Making Master Mixes or Individual Prepackaged Mixes at Home

Sometimes, I like the convenience of having a master mix but I don't want all the chemicals and whatnot that are in commercial mixes. Plus, I like the taste of the recipes I normally use and they're expensive when compared to how much it costs to make it at home.

Want those $4-$8 fancy bread machine mixes? Want taco seasoning? Cinnamon toast "seasoning"? Cookie mixes? Pancake mixes? Cake mixes? Hot chocolate? Bean Dip? Baking Mix (ala Bisquick)? "Cream of whatever" soups to cook with? You know, those just add liquids, the contents of the package, mix and cook mixes? Those pricy who-knows-what's REALLY in them and has it been recalled mixes? What to do? Why make your OWN!

Make them yourself! Yes. You. CAN. Cheaper, no chemicals. Nothing but what YOU put in it. That taste like YOU made them at home - because you did! And did I mention - it's CHEAPER?!! You don't need anything special and I'll be that the ingredients are already on your shelf.

What are "prepackaged" mixes? Why nothing more than packages of (usually) dry ingredients that you add in the liquid to at home and then bake. Yeah, it's really THAT simple. You can do prepackaging of wet ingredients, but then it has to be used in a rather short period of time or frozen. For starters, stick to dry ingredient items.

 "Cream of whatever" soups CAN be made dry and then the liquid added back into them. They can even be "dairy free" and even GLUTEN-FREE if you use dried beans that you've milled into flour. Don't even HAVE to have a mill. I've done it in a coffee grinder (I don't drink coffee, so I don't have to worry about imparting a "coffee" flavor to my flour. I'd use a dedicated grinder for grinding grains.) And used a small canning jar instead of my large blender jar and "blended" the grains/beans into flour. (Bet you didn't know you can do this with any US blender. Yep, the "business" end of the blender will fit onto standard mason jars. You can use it like a "Bullet blender". No need to buy one!!) AND I've used my food processor to blend things to a flour.

Really, you can do this with ANY recipe that has dry ingredients in it. Pre-measure the dry ingredients into storage bags, jars, or whatever you like and store for later. Then when you're ready to cook, you've already got a lot of the work done for you.

And you can opt to do it two different ways. You can either store them in individual, pre-measured packets or as master mixes that you'll scoop out the designated amount of mix and go from there.


Individual Packets:

It's easy to do and I do this with my favorite bread machine recipes. While I'm measuring out the dry ingredients into the ABM pan, I line up several storage bags and measure out all the dry ingredients (including yeast) into the bags as well. I roll up each bag to remove air, zip or snap close and then mix the ingredients together so the yeast doesn't end up concentrated in one spot. I then put the smaller bags together in either a larger storage bag or a repurposed #10 can and mark what's in the bag. Since I use all whole wheat, I store them in the freezer so I don't lose the vitamins in the wheat. When I'm ready to bake, I open my cabinet over where the ABM sits, look at the 3x5 card taped inside with just the liquids I need listed that I need to add to the machine. Measure those out and dump into the pan, add one bag of the mix from the freezer and start the machine. Spend about 3 minutes adjusting the flour/water ratio and you're good to go. Perfect each time - well each time the power doesn't go out - in the middle of bread making! (Take it out, finish kneading it, if needed; let the dough rest for about 15 minutes, flatten the dough out into tortilla/pita/naan size portions and cook using "alternative cooking methods" - unless the power is back on. Then you'd just let it rise, shape into loaf, let it rise again and bake. You can even let it rise once in the ABM pan and then turn the ABM to the "bake" setting. No need to heat the whole house for one loaf of bread.


"Master" mixes:

Making master mixes takes a few minutes longer the first time you convert the recipe and some EASY kitchen math, but once you've done it the that first time and WRITE DOWN the "master" recipe, it's a breeze there-after!

You need to measure out - down to the portion of a tsp, how much a single recipe makes. Next, decide how many portions you want to store. Multiply EACH item in the recipe by that number, writing down how much you'll need in total. You'll only have to do this the first time you make this "master mix". (Just WRITE DOWN that amount and there-after you'll know) Then place your ingredients into a storage container MIX THEM WELL, mark how much you need to measure out for a single recipe and store that info on the container. When you want to use the recipe measure out that amount, add the liquid for one batch and cook.

Some basic kitchen math. Remember that 1 cup = 16 Tbs and 1 Tbs =3 tsp. So...
1/4 cup = 4 Tbs
1/3 cup = 5 Tbs, 1 tsp
1/2 cup = 8 Tbs
2/3 cup = 10 Tbs, 2 tsp
3/4 cup = 12 Tbs.

And measure carefully as you go so you have consistent results. So you can scoop, but make sure you use a knife or other flat object to sweep the excess off of the top to level it out. Do this for both measuring cups AND measuring spoons. Even a little bit too much or too little will affect how most recipes will turn out. (And yes, the queen of scoop-and-shake-off-the-excess actually does this with EVERY master mix and EVERY bread machine recipe I make.)

For instance, for a single recipe of ABM bread I need 3 1/2 cups flour, 3 tbs sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbs gluten, 2 tsp yeast. Mix this together and measure how much dry ingredients you end up with. (It comes out to 3 cups, 12 Tbs, 2 tsp which converts to 3 3/4 cups, 2 tsp for one batch.)  I want to have 6 batches stored. I measure out 21 cups of flour, 1 cup + 2 Tbs sugar, 2 Tbs salt, 6 Tbs gluten and 3 Tbs yeast. I mix that in a large container and when ready to use, measure out a single portion and add it to the liquid this recipe needs. (1 1/4 cup warm water, 3 Tbs olive oil). Turn on machine, adjust flour/water as needed to get the proper dough consistency. You really should do this each time you use your ABM anyway because it gives better result bread. It takes all of about 3 minutes or so to stand there and adjust it.

That's it. Yep. Not rocket science after all, though when you read the labels on prepackaged foods you'd think it was. 

If you'd normally cream butter and sugar together like for making cookies and cakes, doing this will change the way the recipe comes out. But you can always opt to measure the sugar into separate bags and grab a bag out for each batch you make. However, you buy pre-measured packages of cookie dough and cake mixes and it's all mixed together for you.


Shelf life:

The shelf life of any product will depend on how hot/cold the temperature is where it's stored and whether it has oils/shortening/butter, baking powder or whole grains that have been milled in it. These items shorten the "life-span" of mixes on a shelf. That's why all the chemicals are in store-bought mixes. It stops things from going rancid, though it can't stop baking powder from losing it's "oomph" nor loss of vitamins in the food. The solution to this is to either make smaller amounts of mixes and/or store them in fridge or freezer.And know that if you use butter in place of shortening, it needs to be refrigerated.

As far as I can tell from my research, most mixes that don't have shortening in it will last for 6-9 months on a shelf in room temperature. If it has shortening in it, 3-6 months. Spices are good for a year before they start to lose their potency. (And the year starts from when they're picked, not when you make the mix.)  If my spices are a little older, I just add a "tad" more to make up for the loss.


Using "food storage" items:

In some places, it's easy to find things like powdered milk, eggs and butter. It's quite all right to use these in place of the "real" thing in your mixes. I live in an area where I have to special order them and they are expensive, so I don't use them in the prepackaged mixes I make. However, to use them just substitute each item you want to use with it's DRY equivalent. Then remember to add the liquid you'd use to rehydrate it into the total liquid when you go to cook with it. So if you're using powdered egg and want to sub out 2 eggs, measure out the dry amount of egg powder (I think it's one Tbs per egg - so 2 Tbs) and mix that into the dry ingredients. Then when you go to make your mix, add in the liquid amount called for (I think it's 2 Tbs per egg, so 4 Tbs. And that 4 Tbs WILL make a difference in a lot of recipes - it's 1/4 CUP!)

Vital Wheat Gluten aka "wheat meat", bran and starch

Back in one of my first posts I have a recipe for "foldable" whole wheat bread. I mentioned Vital Wheat Gluten as a component of the bread - the one that lets the bread rise higher and lets it fold without crumbling. I'm just now getting around to giving you the recipe to make your own gluten, also known as wheat meat. By making your own, you also get bran and starch to use. Yes, this is the same bran as in what you buy in the stores. You can add some sugar to it and make a cereal out of it, if I look around, I can probably find a recipe for Grapenut Flakes.

Homemade Vital Wheat Gluten aka Wheat Meat

Ingredients:

Flour: Whole wheat is best. You get brown gluten, bran and starch from it. AP white flour works and you get a larger yield of white gluten. BUT you don't get any bran with it AND you lose the vitamins that come with whole wheat. Other flours don't work - they don't have much gluten, which is why, for instance, you can't make bread that rises out of all barley or all rye.) Remember to leave out 1 cup of flour and mix the dough well. Then look at the dough. Does it NEED the extra flour. I live in a very humid area (Georgia). I usually need more flour than the recipe calls for. The flour has absorbed the humidity in my house, so it can't absorb the water in the recipe. HOWEVER, if I pop a #10 can of wheat that was canned out west and then immediately grind and use it, I don't always need all the flour a recipe calls for. Since it's easier to add flour than water in a dough. I err to the side of leaving out some of the flour. Then I can always add more flour. This is true for whatever type of baked good I'm making, not just for making gluten.

