could make the better bread starter. 

Caitlyn chose a sourdough starter that she found on the Homestead and Chill blog - recipe posted on Starter Dough Bake Off – Part 1 – Sourdough Starter {click here}. Caitlyn chose this starter recipe because it had good reviews.

I chose an Amish friendship bread starter that I found on The Benson Street blog – recipe posted below. I chose this starter recipe because I’ve made Amish friendship bread ages ago and once you have the starter you can add in different flavors to switch it up.

In 10 days, we will be turning our starter doughs into bread and have a blind taste test where the guys will decide which starter is the winner!

Caitlyn's starter is on the left, and my starter is on the right.

AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD STARTER
by The Benson Street

Bread Batter Start: Mix 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, and 1 cup sugar in a gallon sized plastic Ziploc bag.

Do not use a metal spoon or bowl for mixing. Do not refrigerate. If air gets into the bag, let it out. It is normal for the batter to rise, bubble and ferment.

Day 1:  This is the day you either make your bread starter (1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, mixed and stored in a gallon Ziploc bag) or you receive bread starter from someone in which case, you do nothing with it other plan place it on your counter.

Day 2:  Mush the bag.

Day 3:  Mush the bag.

Day 4:  Mush the bag.

Day 5:  Mush the bag.

Day 6:  Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, and 1 cup sugar to the bag and mush it thoroughly together.

Day 7:  Mush the bag.

Day 8:  Mush the bag.

Day 9:  Mush the bag.

Day 10:  Pour starter mix into a large bowl and add 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, and 1 cup sugar. Stir and put 1 cup of starter into four separate gallon sized Ziploc bags. Keep one for yourself and give the other starter bags to friends.  If you want to make Amish Friendship Bread once, you’re done. But if you want to be able to bake it whenever you’d like, save an extra bag for yourself and either toss it into the freezer until ready to use or start the process all over again, treating Day 10 as Day 1. The starter tastes better over time, so rather than making it fresh whenever you want some Amish Friendship Bread, consider keeping a bag on hand.

And now its time to bake it! There are so many uses for the starter, and here is just one of them:

Amish Friendship Monkey Bread

Dough:
1 cup Amish Friendship Bread starter
2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
½ cup shortening
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder

Gooey Cinnamon Mixture:
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Dry Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture:
1 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl, combine starter, flour and milk. Mix well.
2. Set aside at room temperature overnight.
3. The next day, preheat oven to 350° F (175° C).
4. Stir the starter mixture and add the remaining dough ingredients.
5. Pour onto a well-floured surface.
6. Knead until dough is elastic but no longer sticky. Add flour as necessary but be careful not to over knead as it will make the dough tough.
7. Shape dough into a large ball and let it rest while making the gooey cinnamon mixture.
8. Add the gooey cinnamon mixture ingredients into a sauce pan and cook over medium heat until sugar has dissolved.
9. Grease or spray Bundt pan, then pour a thin layer of the gooey cinnamon mixture to the bottom.
10. The dough is ready if you press a finger into it and it springs back. Pull apart about 40 dough balls, approximately 1¼" in diameter. For an extra cinnamon-y hit, roll each ball in the dry cinnamon-sugar mixture.
11. Layer the dough balls to the pan and pour the remaining gooey cinnamon mixture on top.
12. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly on top.
13. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.
14. Take a plate and place it upside down over Bundt pan. Flip right side up onto plate. If desired, use a vanilla drizzle on top before serving.
15. ENJOY!

Starter Dough Bake Off - Part 1 – Sourdough Starter...


10:25 am - 32 degrees outside - blue sky, sunshine, 3-4" of snow on the ground...

Who can make the better bread starter...? That is the current question right now in our house.

I want to make sure that our kids know how to cook, so they pretty much have free reign to experiment in the kitchen – as long as they clean up after themselves! Our daughter has been on a sourdough bread kick lately, and that somehow got turned into a challenge of who could make the better bread starter. 

Caitlyn chose a sourdough starter that she found on the Homestead and Chill blog - recipe posted below. Caitlyn chose this starter recipe because it had good reviews.

I chose an Amish friendship bread starter that I found on The Benson Street blog – recipe posted on Starter Dough Bake Off – Part 2 – Amish Friendship Bread {click here}. I chose this starter recipe because I’ve made Amish friendship bread ages ago and once you have the starter you can add in different flavors to switch it up.

Caitlyn's starter is on the left, and my starter is on the right.

SOURDOUGH STARTER
by Homestead and Chill

Ingredients:
500 grams of organic white bread flour
1 large apple, grated (keep skins, but avoid the core)
360 mL room temperature filtered water
Large glass air-tight container
Digital kitchen scale

Step 1:  In a large mixing bowl, weight out 500 grams of organic white bread flour. Different flours weigh varying amounts, so it must be weighed to be accurate.

Step 2:  Grate your large apple. Keep the skins, but avoid the core. Add the grated apple to the bowl of flour. Some homemade sourdough starter recipes do call for flour and water only, however, flour and water can be pretty sterile. With the addition of apple, it basically stacks the odds in your favor that your starter will get active!

Step 3:  Measure out 360 mL of room temperature filtered water. Add this to the bowl of apple and flour, and mix thoroughly. Avoiding chlorinated water is pretty important when it comes to any fermentation process, including making sourdough. You will likely need to get in there and use your hands to do so, so wash up really well first!

Step 4: Dump, pour, or otherwise scoop the flour, apple, water combo into an air-tight container. The container needs to be large enough to allow for at least doubling in size, if not more.

Step 5:  It’s time to close the container up and watch her rise! But first, using some kind of washable marker that writes on glass, draw a little line on the side of your container at the top level of the mixture – this is so you may monitor its growth.

The mixture will now sit for 3 days. Keeping it in a spot that is about 70° to 75° degrees is ideal.

DAY FOUR - (72 hours after Step 5) After 3 days, the mixture should be a bit bubbly. It most likely has risen, and should smell sweet and tangy, sort of like apple cider vinegar! It may have also darkened in color a bit.

Step 6:  It’s time to do the first discard. To discard, first stir the mixture to knock out any air to let it fall back down to a more condensed state. Then you want to discard half of that amount (you’ll find out what to do with the discarded portion towards the end of this post).

Step 7:  After you discard, now it’s time to “feed” your starter. With your 3-day old sourdough starter, mix in another 250 grams of bread flour and 170 mL of tepid filtered water. Mix thoroughly.

Step 8:  Re-mark the top of the mixture height on your container if needed. Now let it sit for another 2 days or 48 hours.

DAY SIX – (48 hours after Step 8) There should be a lot of activity and small bubbles now. It has most likely risen even higher than the first time.

Step 9:  Repeat Steps 6 and 7 – the discard and feed. After mixing and discarding, add the same 250 grams of flour and 170 mL of water, and then a few extra splashes of water – maybe about 30-40 mL more – until the desired consistency of a “wet, sloppy dough” is reached.

Step 10:  Cover the sourdough starter and let it sit out one final time. This time is only for 24 hours.

DAY SEVEN – If you starter is bubbly and active after those last 24 hours – congrats, you did it! You now have a sourdough starter that is ready to bake with.

Step 11:  You bake with it! Here is a Simple No-Knead Sourdough Bread Recipe {click here}.

What to do with discarded sourdough starter? So many options! If you have chickens, they really enjoy eating the discarded starter. It is full of healthy probiotics for them. Some people make pancakes, pizza dough, muffins or all sorts of things with it. Worst case scenario, throw it into your compost and bury it.