Yeast | Eat at Home

Chicago Style Pizza Pot Pie – Take 3

June 2, 2010 by Tiffany

This is my third time try at this recipe. It’s not that I didn’t like the first two tries. Quite the opposite, actually. We like it so much that it’s worth making over and over. This time I decided to try one great big pie, instead of the individuals that use ramekins. Not everyone has 6 ramekins or wants to go to the trouble to make them individually.

I’m happy to report that this is my favorite version and it’s also the easiest. It has an easy homemade crust, but I used store-bought pizza sauce. Italian sausage and mozzarella make it as meaty and cheesy as you would expect from a Chicago style pizza.

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Filed under: Main Dish Tagged with flour, garlic, Italian sausage, mozzarella, onion, pizza sauce, yeast8 Comments

Cherry Coffee Cake

February 24, 2010 by Tiffany

My mom used to make this when I was little. The cake is moist and sweet. Anything with cherries is a favorite of mine, but you can use any flavor of pie filling that you like. What makes this dessert even better and easier is the fact that it uses a yellow cake mix. Here’s what you’ll need: [Read more...]

Filed under: Breakfast, Dessert Tagged with cherries, flour, yeast, yellow cake mix5 Comments

Angel Biscuits

January 28, 2010 by Tiffany

These soft biscuits are so good, with a bit of yeast flavor. You can eat them for breakfast or serve them at dinner. The recipe makes a bunch, but the dough stores in the fridge for a few days. I think you could also roll and cut them, then freeze them for later. [Read more...]

Filed under: Baked Goods, Breakfast Tagged with butter, buttermilk, flour, yeast4 Comments

Yeast Cornbread

December 5, 2009 by Tiffany

yeast cornbread done

Next time, I’m going to double this recipe. This bread is good stuff. I made it on Thanksgiving Day to go with our soup. My mom gave me the recipe, but I think it originally comes from Taste of Home Magazine. Don’t be afraid of the yeast in this recipe. It’s very easy to make. [Read more...]

Filed under: bread Tagged with cornmeal, flour, yeast6 Comments

Sausage and Mozzarella Calzones with Homemade Pizza Crust

June 4, 2009 by Tiffany

calzones-done

Oh, yeah. These were good. Meaty, cheesy and full of flavor. I made them last week during the challenge to eat from the pantry and freezer. I guess you could say they were inspired by ingredients I had on hand and a desire to eat calzones.

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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged with Italian, mozzarella, pizza crust, sausage, yeast122 Comments

Depression Era Homemade Bread

March 15, 2009 by Tiffany

Have you seen Clara of Depression Coooking with Clara on the news lately? She is 93 years old and has her own blog and several videos on youtube. With the downturn of the economy, people are very interested in being frugal. Clara shares recipes and stories from her own life during the Great Depression.

I watched her youtube video on making bread. I’ve altered it a bit, but not much. Clara says she uses 5 lbs of flour, 2 oz. of cake yeast and water.

Here’s what I used:

5 lbs. of flour – yes, the whole bag

yeast – I used 7 Tbs, but I think I could have gotten by with less. Maybe 4-5 Tbs.

salt – I used 8 tsp., thinking I would need about 1 tsp. per loaf. This was a bit too much salt. Next time I’ll go for about 6 tsp. Clara doesn’t mention salt, but I think the loaves would taste flat without it.

warm water – About 6 or so cups, but you need to go by what the dough needs.

I followed Clara’s direction to dump the flour in a large bowl. I then mixed in the salt. Make a well in the flour and put the yeast in. Start pouring warm water into the well. Mix the yeast and water with your fingers to dissolve. Start mixing in more flour with your hands, adding water as needed. You will eventually end up with a great big bowl of dough.

After I got all the flour mixed in and I kneaded it in the bowl for a bit, I dumped the dough on the counter and washed out the bowl.