Water: if it's safe to drink, it's safe to cook with.

Methods: There are several methods for making gluten. Mixing with a bread mixer, portable mixer, bread machine, by hand or by letting the water and wheat flour sit for several hours after mixing it together. I'll touch on all of these methods.

Bread Mixer: Tried this method years ago, works great. (Yields 2-5 cups raw gluten, depending on protein content of flour)
This is nice if you have a Bosch, Kitchenaid, etc. Can't use it if there is no electricity to power the machine.

11-14 cups flour
7 cups of water

Using dough hook, you can either put all the water in and then dump all the flour in the bowl at once, or add the flour in increments. Turn on, knead for 10 mins. When all of the flour has been added and is moistened, knead another 5 mins. Or knead for 15 total mins. Rest of instructions will follow.

Portable mixer: Tried this method years ago, worked great, BUT...since then, they have cut the power of portable (hand-held) mixers down. If you have a wimpy mixer, it's not going to work very well for you. There is a work-around that I haven't tried, but logic says should work. (Yields 2-3 cups raw gluten, depending on protein content of flour)
Saves you some work, but again, if power is out, you can't make it this way.

9 cups flour
6 cups water

Dump in bowl, turn on and mix at med. speed for 5 mins. Let the machine rest for a few minutes and then mix another10 mins. You may have to keep stopping and letting the machine rest. You don't want to burn up your mixer, so if it starts smelling hot. STOP and let it cool off! Rest of instructions will follow.

WORK AROUND for wimpy mixers: Put all the water and about 1/2 the flour in the bowl. Start mixing the flour and water together on medium speed. It should be fairly soupy at this point. Let the mixer work for a few minutes and then start adding in more of the flour. Keep adding flour until the mixer starts to slow down a bit. Kick the speed up to high. Do not add any more flour, just let the mixer run for about 5 mins or until it starts to "smell hot". Let the mixer rest for about 10 mins to cool off. Mix for another 5-10 mins by machine. You may have to let it rest some more. Then remove the beaters and start adding flour by hand. You want a bread dough consistency dough. Too wet and it's a sticky mess, to dry and it's too stiff to knead well. From the time you finish putting in the last of the flour, knead about another 5 mins. Rest of instructions will follow.

Bread machine:Trying this today as it's my invention. (Not sure of yield)
Again, the electricity is an issue. Also, my machine will allow 4 cups flour. Other machines have less capacity. CHECK YOUR OWNER'S MANUAL before trying this so you don't burn out the motor of your breadmaker! If you can't use 4 cups flour, then half the recipe and make more batches until you have the amount of gluten you want.

4 cups flour
2 cups water

Set machine on dough cycle. Let it knead until it goes to the first "rest" period in the cycle. This should be about 15 minutes. If it's not, then let it rest and knead again so you have about 15 mins total kneading time. (I would reset my machine to start, rather than waiting the 30 or so mins that the machine rests before starting to knead again. Rest of instructions to follow.

By Hand: Think I did try this some years ago, don't remember how it worked out. (Yield 1-2 cups raw gluten.)
This is time consuming and more work for you. You're basically kneading it like you would bread and for the same reasons - to activate the gluten. This is nice to know because if the power is out, you can still make gluten.

7 cups flour
3 cups water

Make a dough that is neither sticky nor too dry. You really are shooting for a bread dough consistency. So put all the water and 1/2 the flour into a bowl and then start adding more flour from there. You will need to flour the dough, your work surface and your hands to work the resulting dough.
Once the dough is a bread-dough consistency, you will either knead or pound the dough. You can use your fists, a rubber mallet or a rolling pin to pound the dough flat. (DO NOT use your good marble rolling pin on this one it WILL break!) Keep pounding the dough, turning it over from time to time and adding a bit more flour to your surface so it doesn't stick. It will take 15-20 mins to work the gluten, just like when you make bread. Rest of instructions to follow.

No-Knead: Not tried this yet. (Yield unknown)
No fuss, no muss, no worries if power goes off method.

7 cups flour
3 cups water
more water to cover dough

Mix flour and water into a dough. Cover with cold water and let it sit for 2-3 hours. Pour off water and mix until smooth.


Rest of instructions:
First, test dough to make sure that it's been kneaded enough. To do that simply take a small ball of dough (marble-size is good), flatten it out and then stretch the center of the ball out. If it just tears, it's not kneaded enough and you need to knead it some more. If it stretches and thins out, and you can start to be able to see through it before it finally tears, then it's ready to use. (Same as for kneading bread!)

Now that you have a lump of dough that has been well kneaded, your ready to wash it. You want to wash the dough to extract most of the bran and all the starch from the remaining gluten. We can save the bran and the starch for other purposes. That will be another post as will what to DO with all this goodness you're making.

Washing the gluten:
You need:
water
Colander
Clean pot, dishpan, large bowl, etc to set the colander inside of so you can catch the bran and starch. It needs to be large enough to hold the colander inside it and allow you to cover dough with water.

In the olden days of the 1960's and 70's, when we didn't think about "wasting" water, people just washed the gluten under running water. I reckon ya still can, but it will waste a lot of water. So I'm going to tell you how to do it with less water.

Put the colander in your chosen vessel. Then taking as much of the gluten as you can easily work with, put it into the colander. Cover the dough with warm (not HOT) water. Work the dough with an in and out movement so that you loosen the bran and starch. Keep working the dough in the same water until it toughens up and becomes the consistency of bubble gum. Repeat until all the dough has been rinsed. (Remove the worked dough from the colander before you put in the next piece.) When all of the dough has been washed, set the pan of bran/starch water aside.

Next, hold pieces of dough under a small stream of water and rinse until water is clear and dough is elastic and rubbery. You won't get out all of the bran. That's fine, don't bother trying.

Now you have gluten to make into flour or wheat meat. You have bran to use in recipes calling for bran and starch to thicken and add nutrition to foods, plus to use for pets, household cleaners, etc.

Whoops:
If the gluten doesn't collect or falls apart to the point of going through the colander, you have one of a couple of potential problems.
1.) Your wheat may have been soft wheat for pastries; or a "biscuit" flour like White Lily. You have to use hard red or hard white wheat. The gluten is the protein in the flour. Lower protein, lower gluten. All Purpose (AP) flour works too - if you know your brands. Anything that is touted as making biscuits tender is a pastry flour, not a hard wheat flour. The best way to get tender biscuits, muffins, pastries, etc. is to not over-handle the dough. But since too many people today have not learned how to cook from the older generation, they end up having a "heavy" hand. To fix that the baking supply industry has given us "biscuit" flour. That way, when people over-mix their dough, they don't activate the gluten as easily as in regular flour. The only problem is, most people don't realize that certain brands are using a pastry flour blend instead of regular flour. Then they have all kinds of trouble with any of the bread-stuffs that NEED to be kneaded. Low protein, low gluten = low rising of the dough. The sad thing is, they think it's their fault not the fault of the type/brand of flour they're using. So either grind your own wheat from known wheat types or read the bag of flour. You want to look at the protein content. High protein is about 11 to 18%. (Do I really need to tell you how I learned THIS fact. sigh) Bread flour will work, but it's more expensive. You may as well use bread flour to begin with and save yourself an hour or so of work.
2.) The pounding procedure was not hard enough or long enough. Both will cause the gluten to be underdeveloped. Do the window test to make sure it's been pounded long/hard enough.
3) The dough was not stiff enough (this happens when you use the mixer method or hand method.) You don't want a sticky dough. Add some more flour
4.) The dough was too stiff. This can happen when you mix by hand. You can add water into a formed dough, but it's a pain in the tush to do so. You have to really work it to get the water to incorporate. The best strategy is to not put in too much flour to begin with. You need just enough flour to make a dough that isn't sticky. No more. And if you're doing this by hand, make sure to take it out of the bowl when it's still a little sticky. The flour on your hands and kneading/pounding surface will incorporate into the dough.
5.) It was not kneaded enough. (Do the window test, even with machine kneaded dough!)

If you can, pound or knead the dough longer and test it again. Keep kneading/pounding until it stretches instead of rips. If you've already put the whole thing in water and it's falling apart, then let the mixture rest 4-8 hours and then try washing it again.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you what to do with the gluten, bran and starch.

No money to eat

One of my ezines has an ongoing forum for people asking what to do when they have already pared down their budget.
One poster was only eating bread and eggs. Here is my reply to her:

It is hard, isn't it? I'm a single mom, so I understand when there is no food budget. I work 2 part-time jobs, plus homeschool. I have kids in church and scouts, so I'm pressed for time as well.

One of the things I've just started doing is using sprouts. It only takes 2 tbs of seed to make a couple of cups of sprouts. I find seeds to sprout in many different places. I bought some mung bean seeds at the health food store. They were $7 for about 2 1/2 cups of seeds. There are 16 Tbs in a cup, so that's about 40 batches of sprouts for that money. Mung beans when they are eaten under 1/2" taste like sugar snap peas!

I have wheat. Whole wheat sprouts. Again, 2 Tbs makes up to a quart jar full of sprouts. They are a little chewier than mung bean, with a sweet taste to them.

