Sour Cream Biscuits

I've seen several recipes floating around the internet for biscutis using sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream. I already have a biscuit recipe that I adore; but since I had scant amounts of all three of those ingredients in the fridge, I figured I'd use them to make some biscuits. They had excellent flavor and were very tender.

Ingredients:
2 cups of AP flour
3 TBS Corn Starch
3 TBS Baking Poder
1 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
4 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup cream
2 TBS melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Place the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and stir with a whisk to combine. Mix the cream cheese and sour cream, and 1/4 cup of the cream together, add to the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined, adding more cream as needed for the dough to come toghether. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut with biscuit cutters or a glass. Place 1 inch apart on a baking sheet. Brush with melted butter and bake 8-10 minutes until lightly browned.

 These were delicious topped with scrambled eggs with green chiles.










We also LOVED them topped with my homemade Apple Butter!

Pizza Dough

Before I got married, I always bought pizza dough in the tube from the grocery store. While my husband certainly loved the pizzas and calzones I made with it while we were dating, I felt the dough was lacking. I always wanted to try making my own, but I was nervous to fail. Shortly after we were married, my Hubbie surprised me with a pizza stone, which gave me just the right push to try my hand at making my own dough. I've tried probably 20 recipes, and after 4 years, I think I have learned and tweaked recipes enough that I have created a darned good pizza dough. I use it for so many things. Pizza, obviously, but also my Focaccia Rolls, bread sticks, garlic knots, calzones. It is very versatile.


Ingredients:
3.5 - 4 cups  All Purpose Flour
2.5 tsp Salt
2 tsp Sugar
2 Tbsp  Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 1/3 cups of Warm Water, 110 degrees
1 Envelope of Yeast

 Add the yeast to warm water and let it sit about 3 minutes, until it looks nice and creamy.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, fitted with a dough attachment, mix together the flour, salt, sugar and olive oil. Stir the yeast in the water to make sure its all dissolved and add it to the flour mixture.

With the speed on medium, mix until everything is combined. Reduce the speed to low and mix for 10 minutes.
Oil 2 bowls and set aside. Divide the dough in two pieces and roll into a ball. Place each ball of dough into the oiled bowls, seam side down and brush the tops of the dough with a little oil to keep them from drying out. Cover each bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place to rise. You want it to double in size, which usually takes about an hour. Then, use it to create a delicious meal.

I'm sharing at Tasteful Tuesday @ Nap-Time Creations.

1 Hour Dinner Rolls

Even though it is way too hot to be baking much here in The South; I just love homemade bread. I've made a couple of recipes for 1 hour rolls or 1 hour sandwich buns before and I didn't care for them. They were too crumbly, bland, etc. Anyway, I decided to try one more recipe since I wanted to serve fresh rolls with dinner. I searched the internet, many of the recipes were the same ones I had used before or required ingredients that I didn't have on hand. Then I came accross 1 Hour Dinner Rolls from the Inquiring Chef which she had adapted from I Bowl 1 Hour Perfect Dinner Rolls from Phmomenon which had been adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. I hadn't made recipes from either of the first two blogs before; but I've made a couple from Mel's over the years, and she hasn't steered me wrong yet.

These rolls did not disappoint. They were delicious, light and fluffy. I follwed Inquiring Chef's version exactly. Here it is. They don't have quite the exact flavor of a roll that has had a longer rising time will, but they are so close. I ate four with my meal. Seriously. Four. Then I had another 30 minutes later.

Ingredients:

1½ cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 Tbsp. instant yeast

2 Tbsp. granulated sugar

2 Tbsp. (28g) unsalted butter, softened 

1 tsp. table salt

4 cups (500g) all-purpose flour, lightly spooned into measuring cup and leveled off

 

For topping:

• 3 Tbsp. (40g) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tsp. sea salt

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, stir together warm water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes.
2. To the yeast mixture, add the butter, salt, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix on low-speed until the ingredients begin to come together. Still on low-speed, add 1 cup of the remaining flour and mix for 1 minute. Add the remaining 1 cup flour. Mix on low-speed until the final addition of flour is fully incorporated into the dough. Increase the speed to medium and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. (You will know it is ready when the dough starts to make a slapping sound as it hits the sides of the bowl.) Remove the bowl from the mixer and cover it with a dish towel. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 20 minutes.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form it into an even ball. Using a serrated knife, cut the dough in half vertically, then each half vertically again into thirds so you have 6 equal strips of dough. Cut each strip of dough into fourths by cutting horizontally to make 24 little squares of dough. With lightly floured hands, roll each piece of dough into a ball.
4. Place each rolled piece of dough into a lightly greased 9×13 baking pan in rows of 4. Cover the rolls with a dish towel and let them rise while your oven is preheating to 400 degrees F  – about 20 minutes.
5. Lightly brush the rolls with about half of the melted butter before baking. Bake until golden brown, 13-15 minutes. Immediately after removing the rolls from the oven, brush them with the remaining melted butter and sprinkle with salt. Flip the pan over to remove the rolls.

Focaccia Rolls

We love bread in this house. I made a batch of these on Wednesday morning and they were gone this morning; so I made another batch today. These are super simple to make and though we've only used them for sandwiches or eaten them by themselves so far, I think they would go well with pretty much any meal. For the dough, I just used my basic pizza dough recipe.




