Category: StewsCatBakes

Parker House Rolls (Chef John)

I also decided to make some Parker House rolls for Thanksgiving and tried a new recipe. This recipe makes 24 rolls. I did a half batch and they turned out good. I liked that the combining of ingredients was simple and there weren’t a lot of different steps where you added one thing at a time.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup warm milk
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 1 package active dry yeast (~7 grams, I did like 4 grams for my half batch)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 3 Tbsp white sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup butter, melted
  • 4 1/2 cup AP flour
  1. Combine warm milk, water, yeast (~110-120F) – let sit for 10 minutes
  2. Add eggs, sugar, salt, 1/2 cup melted butter
  3. Whisk together
  4. Add AP flour and knead until comes together (hand kneaded about 5-6 minutes)
  5. Form into ball and place in lightly buttered bowl until double (~2 hours)
  6. Press flat, divide into 24 portions and roll into ball (I weighed the whole thing and then portioned by weight).
  7. Roll out into a 4-5 inch long oval and brush with melted butter, then fold in half
  8. Place on lined baking sheet
  9. Cover with towel (I did saran wrap) and let rise until almost doubled (~1 hour, mine rose in about 40 min)
  10. Bake at 350 F (20-25 minutes) until golden brown
  11. Brush with melted butter while still warm.

I would make this recipe again. These rolls were delicious and were gobbled up quickly at the family Thanksgiving dinner. The dough was easy to work with and not super sticky/wet.

-StewsCat

Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

For Thanksgiving this year I elected to make some rolls for the family potluck. I had previously made some good dinner rolls but didn’t remember the recipe (and only just now found that I have it saved as a draft here, so I will eventually publish that as well). I decided to try making a dupe for the famous Hawaiian Rolls. There are many recipes that can be found online.

This recipe is from Mike’s bakery NYC. The following recipe makes 15 rolls

Ingredients:

  • 530 grams All-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 14 grams instant yeast
  • 180 grams pineapple juice
  • 90 grams milk
  • 85 grams honey
  • 1 tsp white vinegar
  • 1 large egg (~50 grams)
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • Egg Wash: 1 egg beaten with 1 Tbsp water
  1. Combine flour (minus 30 grams), salt, yeast in mixing bowl
  2. In a saucepan (low-medium heat), heat pineapple juice, milk, butter, honey, stirring – heat until 120-130 F
  3. Add mixture to flour
  4. Add egg, vinegar, vanilla and remaining 1/4 cup (30g) flour and combine.
  5. Knead 8-10 minutes, cover, rest 15 minutes
  6. Weigh dough, divide into 15 equal pieces and shape into balls
  7. Place on lightly greased 9 x 13″ pan (leave room for it to expand)
  8. Cover and let double (~60-75 minutes)
  9. Preheat oven to 375 F with rack on lower-middle rack
  10. Brush top with egg wash and bake 18-20 minutes or until golden brown on top.

I would make this recipe again. The rolls turned out good. I will say the dough was quite wet and sticky and I did end up adding in additional flour but overall just had to keep working it until it formed into a less sticky dough ball.

-StewsCat

Everyday sourdough sandwich loaf

Everyday sourdough sandwich loaf

Ingredients:

  • 100-130 grams well-fed sourdough starter
  • 325-350 grams water
  • 500 grams of flour (can you various ratios of bread flour to whole wheat to etc)
  • 15-20 grams oil (can use neutral oil (Avocado, vegetable) or could use olive oil)
  • 15-20 grams of honey
  • 10 grams fine sea salt

I’ve been making a weekly loaf for the past year or so. With this recipe, you definitely have some leeway on adjusting the types of flours along with some of the enrichments (oil and honey). It is also a fairly forgiving recipe I feel (or maybe I just do it regularly enough that I’ve grown accustomed to it). The above recipe makes 1 loaf (in a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan). This is also a no-knead recipe. The loaf can be made ahead of time and then stored to continue to ferment and develop in the fridge for 24-48 hours. Typically I will bake it ~24-36 hours after forming the loaf.