You can also sprout raw sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, broccoli seeds, rye, oat groats, any type of dried beans, peas or lentils, etc. Many seeds can be found in the grocery store. As long as the seeds haven't been heated/roasted, etc, you can make sprouts from them. Even in my rural area, the regular grocery stores have a "gourmet" section where you can by grains. Remember, you don't need to buy a pound at a time. Buy a smaller amount so that you can afford it. Even at $8 a lb, a 1/4 lb is only $2. and 1/4 lb will be about 1/4 - 1/2 cup. This amount will make 2-8 cups of fresh veggies for $2.

Make SURE you use FOOD SEEDS, not garden seeds. Garden seeds are usually treated with some sort of chemical to prevent problems with sprouting and to keep them fresh.

Look up sprouts on the net and you will see how easy it is to use grow them, the flavors of the different sprouts and the HUGE nutritional advantage to eating them. Even if you only used them for 2-3 meals a week, at least it's SOME fresh veggies. Also, even people who are "allergic" to a food can many times eat the sprouts. Wheat loses all of it's starch when sprouted for a few days.

Use dried beans/peas to cook with. It doesn't take as long as people think to cook beans/peas. For the price of a dozen eggs, you can buy a 16-24 oz bag of dried beans/peas and they are much more filling than eggs, for the same cost.

1 lb dry beans = 2 1/2 cups dry beans = about 7 1/2 cups cooked beans
1 cup dry beans = about 3 cups cooked beans
14 oz/398 ml can beans = about 1 1/2 cups drained beans
19 oz/540 ml can beans = about 2 cups drained beans

That bag will make 7 1/2 cups of beans. Beans are much more filling than eggs! I cook mine by dumping the bag of beans out onto my table, sorting through the beans and removing any broken, moldy-looking or shriveled beans or stray rocks or dirt clumps. I scoop the good ones into a pot, doing a bit at a time while I sort. I fill the pot 1/2 full of water, swish the beans around, and drain them - to remove dust/dirt. I then refill the pot with water (about 3 cups for each 1 cup of beans, though I don't measure it.) and put on stove on high. Bring to a boil, boil for 1-2 mins. Turn off heat, cover and let sit for 1 hr. At this point, some people drain the beans and refill pot with water. I just turn the heat back on and bring beans to a boil again. Lower heat and simmer for 45 mins to an hour, or until tender. I don't add salt to the beans until they are cooked, as the salt can make them tough. You can season them after they are cooked.

If you won't be home, then either soak them the night before, or do the quick soak in the morning. Then plop them into a Crockpot and let cook.

If you have a pressure cooker, it only takes a few minutes to cook dried beans and you don't have to presoak them.

DO NOT ADD BAKING SODA. Yes, it will make the beans soften quicker. BUT it also kills the vitamins in the food. And if you're not eating them for the nutrition, they WHY are you bothering to eat them at all? No nutrition = a packet of sugar or cardboard. (Ever thought of food that way before?)

You can grow a lettuce "garden". On a patio, in the house or in the yard. All you need is some food grade soil (potting soil for veggies, dirt from your yard, unless you use chemicals on the yard.), and some containers. See Dollar Stretcher for the instructions on growing a lettuce patch in containers.

If you're buying bread, start making your own. Look at "Artisan bread in 5 mins a day". It's wonderful bread, VERY inexpensive to make and you do NOT need a "pizza stone". I went to the local big box home improvement store and bought a 12"x12" unglazed Terra cotta tile for $1.50. Wash it off and plop it in the oven. Use as you would a pizza stone. I actually bought 2 of them, but when I measured my oven, I forgot to allow for the spot where the rack sits. I should have gotten them to cut about 1" - 1 1/2" off the side of one tile and then it would have fit my oven and I could do French bread. But for now, the single tile is working well. With this same easy to make dough, I make pizzas, calzones, rolls and more. I use whole wheat that I grind myself, but I do have a flour mill I got used for $50. The recipe uses flour, yeast and water. That's all. Takes longer to get the ingredients out than it does to make the dough. Dough lasts for a week or two in the fridge. Buy the yeast at a large big-box store in 1lb mylar packages. Bring it home, put in freezer. I had a friend with a Sam's membership bring me two packages that were twin packed (so I had 4 1lb packages of yeast) about 7 years ago. I put them straight into the freezer and I'm still using them. They are WAY past the "expired" date. Total cost then was $4. I'm sure yeast costs more now, but it's still cheaper to buy it in large quantities than the little foil packets or the only slightly larger jars from the grocery store.

Rice. Rice is also your friend. A 2 pound bag costs under $2. Even brown rices is under $3 for a large-ish bag. 1 cup of uncooked long-grain white rice = 3 cups cooked so that's about 6 cups of a very filling grain.

To cook rice the easy way in 24 minutes: MEASURE out 2 cups of water or stock for each 1 cup of rice you wish to cook and bring it to a boil. Add seasonings - salt, onion powder, garlic powder, Adobo, etc. (or cook plain and season when ready to use). Add your premeasured rice. Bring back to a boil. Cover pot, turn down to simmer and let cook for 14 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit another 10 minutes. DO NOT remove lid at any time between time you put lid on and the 24 minutes until it's done! Most recipes I just "eyeball", but this is one of those things, like making bread in a bread machine where you do need to measure carefully to have it turn out well. Also, you want the rice doing a slow boil, without boiling over for the 14 minutes that heat is applied.

Rice, beans and bread all freeze well. So if you work outside your home, making and freezing these basic items will make fixing dinner so much easier. It will take time to fix these recipes, but do it in large portions. It takes no longer to cook 2 loaves of bread at a time or 4 cups of dried beans/rice than it does to make 1 cup at a time. (Well ok, it will take 8 cups of water longer to come to a boil, but that's a few minutes, not hours.) Put cooked items in a zip bag or freezer container in portions that YOUR family needs or that you normally cook with. Then just pull out what you need for that meal. So I freeze my rice in either 1 cup or 3 cup portions. I freeze my chili in 1 cup portions, then take out the number of bags/containers I need for that meal.

Shop sales and look at the reduced meats and produce. Also, don't pass by larger cuts of meat when they are on sale. The only store that I've had NOT willing to cut or grind sale meat is my local Food Lion and they're weird anyway. (I think it's the local manager's decision, not a franchise-wide decision.) Every other store I've ever been to will grind a large on-sale cut of meat to hamburger for me. Make your own "stew" meat. Any roast can but cut up into cubes by you and then stored in 1lb packages for soups/stews/casseroles. When chuck or top sirloin go on sale, have the butcher run them through the cuber 2 times. Tender meat, low cost. Repackage into smaller portions. Google "cube steak" for recipes that don't require frying.

When you come home, repackage any meat products in recipe or serving size packages. Know that 3 oz of cooked meat is the size of a deck of cards! I package 5lb of ground whatever in 1lb zip bags by dividing the package in 5 portions, putting a portion in a zip bag and zipping bag closed. Remove air and then flatten bag out. Makes it easier to store when they are flat. (Flatten all freezer bags and you can stack them more easily or store them upright. Use an empty cereal box like you would a magazine holder to keep them in groups.)

Honey Whole Wheat Graham Crackers and "gingerbread" houses

I have yet to try this, but it looks really good. You won't taste the beans or the vinegar in it and the beans with the milk and grains makes this a complete protein.

Part A
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (save out about 1/4 cup. If flour is very absorbent, you won't need the full 1 3/4 cups, but if it's already absorbed a lot of humidity, you may need a bit more than the 1 3/4 cups. By saving some out, you won't have to add a bunch more water to have a workable dough.)
1/4 cups white bean flour
1/3 cup dry milk powder
1/4 teaspoon soda
scant 1 teaspoon baking powder (scant=almost, but not quite, a full tsp, but more than 3/4 tsp)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt

Part B
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons water

Place part A in a bowl and mix it together. Make a well in the center and add part B.
Mix until it forms a dough. Don't knead it, just get all the flour moist. This is where you'll find out if it needs more water or flour.

Roll out dough to about 1/8th thickness (you can roll it in parts and use 2 pencils as a guide to get an even thickness. Place pencils on either side of the dough mass that you want to roll. Using a rolling pin, slide the pin over the dough until the pin rests on the pencils. Sort of like the skids used to move heavy pieces of stone.) You can also roll it directly on your cookie sheet, but you'll need one without sides or a pin that will roll between the sides of your sheet. Make sure you spray your cookie sheet with no-stick stuff before you start. After it's rolled out, you'll need to score the dough or cut it into shapes with either a knife or have fun with your cookie cutters.

It's best to prick the dough with a fork to keep air bubbles from forming. They won't hurt anything, just don't look as tidy. Large pieces have to be pricked.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Makes one jelly roll size pan of crackers if it's just scored into squares. Two pans if you cut out shapes.

This would also make a good "clay" for an edible project (don't know if I'd want to eat it after the kids have played with it for a while, lol). Let the kids model with it and then bake it until it's dry. Then they can eat it (or not). I would have them make the project in a couple of hours time, not let it sit out overnight.

You could make figures out of it, but I'd bake them at about 200-250 so they get dry. I don't know how long, as how long to bake will depend on how big the pieces are. You can make your own Nativity set. (This will make brown people/buildings. I guess if you wanted white people/buildings, you can make a dough from either salt or cornstarch and use that for anything you wanted to be slightly off white (salt) or stark, bright white (cornstarch).) Any of the above will also make good things to make cutout ornaments with. I have a set of 12 Day of Christmas ones that I've used. I poked a good size hole in the end so I'd have an opening to thread so I could hang them.

