Cinnamon Swirl Bread/Homemade Bagels

Cinnamon Swirl Bread with the Bread Baker's Apprentice open in the background.

I've been slowly working on baking my way through Peter Reinhardt's Bread Baker's Apprentice. I definitely haven't been going in order, nor have I made much progress, but the recipes I have made have been delicious.

Since Valentine's day is coming up, I decided I better make some of D's favorite foods. I'd say his two favorite ingredients are probably garlic and cinnamon, so I decided to make one goodie with each.

He recently bought me two brand spanking new loaf pans, so those were obviously going to factor into the equation. Since cinnamon + loaf pan = cinnamon bread, I knew exactly where to start. I don't want to reprint the recipe, because you should really check out the book but here are the basics:
1. Make a lightly enriched white bread dough (some eggs, sugar, fat, etc. but not a lot), with about a teaspoon of cinnamon in the dough. (Too much cinnamon will slow down the yeast. Don't worry, there's plenty more in this recipe.) Knead in chopped nuts in the last two minutes if you want. (Reinhardt's recipe calls for raisins, but really, who likes raisins???)
2. To form the loaf, roll the dough into a rectangle a few inches narrower than your loaf pans and fairly long (12-16 inches long). Sprinkle the topside with cinnamon sugar and then roll the dough tightly, pinching the end shut to create a seal.
3. Bake as instructed. When the loaves come out of the oven, brush the tops with about 1T melted butter per 2 loaves, and sprinkle with any leftover cinnamon sugar to make a nice delicious crust.

That's an awesome bread knife in the foreground. I'll post on knives soon.

Yum!! We finished about a third of a loaf as an evening snack.

Yes, all of those slices (and more) went into our belly immediately after this photo was taken.

Next task: garlic.

Baguette Pieces

I made baguettes for the first time last year, but they go stale so quickly and it's really hard to freeze them. They're good for a nice treat, or if there are a lot of people around. I've been trying to stock D up for a week home alone, so that didn't really make sense.

They look like mini loaves of bread!

Instead, I decided to make baguette pieces, like I'd had at the Cheeseboard (also known for their incredible pizza). I have no idea how they get the pseudo-square shape to their baguette pieces that's just perfect for sandwiches. Mine turned out round and very small, but they're perfect for two small sandwiches.

To make them, I just took my favorite baguette recipe and split the dough into rolls instead of loaves. The shaping method is a little tricky and took me a while to get right (I used it to make my homemade bagels, too!), but it makes really nice round rolls.

I forgot to slash these rolls as well but they seemed to turn out just fine anyways. D said some of them were a bit dense, but many of them split and developed gorgeous crusty ears all on their own. I would suggest slashing them, if you remember. Don't worry if you forget, though!

Before making these, I recommend testing the seal on your oven. You have to steam bread to get it crusty and if your oven doesn't seal well, it won't work. Do this by heating the oven up and either tossing cold water onto the oven floor or tossing it onto a preheated pan. Close the oven door immediately and wait five minutes.

If you open the door after five minutes and it feels like a summer day in New York City (aka a blast of steam hits your face) then you're good. If it's dry as an Arizona summer day, look at the notes at the bottom for alternate steaming methods.

The directions below don't require a stand mixer. If you have one, feel free to use it; you probably won't need to knead the dough for as long.

Total time:
30 minutes to make the dough
1.5-2 hour rise
15 minutes shaping
30-45 minute rise
30 minute bake
= 3.25-4 hours total time, 50 minutes active time

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Baguette Pieces
makes 16 small pieces
adapted from Steamy Kitchen


Ingredients
4.5c bread flour
2t instant yeast
2t salt
1.5c warm water (approximately 110°F)

Dill Rolls

These rolls were very popular with D's parents

D's grandma, Kate, makes famous dill rolls. I've never tried them, but at least three months in advance of Christmas, D was already excited about having them for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, Grandma Kate didn't make dill rolls this year, and much of the family was left sorely disappointed.

When we got back to D's house from Christmas dinner, I made a version of dill rolls. We called G. Kate, and she didn't have the exact recipe, but we got enough to make a good first attempt.

My baking pans weren't quite big enough—the rolls merged!

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Imitation G. Kate Dill Rolls
makes 24 rolls

Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

We bought Panera bagels recently and they always come with too much cream cheese. What do you do with extra cream cheese? Make cream cheese frosting of course. What goes well with cream cheese frosting? Cinnamon rolls!!!

Well, as it turns out, these cinnamon rolls are so good that they don't need any frosting. (Good thing, because we don't have any powdered sugar.)

Any suggestions on using up extra cream cheese?

One cinnamon roll didn't fit, so we baked it in its own ramekin.

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Pecan Cinnamon Rolls
makes 30 small rolls
adapted from For the Love of Cooking

Yeasted cookies?

The original recipe.

I was poking around on the internet and found this post for yeasted chocolate chip cookies. I'm a BIG fan of yeast, so I was intrigued. I decided to do a taste test.

I baked up two batches of the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe, one with 1t of baking soda, and one with 1t of instant yeast. The smell and a quick email attracted about 25 of the people in my dorm and they voted on taste and texture.

Yeasted cookies on the left, original recipe on the right.

The results:
Taste
Yeast: 14
Baking Soda: 9

Yeasted cookies were the clear winner on taste, but there was more to this than met the eye. The yeast cookies had a much cleaner taste—it was easier to taste the actual cookie and the chocolate and the vanilla. The baking soda cookie, though, just tasted like you expect a cookie to taste—it was familiar, and therefore delicious.

Honey Oatmeal Bread

At some point in the last year, I decided I wanted to figure out yeast. This may seem ambitious, but with no thermometer, no guidance and no prior experience, I conquered the beast.

I started with bagels. In retrospect, that was probably a poor idea, seeing as bagels are basically an extra complicated version of bread. They weren't great, but they were edible and that was certainly a boon.

Next, I moved on to cinnamon rolls (actually, Alton Brown's Overnight Cinnamon Rolls, which are divine). I think the gooey cinnamon made up for any shortfall in my bread baking skills. This is definitely a great first recipe with yeast! If you're nervous about yeast, or have had bad experiences in the past, try it.

Finally, I tried my hand at bread. I chose it because I had the ingredients on hand, and had been trying to figure out a way to use them for about a month. I've baked it probably 10 times, with several variations. Here I'll give you the basic recipe along with step-by-step instructions for the novice bread baker.

Honey Oatmeal Bread

(from Lanier B&B)

Yield: 3 loaves

Ingredients:

1/8 cup active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water (105°-110°)

1 1/2 cup quick (or rolled) oats

3 cups warm water

1/3 cup melted butter

1 3/4 tablespoons salt

3/4 cup honey

7 1/2 cup bread flour