I sprayed the bowl with cooking spray and put the dough back in, turning it to bring up the oiled side. I’m not sure how Clara handles this step, but it’s the way I like to do it. If I knew the dough wouldn’t stick to the bowl, I would have just left it in the bowl to rise without washing and oiling it.

Let the dough rise in a warm place. Cover it loosely with a clean towel while it rises to keep the dough from drying out. After it’s risen, punch it down and divide it up for loaves. I was thinking that this amount of flour would make about 8 loaves. Some of the loaves seemed a bit small though, so next time I may go with 6 instead. Also, I only have 7 bread pans. I liked how the loaf on the cookie sheet turned out though.

Cover the loaves with a clean towel again and let them rise a while longer. Place them in an oven at 350 degrees. I have speed bake (convection oven) and I baked mine for about 30 minutes.

I’ll try this again. Like I said, I need to cut back on the salt a little bit. I think that also might help the loaves rise a bit higher. The taste is good. We polished off 2 loaves in less than 24 hours! The rest went into the freezer for later.

As for cost:

$1.97 – flour

$1.00 – $1.50 for yeast, depending on how much you use and the cost of the jar

So, less than $3.50 for 8 loaves of bread. That’s pretty cheap! And no additives or preservatives, so healthier than store-bought. If you try this, let me know how it turned out for you.

Update:

I sometimes turn this into “Recession Era Bread” by adding a melted stick of butter to the warm water.

Filed under: Baked Goods, bread Tagged with bread, yeast54 Comments

Cranberry Braid Bread

December 22, 2008 by Tiffany

I get frustrated when my pictures don’t show the food very well. This is one of those times. This bread is beautiful, golden brown braid with cranberry filling peeking out. Use your imagination, because my photography just isn’t going to help you see it.

Oh, and it tastes wonderful too! The recipe is from the Country Living: Country Morning cook book. It makes 2 loaves.

Gather up you ingredients:

Filling:
1 12oz package cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 Tbs. cornstarch
1/3 cup orange juice

Bread:
1 1/3 cup water
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
7 – 7 1/2 cups flour
2 packages rapid-rise yeast
2/3 cup sugar
2 Tbs. finely grated orange rind
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs

Prepare the filling: Rinse the cranberries. In a 3-quart saucepan combine the sugar and cornstarch. Stir in the orange juice and cranberries. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly until the berries are crushed and the mixture thickens to the consistency of preserves, about 10-15 min. Remove from heat, cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours.

Prepare the dough: Heat the water and butter till melted together. In a mixer bowl combine 2 cups flour, yeast, sugar orange rind and salt. On low speed, gradually beat in the water-butter mixture. Beat for 2 min.

Separate 1 egg, reserving the white for later. Add the yolk to the dough mixture, then beat in the remaining 3 eggs and 2 cups of flour until if forms a soft dough. With a wooden spoon, stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface.

Lightly oil a large bowl and set aside. Knead the dough, working in more flour if necessary until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 min. Shape it into a ball and put it in the oiled bowl, turning to bring up the oiled side. Cover it loosely and let it rise in a warm place for about an hour or 1 1/2 hours.

Grease 2 baking sheets (or use baking stones). Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut it in half. Shape each half into a ball and let them rest 5 minutes. Use a floured rolling pin to roll each ball into a 14 x 10 inch rectangle and place on the baking sheets. Lightly brush the top of each with the slightly beaten egg white.

Spread half of the cranberry mixture in a 3 inch wide strip lengthwise down the dough. Cut the dough crosswise on each side of the filling into 1 inch wide strips. Fold these over to braid. Cover and let them rise again for 20 min. Brush the braids with the egg white and bake at 350 degrees for 20 min. Brush again with the white and bake 10 more min.

You can see my dough was a bit too long for the baking stone.

Braiding is easy.

I ended up cutting off the ends to make it fit the stone. I have no perfectionist tendencies. Your bread will probably look prettier than mine. I also tried to make a round braid on my round stone, but there wasn’t enough dough to go all the way around. I’ll spare you the picture. It might not have looked good, but it sure tasted great!