For those whom don't like the taste of gingerbread, they could also use this in place of gingerbread to make "gingerbread houses". It would take a couple of recipes, or only make a smaller house.

Download a template from the net or design your own house, roll out dough and cut out. It's easy to do. Use a sharp knife and a straight edge to cut 7 squares. 4 for "walls", 2 for the "roof" and 1 cut on the diagonal for the 2 triangular pieces that go to hold the roof up on the ends.

Place on a piece of cardboard covered with aluminum foil or cover the cardboard with pretty paper then on top of that with plastic wrap. Make this larger than your house and you can landscape it. Use frosting or make "royal" icing to use as glue - any kind that will dry. White icing makes "snow" and chocolate blends in with the brown to look like mortar.

Either use a pastry bag and a tip or fill a zip-type bag and just cut a very small corner off of it and pipe a layer of frosting on the sides of all the "walls" to get them together. Next put some on the bottom edges so it will stay on your cardboard base and place on the covered cardboard. Then attach the roof pieces. Glue all sides of every piece so that it will hold. You may want to let 10 mins go by to let the pieces harden a bit before you move them around. So do some gluing, let the pieces dry for a few minutes, then move them and add some more pieces. I'd let it sit for about an hour before I decorated it, just so the glue will have a chance to set better.

Now you're ready to decorate. Use whatever you've used for "glue" to hold your decorations on. Any type of candy is fair game. Just use your imagination. Dinner mints can be sidewalks or paving. regular chocolate-covered mints can be shingles or paving stones. Roll out gumdrops and cut into shapes, or make trees out of them. Lollipops make good trees too. Hard candies in a Christmas assortment (out at this time of year) make good pieces for decorating. Use some of the round pieces with the decorated centers for the "windows".

Or, before you bake the dough, cut "windows" in your wall pieces and add some crushed "lifesaver" type candies inside the cut-out square for stained glass. While the dough bakes, the candy melts and it looks pretty. Just crush the pieces very small and let it sit on the tray for a minute or two when it comes out of the oven so that the candy will harden a little before you move it.

Add a steeple and make a church. Only use 3 walls and make an open house that is decorated inside as well as out. Have fun and let the kids have fun. You're not making a piece of art for a prize, you're just having fun. Rustic is good! Don't worry that it's not "squared" or "perfect". You can buy perfect from the store, already done up. No fun to be had, but hey it's PERFECT. (or not. take a close look at store bought stuff and see the flaws in it.)

One last tip, if you don't want to make your own graham crackers, buy the store ones and use them to make little house with. You can make a whole village out of a single box. It takes 2 long pieces, broken where it's scored in half for the 4 walls. Another long piece, broken in half for two sections of the roof and another 1/2 piece, cut on the diagonal (a tricky cut, saw gently with a serrated knife to keep from breaking the cracker) for the two roof ends.

Hey, use some of those new mini, mini-lights and light your village with them.

Great gifts for grandma and grandpa from the younglings.

Or make "kits" either before baking the dough or after and let the grandparents play with the kids with this. (Remember if you give a before baking kit, it only works if there's an oven going to be available to bake the dough. Otherwise bake "blanks" and let whomever gets it do their own decorating.

So you kit would include either the dough ingredients layered in a pint jar with a list of the wet ingredients needed, plus the instructions. Or the dough that has been pre-made into the correct shapes and baked. With either one, include the fixings and instructions for the "glue", an assortment of candies (homemade or store bought), a pre-covered base and any other goodies you'd like to add.

French/Italian bread or tortilla pizza

Does everyone know this quick breakfast, lunch or dinner trick? This takes less than 1 1/2 minutes in the microwave, less than 5 under the broiler or less than 20 in the oven. I taught my 2 1/2 year old daughter to make these for herself on a tortilla - without the sauce. I was pregnant and in labor from 17 weeks onward and on bed-rest. So I'd lay on the couch and watch her, telling her what to do. This is how she learned her numbers! (I could see the microwave from the living room - it was in a small trailer.)

Take a loaf of French or Italian bread and cut it in half front-to-back so that the top is removed and can be set upside down (on what was the top) on a cookie sheet next to the bottom half.
Then put some spaghetti sauce or pizza sauce (even though I cook, I've never figured out how to have a different "taste" for pizza sauce, so I keep some Ragu pizza sauce around). Spread some sauce on both halves - how much will depend on how much sauce you like on your pizza. Add some cheese and any toppings you have handy. You can use amounts that suit you or more importantly for some of us, what's available to use. You can use less cheese or even cut the bread into thirds instead of in half, but watch your hand that you don't cut yourself! This would lower the calorie count, but still taste good.

Bake in a 350-375 oven or under broiler until bread is heated and cheese is melted and bubbled a little.

This can be frozen either before or after it's cooked. I prefer to freeze after cooking so that the sauce doesn't absorb into the bread and make it soggy. Either way, just wrap it well in whatever serving size is convenient for you and freeze. We eat it all in one sitting, but then, I have a teenage boy. lol If it was just me, I'd make the pizzas and then cook them, then cut the bread again so that I have 1/4 of the loaf. I'd individually wrap the other 3 pieces, put in a zip type bag, suck the air out of it and freeze. When I wanted pizza, I'd put one piece in my toaster oven on toast or I could nuke it in the microwave for about 45 seconds - or until the cheese bubbles a little. You're wanting to thaw/heat the bread and melt the cheese.

We also do the same thing with tortillas. Usually we don't fool with the oven we just nuke them, open-faced, for about 45 seconds to one minute. Roll them up or fold them over to eat. This makes a fast breakfast as well as lunch or dinner.

Serve with grape juice and a salad. Yummy

Buttermilk Biscuit master mix and recipes

Buttermilk Biscuit Mix

Some years ago I devised this mix and enjoyed it very much. This is a master mix, meaning that you make up a large amount of the mix and then use portions of it to make other things.

10 cups flour (white, 1/2 and 1/2, whole wheat; OR 8 cups white flour, 1 cups each bran and wheat germ)
1/2 cup baking powder (3/4 cup if using whole wheat)
3 Tbs sugar
4 Tsp (1 Tbs +1 tsp) salt
3 Tbs vital wheat gluten (opt. makes buiscuits lighter - especially if using whole wheat)
1 2/3 cups shortening*

Mix dry ingredients together (you can sift it if you want to).
Cut in shortening.
*you can use equal REAL mayo. (not lite or Miracle whip!) This will keep the biscuits soft once they cool, but then the mix MUST be refrigerated! With just shortening, it will keep on the shelf for several months.

To Use:
1 batch (6 cathead or 9 rolled and cut out)
2 1/2 + 1/3 cup mix
1 cup buttermilk (or put 1 Tbs lemon juice or vinegar in bottom of measuring cup and fill to 1 cup mark and let sit 5 mins. Yes, this will curdle and look nasty, but tastes fine after baking.)
Mix together to make a soft dough. Knead 5 times, adding just a little flour if needed to keep it from sticking. Make catheads or roll and cut out or roll out in your pan and cut almost through the dough where you want the biscuits to be. This will give you square, break-apart biscuits.
Bake at 375 F for 18-20 mins or until golden brown.

2 Batches (12 cathead or 18 rolled and cut out)
5 2/3 cups mix
2 cups buttermilk (or put 1 Tbs lemon juice or vinegar in bottom of measuring cup and fill to 1 cup mark and let sit 5 mins. Yes, this will curdle and look nasty, but tastes fine after baking.)
Mix together to make a soft dough. Knead 5 times, adding just a little flour if needed to keep it from sticking. Make catheads or roll and cut out or roll out in your pan and cut almost through the dough where you want the biscuits to be. This will give you square, break-apart biscuits.
Bake at 375 F for 18-20 mins or until golden brown.

You can also use this to top pot pies and casseroles instead of using pie crust or mash potatoes. Just pat dough out to size of whatever you're covering or drop like dumplings

To make Dumplings for savory or sweet foods:
Add 1/2 - 3/4 cups more milk to make a thinner dough, scoop out with spoon dipped in water and drop into boiling broth, juice, milk, etc.. Cover and cook for 10 mins, uncover and cook another 10 mins or until done. (Cut one and see if inside is done - light and fluffy instead of still looking wet.)

Biscuits, Egg McMuffins and dumplings(Edited)

I didn't realize that when I cut and pasted this recipe, it overfilled the area allowed and that the instructions weren't readable. Sorry. I usually check and try to be very careful with my posts. But I don't usually go to the page itself to check it. If ever you find another non-readable page, please let me know so I can go correct it.


I've had a request for my biscuit recipe. The Mom's angel biscuits is my favorite one.