Dough:
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/3 cups warm water
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 TBS salt
2 tsp sugar
2 1/2 TBS Olive Oil

Topping:
1 clove garlic
2 TBS olive oil
salt
rosemary

Proof the yeast in the warm water. You want the water around 110 degrees F. Too hot and you'll kill the yeast.

I use a stand mixer, but you can do the mixing and kneading by hand if you want to. I use the dough hook attachment for my KitchenAid. Mix everything except the water/yeast mixture in the bowl, then add the water/yeast mixture. Combine them on medium speed, about 4. As soon as a ball starts to form,  switch it down to 1. Set a timer, and let it go for 10 minutes. Unless you have one VERY large bowl, find two large bowls, and grease them well with olive oil.

After the dough is nice and kneaded, place it onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into two equal parts. Form each one into a nice, tight ball and place in the bowls seam side down. Brush the tops with more olive oil and cover with plastic wrap. Put them in a warm, draft-free place to rise for about 45 minutes. I use my oven for this.

After the dough is nice and risen, punch it down. Lightly flour your work surface, sprinkle flour on each side on the dough. I actually just drop each piece into my flour bin. Then place the dough on your work surface and pat or roll out into about a 10-12 inch circle/oval shape. Cut into four equal pieces. I just cut it in half vertically and again horizontally. Place on greased baking sheet. Do this for both dough rounds. Note: this is the size I used for sandwich buns, and they are pretty large. When I made them today, I cut one ball into 8 pieces, which would be more appropriate for a dinner roll. I also recommend using 2 baking sheets, as these rise quite a bit.

Using a microplane-type grater, grate the garlic into a small dish, stir in the olive oil. Brush this mixture over all of the rolls, then sprinkle with rosemary and salt. I didn't put rosemary on half of these since I wanted to use them for Cuban sandwiches.

 Let the rolls rise again for 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and bake for 18-20 minutes.

Restaurant Style Bread Sticks

These breadsticks are delicious. It's just a basic dinner roll recipe, rolled into sticks instead of rolls. I also topped them with plenty of melted garlic butter. Delicious. They taste very similar to those served at a popular Italian chain restaurant. I rolled this batch a little short and thick, but they still taste great. They were soo good that I din't ge tto take a picture of them fully baked, they were gone too quickly.

Dough:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs yeast
1 Tbs salt (yes, the recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon, which I use every time and they turn out great.)
2 Tbs butter, softened
4-5 Cups flour

Topping:
3 Tbs butter melted
sea salt
1 tsp garlic powder



For the dough, pour the water into a stand mixer with the sugar and yeast, let that sit and froth for about 10 minutes. Add salt, butter, and 2 cups of flour. Mix the dough on low. Add the rest of the flour a half cup at a time, until dough scrapes the sides of the bowl clean. Mix the dough about 5 minutes on medium speed, until its soft and easy to work with.
Let the dough rest in the bowl until doubled in size, about 1 hour and then roll it out. Roll the dough out into a long log, spray a knife with cooking spray and cut the dough into 12-14 pieces. Roll those pieces into about 6 inch long snakes. Spray 2 large cookie sheets with cooking spray, ( I usually only use one) and lay the breadsticks out leaving about 2 inches between each one.
Place them in the oven with the temperature turned to 170 degrees. Let them rise for about 15 minutes, or until doubled in size.( I have also let them sit at room temp until they are doubled in size and then bake them in the oven)
Once risen, brush them with the 1 1/2 T of melted butter and sprinkle them with salt. Now preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake them for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown. While they are baking combine the rest of the melted butter with 1 tsp garlic powder. When the breadsticks are golden brown, remove them from the oven and brush them with the butter/garlic mixture.

Pizza Parlor Style Breadsticks

These remind me of the breadsticks from the pizza parlor where we had our soccer parties when I was a kid. They can be made from start to finish in under an hour. They go well with a variety of meals.

Warm water - 1 - 1.5 cups

Yeast - 1 TBS

Sugar - 2 TBS

1/4 tsp salt

3 cups flour

1/2 stick butter, melted

Garlic Powder

Basil, dried

Oregano, dried

Parsley, dried

Parmesan

Preheat oven to 175. Combine water, yeast, and sugar in the bowl of your mixer. Let stand 5 minutes. Combine flour and salt, add 1 cup to yeast mixture, attach dough hook, and mix on low speed. Continue to add flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time. Depending on the day, you may need to add a few drops more water or flour. Once combined, allow machine to knead for 5 minutes. After kneading is finished, allow the dough to sit for 10 minutes.

Line a large baking sheet with foil, pour 1/4 - 1/2 of the butter on the sheet and spread it around. Move the dough to the sheet. Press it out a little. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Spread dough to the edges of the pan, it will spring back a little, but make it go as far as you can. Pour the remaining butter on top and spread it around. Sprinkle with the garlic powder, herbs, and parmesan. I never measure.

Place in 175 degree oven for 10 minutes, they should plumb up nicely. Increase the heat to 350 and bake for another 10 minutes. Scrumptious.