Mom's Angel biscuits
	5 cups Flour 3 Tbs Sugar 1 Tbs Baking Powder 1 tsp baking SODA 1 tbs or 1 pkg. yeast 3/4 cup mayo or shortening 1/2 cup warm water 2 cup Buttermilk, warmed 1 Combine dry ingredients in bowl. Add mayo, water and warmed buttermilk. Blend well. You can either use it now or cover and chill. This dough will be a soft dough. 2 When ready to use, spoon a large spoonful into flour canister and shape into a round shape. Place on greased cookie sheet. Then turn on oven and set your cookie sheet near oven vent. When the oven is to temperature, bake biscuits at 400 for 10-12 mins. Until golden brown. Yield: 2 doz cat head biscuits. Eat what you want 'n' freeze the rest. Nuke for a minute or two when you're ready to eat a frozen one. Cooking Tips If you use shortening, it must be cut into the dry ingredients before adding liquid to mix. The mayo keeps the cooked biscuits soft - even when they've gotten cold. In other words, they don't get that hard outer shell that regular biscuits get.
	NOTE: When using Mayonnaise for baking (to keep the cooked baked good soft when it's cold) you must be sure to use REAL Mayo. Not "Miracle Whip", not salad dressing, not "lite" or "reduced fat" mayo, but the real stuff. Otherwise it won't work properly.

Oh, for all the Yankees (can ya'll tell I'm from the South? hehe) and my foreign friends I will explain what a "cat head" biscuit is. It's a biscuit that's the size of a cat's head. True, I swear it.
Without all the fur - fur's nasty, we don't eat that. Of course, cat is probably nasty too and we don't eat them either - unless you're from a different culture. I've heard that there are some cultures that do eat cat!

Most American's roll out their biscuit dough to about 1/2" thick and use a 2" cutter (or a kitchen glass like you'd drink water out of if you have company - no, honey, NOT the Mason jar, we only drink from one of those if we're by ourselves or on a picnic!) . Then they transfer the dough to a cookie sheet, mush the left-over, cut up dough together and reroll it until the dough is used up. That method is supposed to give you 5 dozen (That's right FIVE DOZEN) hockey pucks, I mean biscuits. And they measure 2.25" x 3/4" Just about right to play hockey, but no size to make a meal out of it. Plus, by the time it's been rolled out a couple of time, the resulting biscuits have some real chewiness to them. Makes 'em REALLY good for hockey then! If you insist on rolling and cutting, at least use an empty tuna can for the cutter (yes, you clean it first. Tuna biscuits - ewwweeeee. I don't like fish. Not much anyway. Fried catfish and smoked mullet are about my only fish eating forays. Shrimp and lobster don't count!) And for pity sakes, roll the dough out THICKLY I'm talking 1 1/2" worth of thickness. 1/2" thick biscuits - shudder!

Cat head biscuits are good size biscuits. The kind you can open up and put stuff on - like fried egg and a sausage patty, scrambled egg and bacon or sausage gravy. Substantial enough to make it a meal by itself. Who needs Micky D's? By the way, you do know that all an Egg McMuffin is is a buttered, toasted English muffin with a piece of Canadian bacon on the bottom, a fried egg on top of that and an piece of cheese topped with the other side of the muffin? So break your eggs in muffin tin sections, and bake at 350 until the yolk is just set. While the eggs cook, butter and toast your muffins and then make a batch of these all at once, wrap well, put in a zipper bag and freeze. Take one out, unwrap it from any plastic, wrap in a paper towel or cloth napkin and nuke it for 1-2 mins. Now you just saved $$$. And you know what's in it. I got one at Micky D's once and it had the root bottom slice of an onion on it. Talk about YUCK! And I took it to go, so there was no returning it. (I discovered it quite a few miles down the road!)

When I make my biscuits, I use my large serving spoon - this is larger than the regular spoons that you'd eat soup with, but smaller than the 1/2 cup size, slotted buffet-type spoons. I use this to just plop the mixed, unkneaded dough into my flour container. (This practice may be why the old recipes tell you to sift the flour. lol)

You can just scoop some flour into a mixing bowl and use that instead of getting dough particles in your flour canister. Anyway, you're wanting to take a big spoonful of dough and put it into the flour. Coat the dough with flour and shape into a round shape, with a flat bottom, tucking in the edges and making it smooth as you shape it. After doing a few, you'll get the hang of what you're doing. My biscuits start out about 3" in diameter and about 1 1/2" high. They rise and spread some as they cook so they end up larger, about 4" in diameter and about 2 1/2" high.

There's another way to make these. Take all the dough, knead it for a couple of seconds with some more flour - just enough to get it to a smooth dough instead of rough pieces of dough. Then pat it out onto your lightly greased cookie sheet and lightly score it with a knife into biscuit size portions. I'd make 5 scores the long way (6 pieces) and 3 scores the short way. (4 pieces) That would give you 24 biscuits. Don't cut all the way through the dough. Let it rise a little while the oven preheats.

Now there's one last way to make biscuits. My exMIL used to keep self-rising flour in a container. She'd pop the top, add her mayo to the top of the flour and stir it about. Then she'd add milk - yup right in the canister. She'd use her fingers to stir the milk in, then pull out some dough, shape and plop on the cookie sheet. That's a woman that's been making biscuits for 60+ YEARS. Personally, I'm not that brave. I'd have the whole canister oozing milk.

Here's my dumpling recipe:

Dumplings x1

This is good for one or two people

1 ½ cups flour 2 tsp baking powder ¾ tsp salt 3 tbs shortening or mayo ¾ cup milk

1 °If using self-rising flour, omit baking powder and salt 2 Measure flour, baking powder and salt into bowl. Mix together 3 Cut in shortening thoroughly, until mixture looks like meal. Or use mayo and add to milk then 4 Stir in milk 5 Dip tablespoon in cold water. Dip up dough, use second spoon dipped in cold water to drop dough by spoonfuls onto hot liquid. (Instructions say to drop on meat or vegies, not in liquid, but it's always worked out in the liquid for me. 6 Cook covered, 10-15 mins or until dumplings are fluffy and then another 10 mins without the lid.

Yield: 8-10 dumplings

Dumplings x2

This is good for 2 or 3 people 3 cups flour° 4 tsp Baking powder 1 ½ tsp salt 6 tbs shortening or mayo 1 ½ cups milk 1 °If using self-rising flour, omit baking powder and salt This recipe has been doubled. 2 Measure flour, baking powder and salt into bowl. Mix together 3 Cut in shortening thoroughly, until mixture looks like meal. Or add mayo to the milk. 4 Stir in milk 5 Dip tablespoon in cold water. Dip up dough, use second spoon dipped in cold water to drop dough by spoonfuls onto hot liquid. (Instructions say to drop on meat or vegies, not in liquid, but it's always worked out in the liquid for me. 6 Cook covered, 10-15 mins or until dumplings are fluffy remove lid and cook another 10 mins. Yield: 16-20 dumplings

Dumplings x3

This is good for 3-4 people.

4 1/2 cups flour° 2 tbs baking powder 2 1/4 tsp salt ½ cup shortening, or mayo PLUS 1 tbs shortening or mayo 2 ¼ cups milk

1 °If using self-rising flour, omit baking powder and salt This recipe has been tripled. 2 Measure flour, baking powder and salt into bowl. Mix together 3 Cut in shortening thoroughly, until mixture looks like meal. or add mayo to the milk. 4 Stir in milk 5 Dip tablespoon in cold water. Dip up dough, use second spoon dipped in cold water to drop dough by spoonfuls onto hot liquid. (Instructions say to drop on meat or vegies, not in liquid, but it's always worked out in the liquid for me. 6 Cook covered, 10-15 mins or until dumplings are fluffy, remove lid and cook another 10 mins.

Yield: 24-30 dumplings

My servings are based upon hungry teenagers. I'm sure regular people would eat less. I'm about sure that each large dumpling would be one serving of bread in an exchange diet.

Also, I use the same spoon to make dumplings as I do to make the angel biscuits. I cut WAY back on the SALT! We eat a lot, but don't use much salt. I don't like salty dumplings.

I haven't tried this recipe yet, but I know you can do much the same with the angle biscuit recipe.

Paula's Purty Nearly Instant Biscuits

6 cups self-rising biscuit flour (OR 6 cups flour, plus 3 tablespoons baking powder & 1 Tbs salt) 1 cup shortening (or mayo - if'n ya hate cutting in that bleeping shortening!) mix it with the buttermilk. 2 cups buttermilk OR sour milk OR yogurt thinned with a little milk or water 1 This recipe is inspired from somebody's very dear friend named Paula. It involves preparing biscuits from scratch and then freezing the unbaked biscuits. Paula created the idea because her family always wanted her good biscuits for supper, and she needed a way to make them hot, and fresh, even on days when she didn't feel like baking. The results are divinely inspired. 2 First get out a large mixing bowl. Measure in the self rising biscuit flour (or flour, baking powder and salt). Add the firmly packed shortening and mash it into the flour with your fingers or a fork. DO Not Overmix. The shortening should be casually combined with the flour, and small chunks the size of dried beans should remain. This is what makes the biscuits flakey. Now stir in the buttermilk or sour milk or thinned out yogurt. Stir it up until you have a nice soft dough. Knead the dough about 10 or 12 times. NO more, No less. This activates the gluten in the flour just enough to make good biscuits. Roll the dough out into a nice thick slab. I use a rolling pin, but any sturdy jar or glass will do. Cut the dough into biscuit shapes. Use a clean can or glass rim, if you don't have a biscuit cutter. Tuna cans are just the right size for big breakfast biscuits. Continue rolling and cutting until all the dough is used up. (Or make ya some o' them cat heads or pat it into your pan and score em.) 3 Lay waxed paper on a plate or large pan. Arrange the shaped biscuit dough on the waxed paper. Freeze a couple of hours or overnight. (If I leave any bread product more than a couple of hours, they start to dry out. So freeze for a couple of hours or cover with plastic wrap.) When frozen, the biscuits can be gathered up and stashed in plastic freezer bag. 4 When you want to cook them, just take out the specific number you want and place them on a lightly oiled cookie sheet or pizza pan. Bake in a preheated 425 to 450° oven for about 10 minutes. The biscuits will rise up beautifully and will be a nice golden brown when done. 5 These biscuits are better tasting, and much cheaper than canned whack-'em-on-the-counter-biscuits. The whole recipe makes between 30 and 35 medium sized biscuits, or about 20 big breakfast size biscuits (grand-sized).

Pita bread recipe for Lib

Sorry Lib to take so long to get this posted. Things have been crazy the last couple of weeks.

Pita Bread/French Bread
1 quart (4 cups) warm water
1 Tablespoon yeast
1 Tablespoon salt
4 pounds of flour (this is usually white flour, but it should work just as well with whole wheat. Throw in 2 Tbs of vital gluten for good measure with the whole wheat and it will be more pliable.)


Place 3 lbs of flour, salt and yeast in a bowl and mix together. Add warm water. Add the other 1 lb of flour as needed to make a moderately stiff dough. Let rest about 10 mins.

Pita bread:
Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
Pinch off pieces of dough and roll out into a circle. Make SURE you don't compress the edges of the dough - the pita can't rise if you do that.You decide on how big you want your final pita to be by how big a chunk of dough you use. Usually a ball somewhere between a golf ball and a tennis ball size. Roll or pat dough to about 3/8" thick - use two pencils on either side of the dough and use the rolling pin to roll over the pencils, with the dough between the pencils. When the rolling pen is no longer flattening the dough, it will be 3/8" thick. You want a circle of dough, so you're going to have to move the dough as you roll it out. Also the pencil trick will keep you from rolling over the edges.
Bake on bottom of gas oven - yes, that is the floor of the oven. Or for an electric oven, put a cookie sheet, upside down on the lowest shelf when you preheat the oven - or use a pizza tile on the bottom shelf. It will take a pizza tile about 1 hr to get hot enough. Tastes great, but uses a lot of energy for making one batch of anything.
Bake two or three pita at a time.
Bake for about 2 mins or until golden, then turn and bake on the other side for another minute or two. They should puff up. Use tongs to handle them.

Baguettes or French bread (same thing only one is smaller and thinner than the other)
Preheat oven to 350. Roll dough into two cylindrical loaves for Baguettes or one loaf for French. Place on cookie sheet that you have sprinkled a little cornmeal onto, cover and proof 30-60 mins for the baguettes or 1-2 hrs for the French bread - until doubled. When proofed, slash the top(s). You can also dust with flour shaken through a sieve or oatmeal, then floured.
Place pan in oven, drop 1-2 tbs water onto oven floor and immediately close oven door. Bake 30 mins - until inside bread temp is 200-210 degrees.

Do we need a recipe for flour tortillas? I have several if anyone is interested.

My favorite pizza crust recipe

We're experiencing a sharp reduction in our income and so have been living on our food storage - which really, we should have been using all along!

I have a nice electric grinder that will make a very good flour. I've been making flour out of whole wheat and some dried corn. We've been using both flours with our pizza dough. The whole wheat for the crust and the finely ground corn meal in place of greasing the pans. My pan of choice is my cast iron skillet, while my 15 yr old son favors a jelly roll pan. My 18 yr old daughter is an alien from some distant galaxy - swapped with my real child not long after birth. She doesn't much like pizza or whole wheat flour. Only a space alien doesn't like pizza - or whole wheat flour for that matter.

Here's the recipe we've been using in our automatic bread machine (ABM): (or by hand)
1 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp salt
pinch sugar
3 cups fresh ground whole wheat flour, you will probably need more flour if you use flour from the store. Store-bought flour has the chance to absorb too much humidity.
2 1/2 tsp yeast
corn meal for the bottom of the pan(s)

Add the ingredients in order to your bread pan. Set to "dough" setting. Turn on machine and make sure dough is of the correct consistency. Let it run for a few minutes and then look at the dough. The movement of the dough on the spindle is what kneads the dough. The dough should be moving around a lot on the spindle, not sitting on top of it or like melted wax in the bottom of the pan. If it's sort of just spinning on top, has sharp "peaks" of dough forming while it kneads, or the machine sounds like it's working too hard, you need to add water - 1 Tbs at a time until it is moving around on the spindle well. If it's sitting with a lot of wet looking dough on the bottom of the pan, you need to add more flour, again, 1 Tbs at a time. After doing an addition, let it knead for a minute or two to get mixed well before you add more water/flour.

As soon as the machine stops kneading, you can remove the dough from the pan. You don't necessairly have to let the dough go through the whole dough cycle - which takes about 1 1/2 hrs in either of my machines. If you have the patience/time to wait on it, it does makes a nicer dough. You DO need to let the dough rest for about 10-15 mins, so that the gluten can relax and not shrink back as you try to pat it into whatever shape you like.

A note about crust thickness here in the States. Years ago a pizza chain introduced something they called a "pan" crust. Most pizza here used to have an almost cracker thinness to the crust - about 1/4" thick. Then Pizza Hut introduced "pan" crust, which is a thick crust - about 3/4" - 1" thick. Next someone introduced "hand-tossed". It's about 1/2" to 3/4" thick. So I'm going to use these terms to define how thick a crust we make using this recipe.

We can get three 10" skillet "pan" pizzas, four "hand-tossed" pizzas, one jelly roll "pan" pizza or two jelly roll pans of thin crust from this recipe. Normally we make one 10" skillet pizza and one jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides on it) of pizza. I take about 1/3 of the dough and give my son 2/3 of the dough. When son makes his crust, he doesn't quite pat the dough into the entire area of the jelly roll pan, he likes a bit of a thicker crust. Done this way, I'd say both pizzas are of the "hand-tossed" thickness. We also make another portion of this with white flour for the alien child - if she'll even agree to eat pizza that day. We make a 10" skillet "hand-tossed" pizza for her and with the rest of the dough, we make bread sticks. Yesterday, her brother made garlic butter and put that on the sticks before cooking them. You could also sprinkle them with any type of cheese, salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, cinnamon and sugar, or whatever else your heart desires and you can do it before or after baking the sticks. I've watched both Domino's and Pizza Hut fix the bread sticks. They usually bake them first and then sprinkle either Parmesan cheese or cinnamon and sugar for the topping. Then they use marinara sauce for dipping sauce and just plain icing (confectioner's sugar, butter, vanilla and water or just the sugar and water). We use pizza sauce for savory sticks, icing for sweet sticks.

Once the dough has rested or finished the "dough" cycle on your machine, divide the dough as you'd like to use it. Sprinkle the bottom of your pan with some corn flour - in lieu of oiling the pan. Pat dough into whatever shape you want. Or if you know how, go have fun tossing it like they do in a real pizzeria.

Top with pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce or whatever sauce rings you chimes (you could even use Alfredo sauce - 2 cups thick white sauce with 1/2 - 1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan added to it.)

Top with your choice of meats, vegies and/or cheeses.

Bake at 425 degrees (hot oven) for 10-20 minutes. Thin crusts cook faster than thicker crusts.

I just bought a couple of unglazed terracotta tiles. I used one on the second shelf from the bottom of my oven - just sitting on the rack. It takes about 40 mins to an hour for the tile to preheat vs 15 for the oven to preheat to 425 degrees. I liked the way the pizza crust came out, I just don't use it often because of all the wasted energy to preheat it that long. I'm poor and can't afford to heat the stone just for 10 mins worth of pizza cooking. It's worth it if I'm making breads that day and will be using it for several hours of baking. It's great to make pita bread on, as well as peasant loaves of bread.

If anyone is interested, I can post the pita bread recipe at another time. Just let me know.

Sourdough bread recipe

There are some facts we need to know about working with sourdough.

When making sourdough bread, there can be a big difference in how much flour to use. The amount of flour to use will vary depending of the "dryness" of the flour type you use, how compactly you measure your ingredients and the amount of liquid alcohol present in the sourdough batter. All yeast bread has some alcohol in the making of it. Yeast breaks down the starch in flour into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. Due to the longer fermentation times in sourdough, it's just more pronounced.

(Note: As the use of alcohol is a personal call, I wanted people to know about the slightly higher levels of alcohol in the unbaked dough. I don't drink alcohol - it's against my religious beliefs. We do eat yeast breads and I do use small amounts of extracts in my baking. Extracts are distilled in alcohol. The alcohol does cook off as it bakes, but I still choose to not add alcohol to my other foods.)

When you are making sourdough bread, add about 1/3 of the flour the recipe calls for. Then start adding flour a little at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. (Remember we don't use metal bowls or spoons with sourdough, though I do use metal pans to bake in.)

Another tip is to add your ingredients by weight, which is how professional bakers and serious hobbiest bake all their goods. You will need a digital scale for best results. One that you can reset the tare and that will measure small amounts as well as larger ones - so you can measure your flour all at once instead of cup by cup, but also still be able to measure portions of a teaspoon.

One cup should be 8 oz. or 227 gm.
A teaspoon is 1/6 oz or 4.73 gm ,
A tablespoon is 1/2 oz or 14.18 gm.
(see http://curezone.com/conversions.asp for a conversion calculator.)

As with all yeast breads, you are going to have to knead this dough. Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead until it's elastic and smooth. Add extra flour a little at a time, so you don't make the resulting bread too dry. The dough is ready when it's not sticky and springs back when you poke it with your finger. (Like when you try to pat out pizza dough before it's rested enough and it shrinks back from where you just patted it to.)

Also remember that all bread doughs need at least one rising to develop the texture. Let it rest for about 10 mins and then shape into a loaf and let it rise. Or you can let it rise until doubled, punch it down, knead it a few times, then shape it into a loaf and let it rise the second time in the loaf pan. Sourdough takes longer to rise by about 1 1/2 to 2 times as long. So normally it takes about 30 mins to an hour for a loaf to double. Sourdough takes 45 mins to 2 hrs to rise.

Until recently, I never had a scale and didn't know about "baker's percentages". I just eyeballed splitting the dough up and it worked just fine for me. But then again, I can eyeball two spots on the wall to hang a picture and when measured, they might be 1/8" off. So perhaps I'm just a talented eyeballer. (American for the ability to look at two or more things and see if they're the same size, shape or on the same level.) If you're making more than one loaf or are making any of the shaped rolls that I posted about in Aug., and have used the scale to measure out your ingredients, then use the scale to weigh your portions. The bread will get done at the same time instead of one being ready to bake or cooked before the other is ready.

Once you have allowed the dough to rise, place it in a greased bowl or loaf pan to rise, grease top and cover with a damp towel. Allow it to rise in a warm, draft-free place. Remember, the cooler the place the bread sits in, the longer it will take to rise. If you have a pilot light, just place the bread in the oven without turning it on and close the door. If you have an electric oven, heat a couple of cups of water (stove top or microwave) to boiling and put that in a bowl on the lower shelf of the oven, then place the covered bread on a higher shelf. Close the oven door. Remember to remove the bread AND the bowl - especially if it's plastic, BEFORE you preheat the oven! lol

When the dough is almost doubled, preheat the oven. It only takes my oven 10 mins at the most to preheat, so you don't need to start it preheating as soon as you place your bread in the loaf pan - unless your going to cook something else while the bread rises.

A basic sour dough bread recipe:
2 cups batter
2-4 or more cups of flour (Whole wheat, 1/2 and 1/2, or plain white)
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs oil or shortening, melted an cooled a little.
1 Tbs vital gluten (Skip if you're using regular AP flour. Optional if using whole wheat.)

Mix 1/2 of the flour, sugar and salt together. Mix batter and oil together. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, add the wet mixture and mix that together. Then start adding enough flour to make a soft dough - this is where it will pull away from the sides of the bowl. Knead for 10-15 mins. Place in a greased loaf pan. Cover and let rise until doubled.. Bake at 375 F (192 C) for one hour.

I use very thirsty whole wheat flour, so it only takes me 2 cups instead of the 4 called for and I use honey to sweeten this and stir the honey into the oil/batter mixture. You can also use molasses, brown sugar or whatever sweetener you like. (If it's dry, add to the flour mixture. If it's wet, add it to the wet mixture.)

You can also substitute 1/3 cup - 1 cup of a different flour - rye, spelt, etc. for the same amount of the normal flour. (Since I only use 2 cups of flour, I don't want to use a whole cup of rye. That would make it 1/2 and 1/2 and it wouldn't rise very well - if I'm making a loaf in a pan. But if I wanted a "peasant bread" then 1 cup would work very well. I just know to expect it not to rise as high and that it will be a denser loaf.

I saw a suggestion of adding the juice of one orange and some orange zest to make an orange sourdough bread. You could do the same with lemons, limes or probably even apples - use a little apple juice or cider and grate some peeled apple or use applesauce.

Most of us who use whole wheat flour know that you let whole wheat rise until ALMOST doubled. However, I will also add 1 Tbs of vital gluten to this recipe so that I will have a different texture to my bread and it will be foldable, instead of crumbling as whole wheat will do and this will allow the bread to be able to rise until doubled, otherwise, the bread would collapse before it doubled. If that should happen, just reshape the loaf and let it rise again. It will take less time for the second rising that it did for the first - there will be more yeastie beasties by then.

Rolls, hot pockets, calzones and sweet rolls from bread dough, how to freeze these baked goods

Note to self: ALWAYS make sure you when you're editing, you don't accidentally highlight part of the blog you want to keep. Sometime the blog gets ideas of it's own on what you meant to highlight. Once you've hit delete, it can't be undone and you will spend the next 2 hrs retyping what you had just spent the previous 2 hours typing!

This post is about how to make dinner rolls, hot pockets, calzones and sweet rolls from the previously posted bread recipes here and here. Also, how to freeze the rolls/breads either before or after baking. You can also use biscuit dough and shape it the same way as loaves or rolls. Because biscuit dough is a quick bread, your baked goods will have a different texture than the same shape ones made of bread dough.

With all these recipes you will need to allow the shaped dough to rise after shaping it. Cover dough loosely with damp towel or greased plastic wrap. Let rise in warm spot until almost doubled. Bake rolls at 375-400 degrees for 8-20 mins (until browned), bake full loaves at 375 - 400 degrees 30-45 mins (until browned and sounding hollow when tapped on bottom.)

Loaves and rolls can be "glazed" by brushing dough with an egg/water wash then sprinkled with seeds, herbs, salts or finely chopped vegies; or baked plain. You can brush on butter after the bread is done.

"Brown & Serve" rolls are nothing more than rolls that were undercooked by about 5 mins. Your homemade ones can't be kept on the shelf - they won't have preservatives in them to "keep them fresh". But you can do the same thing by preparing and baking the dough like the recipe calls for, but then under cooking them by about 5 mins (they'll still be pale), cooling them, flash freezing them (place on a cookie sheet, place sheet in freezer for about 2 hrs), then placing in Ziplock type bags. Using a straw to suck the air out of the bag will keep them safer longer. When you are ready to heat and eat, remove the number of rolls you want to serve from the freezer, place on a baking sheet and bake at 375 for about 10 - 20 mins or until the rolls are browned.

Loaves and Mini-loaves:

Peasant Loaf:
You can divide the dough or keep it all together. Shape dough into ball and place in one or two greased 8"-9" round cake pans, 1 1/2 qt. casseroles or one baking sheet. Allow to rise. Can make 1-3 diagonal slits, 3/4" deep, in center of loaf with sharp knife. Bake. Makes 1-2 loaves

Coil:
You can divide the dough in half. Roll dough into rope(s) about 26" long. Coil rope in circle in the bottom of one or two 8"-9"round cake pan, 1 1/2 qt. casserole(s) or on a cookie sheet. Let rise. Makes 1-2 loaves

Twist:
Divide dough into 2 or 4 pieces. Roll into one or two ropes 26" long. Cut rope in half to make 2 or 4, 13" ropes. Twist the two pieces together and seal ends. Place in greased 9x5 or 8x4 loaf pans or on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 1-2 loaves

Figure eight:
Can divide dough in two or leave whole. Make a 26" rope. Seal ends into a circle. Twist the circle once to make an 8. Place in greased loaf pan or baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 1-2 loaves.

Dinner Rolls:
Round:
Form dough into twelve 2" balls. Place on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 12 rolls.

Vienna:
Form Dough into eight 6" oval rolls, flatten a little. Place on greased baking sheets. Let rise. Makes 8 rolls.

Cloaverleaf:
Break off walnut sized pieces of dough (about 3/4"-1" in dia.). Roll into balls and place 3 each in 18 greased muffin tins. Let rise. Makes 18 rolls.

Bowknots:
Divide dough into two pieces. Roll each piece into 20" rope. Cut each rope into eighths. Then roll each piece 8" long. Tie in loose knot. Place 1"-2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 16 rolls.

Crescent rolls:
Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Roll each piece out to about an 8" circle. Cut into 6 wedges. Starting at fat side, roll dough up toward the point. Place 1"-2" apart on greased baking sheet. Curl edges slightly to center to make crescent. Let rise. makes 24 rolls.

Fantail rolls:
Divide dough into two pieces. Roll each piece out into a 15x8 rectangle. Cut each rectangle longways into 5 strips, each about 1 1/2" wide. (1 1/2" x 15") Stack the 5 on top of each other. Cut each stack into 10 pieces about 1 1/2" wide. Place each stack in a greased muffin tin, with the cut ends up. (cut ends will be the tops and bottoms, long flat sides will be the sides of the roll.) Let rise. Makes 20 rolls.

Braided Rolls:
Divide the dough in half. Roll dough out into 14" x 12" rectangle. Cut the rectangle into 1" wide strips (12 strips 1" x 14" long). Braid in groups of 3 (you'll have 4 groups). You can leave each group14" long or cut each group into 3" lengths that will give you 20 pieces. Place on greased baking sheet and let rise. Makes 4-20 rolls.

Pan Rolls:
Divide dough into 3 pieces. Divide each piece into 6 parts. Roll each part into balls and place 9 balls each in two greased 8"-9" round cake pans. Let rise. Makes 18 rolls.

Knots:
Divide dough into 4 pieces. Divide pieces into 6 parts. Roll each part into 9" ropes. Tie loose knot in rope. Place 1"-2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 24 rolls.

Rosette:
Divide like Knots above. But roll each piece to 12". Tie loose knot, then bring bottom end up and tuck it into center of roll. Take top piece and wrap around and then tuck it under. Place 1"-2" apart on greased cookie sheet. Let rise. Makes 24 rolls.

Mini-Coils:
Divide dough into 4 pieces. Divide each piece into 6 parts. Roll each part into 9" rope. Coil on greased baking sheet 1"-2" apart. Let rise. Makes 24 rolls.

Mini-Twists:
Divide dough into 4 pieces. Divide each piece into 6 parts. Roll each part into 12" rope. Fold rope in half and twist 3-4 times. Seal ends. Place 1"-2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 24 rolls.

Flower rolls:
Divide dough into 4 pieces. Divide each piece into 6 parts. Roll each part into a ball. Place 2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Before baking use scissors to snip 6 slits, 3/4" deep around outside of rolls. Bake. Makes 24 rolls

Mini-Figure Eight rolls:
Divide dough into 4 pieces. Divide each piece into 6 parts. Roll each part into 12" rope. Pinch ends together to form circle. Twist once to make an 8. Place 1"-2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 24 rolls.

Mini-Subs:
Divide dough into 4 parts. Divide each part into 6 pieces. Roll dough out with rolling pin, use tortilla press, or a small heavy pan, covered with a floured, non-terry cloth towel to smash each piece to a 3" circle. Roll circle like you would a jelly-roll or crescent roll. Taper ends. Place 2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Right before baking make 2-3 diagonal slashes 1/2" - 3/4" deep in top of rolls. Makes 24 rolls.

Parker House Rolls:
Divide dough into 2 pieces. Roll into log and cut into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Roll dough out with rolling pin, use tortilla press, or a small heavy pan, covered with a floured towel to smash each piece to a 3" circle. Brush with melted butter. Then using the handle of a wooden spoon you will press the handle firmly into the buttered side of the dough, down the center of the circle - so that it divides the dough almost in half. Then take the top half and fold it over the bottom half - it will look like a flattened taco shell - with no place to put the meat. Place 1"-2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 16 rolls.

Butterfly rolls:
Divide dough into two pieces. Roll each piece out into a 10" square. Brush square with melted butter. Roll up, jelly-roll fashion. With cut side down, divide each piece into 8 pieces. Take a wooden spoon handle and in center of long side, press down firmly, hard enough to cause the dough to start to fold over the spoon handle. Place 1"-2" apart on greased baking sheet. Let rise. Makes 16 rolls.

BREAD STICKS:
Use 1/2 cup portions. You can either knead desired seasonings or ingredients into dough before making sticks; or go ahead and roll dough into 1/2" thick ropes and cut to the desired length, then brush with melted butter, then sprinkle with desired topping(s): Parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, garlic salt, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian Seasonings, sesame seeds, kosher salt, etc. Place the sticks onto a lightly greased baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Let rise 10-15 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 18 minutes.

Bread Stick Twists:
Do bread sticks as above, but instead of making straight sticks out of them, make your rope, fold into a U shape and twist the dough. I would add flavors to the dough before twisting or top after twisting. You can then cut the twists into smaller pieces or leave longer. Place about 1" apart on greased baking sheet and let rise.

Hot pockets/calzones (that's Italian for hot pockets, giggle):
Divide the dough into 6-10 pieces. The number of pieces you choose will determine the size of the finished product. Roll each piece into a ball. For "Hot Pockets", roll dough into a rectangle 1/4 - 1/2" thick. For "Calzones", flatten balls in tortilla maker or roll out to 1/4 - 1/2" thick. Put the filling on 1/2 of the dough, NOT near any of the 3 edges on the hot pockets or near the edges of the semi-circle for the calzones. You want this area clear for sealing purposes. Place filling of choice on dough, then lightly wet edges of the half you just filled. Bring the top, unfilled half over the filled bottom half, getting the edges to meet. Then seal the edges with a fork. You can either fill them on your greased baking sheet or use a large spatula to transfer the filled dough to your baking sheet. If I were doing large ones (6 pieces of dough) I would opt for filling them on the sheet. Then I don't have to worry about tearing the dough when I move them. Let them rise for 10 mins to an hour and bake at 375 for 10-20 mins, until they are lightly browned. Some people fry these instead of baking them. To fry you would take the filled, risen dough and slide each one, one or two at a time into a deep fryer. Fry at 375 degrees until lightly browned.

Don't overfill or use a real runny filling , it will make the bread soggy. If your making 8 or 10 of these from the dough, don't use more than about 3-4 tbs total filling.
Don't over bake them, it will dry the bread out.
Don't get the crust too thick. Remember the crust will rise while it sits rising and in the oven. You can control how thick they get, in part by how long you let them rise as well as how thick/thin you rolled the out the dough. You don't want a little filling and two thick globs of bread. (Look under Fillings to find out how to salvage them if this happens.)

Also, you can also use biscuit dough or pie dough to make these. They will each have a different taste according to the type of dough you use.

Fillings: Look in the freezer section of the store and see what choices you like. Pizza ones are good - a Tbs or 2 of sauce, 1-2 Tbs of chopped pepperoni and 1-2Tbs of cheese, ham & cheese, vegies, sloppy joe mix, scrambled eggs, cheese & bacon/sausage - let your imagination go to work. (If you should get too much bread without enough filling and they taste dry, you can salvage them by using some dipping sauce that goes with the filling. Pizza sauce for the pizza ones, cheese sauce or mustard for the ham & cheese, white sauce for the egg, cheese and bacon one, etc.)

When done, they can be wrapped individually and frozen, then nuked or baked to reheat and eat. Most people nuke them, straight from the freezer for about 1 - 2 mins, but you lose some of the crispness when nuked. Baking keeps the crispness, but takes a lot longer to heat.

Cinnamon rolls
This is an extremely flexible recipe. Use the amounts of sweetener and butter that you feel are sufficient for your family. What is sweet to us, may be too sweet to you. What is buttery enough for you, may be too greasy for us. This is permission to eyeball it!

Up the sweetener in the dough to about 1/4 -1/3 cup total. Run it through the "dough" cycle on your machine. Roll the dough out in a rectangle to about 1/4" thick. Spread with softened butter or just dot the butter. Sprinkle with what ever amount/kind of sweetener you like on top of the butter, sprinkle some cinnamon on top of that. You can add some raisins if you like them. Then roll up one side. Cut it into 1"- 1 1/2" thick pinwheels. Place in greased, round cake pans, leaving a little room between the circles, and let rise until about double. Then bake at 350-375 until lightly browned on top. Bake about 10-20 mins depending on the temp and size of the rolls.

You can vary the size of the rolls by rolling either the long side or the short side. If you roll the long side, you will have less layers of dough, resulting in a smaller roll. If you roll the shorter side up - which is the traditional way of doing it, you will have a large cinnamon roll. Again, you can choose which way you want the rolls. If you're watching calories, diabetic or just want a smaller serving, roll it long way. You could probably place these small size rolls in a greased muffin tin instead of a round pan.
You can frost it with some powdered sugar and milk glaze, cream cheese glaze or what ever floats your family's boat.

Pecan rolls
Same as above, only substitute pecans for cinnamon. Place some brown sugar or honey and butter in the bottom of your round pans and place the cut rolls on top of the topping in the pans. When the rolls are done, take out and turn pan over so that the glaze will coat the rolls, not stick in the bottom of the pan. Again, sweeteners and butter are to your family's tastes.
I would probably use about 1/3 cup brown sugar and 3 tbs butter in the bottom of the pan. I would also put about 1/2 cup nuts in the bottom of the pan - before I placed the rolls in the pan to rise. If you choose to melt the butter before placing it in the pan, let it cool just a tad - so it doesn't kill the yeast in the section of the rolls that sit in the butter.

Honey buns
Same as for cinnamon rolls, but use honey instead of sugar in the recipe and use honey instead of brown sugar in the bottom of the pans.

Freezing these recipes
I've never frozen these particular recipes, but they are similar to other recipes that freeze well, so I see no reason they could not be frozen.
They can be frozen before baking. Just make sure you wrap them well so that they don't get freezer burn.

Freeze the bread dough either in a lump or shaped into bread (or pizza crust, etc.) and wrap. When you are ready to bake, take them out and place them in the appropriate size pan. You can thaw in the oven set to warm or let nature take it's course in the fridge overnight or on a counter top for a few hours. When double, bake at 350 until the item is done. (bread in a loaf pan takes longer than bread that is round, than rolls, than pizza dough. Usually, when it's lightly browned, it's done.)

Flash freeze cinnamon/honey/pecan/dinner rolls in slices on a cookie sheet - before they rise. When frozen, place in a Ziploc type bag and then you can take out however many you want, place in a pan and let rise until about double and then bake as usual.

Another of my tricks is to look at other recipes of the type I want to make and see how long it takes them to cook and at what temperature they are cooked at. Then when I make mine, it gives me a guideline for temp and times.