  1. Combine the water, well-fed starter, 500 grams of flour (my current combination is 350 grams bread flour, 50 grams of semolina flour and 100 grams of whole wheat flour), oil and honey in a mixing bowl. I use a spatula and stir and make sure everything is well incorporated together (about 2-4 minutes of mixing usually).
  2. Let sit (auto-lyse) for anywhere from 30-90 minutes covered.
  3. Slowly incorporate the salt – I usually add a little bit at a time and using a wet hand knead the salt until well incorporated.
  4. Cover and let rest 45-60 minutes
  5. Perform a stretch and fold (using a moist hand, grab dough at 12 o’clock position and pull upwards toward ceiling. Without allowing the dough to rip, pull it down towards 6 o’clock. Turn bowl 1/4 counter-clockwise and repeat above and continue until back to original position. Can continue to do this to tighten dough (another full rotation). Optional would to flip dough over at end (should have smooth ball). Cover
  6. Wait another 45-60 minutes (dependent on room temp)
  7. Repeat stretch and fold an additional 3 times (total of 4). Sometimes the dough will look mature and ready after 3 stretch and folds and that is fine as well.
  8. Dump dough out on well floured surface. Using bench scraper, gather the dough (bringing each corner to center) and then flip dough to have a nice ball. Cover with tea towel and let sit for 20 minutes.
  9. Stretch and flatten dough out into a large rectangle. Bring the left side of the dough and fold to the center line along the vertical axis. Then fold from the right edge to the center overlapping – envelope fold. Then grasp dough closest to you and roll it away from you creating a cylinder. Tuck the ends of the dough underneath to create a smooth surface for each end.
  10. Using a bench scrapper lift the dough into a well oiled loaf pan (in my case a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan)
  11. Place this in a bag (can also add some oil to top of dough and cover with saran wrap) and let rise for ~1.5 hours (depending on temperature in kitchen).
  12. Place in refrigerator (~12-48 hours).
  13. Turn oven on to 400 F. Place pan with water in lower rack of oven
  14. Remove dough from fridge. Sprinkle flour on top of bread and smooth. Using sharp knife, score the bread.
  15. Bake for 20 minutes at 400F
  16. Remove the water container (be careful not to splash hot water onto glass of oven door as it may crack – I use a tea towel to cover the glass while removing the water container).
  17. Bake additional 30-35 minutes until golden brown (bread temp ~200 F). I usually just bake an additional 33 or 34 minutes as it seems to work for my oven.
  18. Turn bread out on cooling rack and let cool fully before slicing.

Visual instructions:

Lasagna

Lasagna

I’ve done lasagna a handful of times now and everytime I do things a little bit differently. I’ve tried it with my homemade dough, traditional dried pasta as well as the oven ready (no boil) noodles. Overall I think I still like the traditional pasta that you boil first. This time I decided to jazz up the recipe a bit with some sauteed mushrooms along with italian sausage and I have enjoyed this one the best.

Ingredients for sauce

  • 28 ounce Cento San Marzano peeled tomatoes
  • Tomato Paste
  • Dried oregano / Dried Basil
  • Rind of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
  • Bay leaf
  • Salt
  • Garlic
  • Olive oil

Directions for sauce

  1. Sauté dieced garlic in the olive oil in a pot
  2. Add in the tomatoes (crush whole tomatoes with hands), tomato paste, oregano, basil, rind of parmigiano, bay leaf, salt.
  3. Simmer for at least 30 minutes and up to a few hours.

Ingredients for lasagna

  • Sauce from above
  • 1 box of traditional dried lasagna noodles
  • Whole milk mozzarella cheese
  • Ricotta cheese
  • Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (put in a food processor to make into crumbles for spreading – easier than trying to grate or slice).
  • Cremini mushrooms
  • Mild italian sausage (can also use ground beef, pork, chicken, etc)

Directions for lasagna

  1. Sauté slice mushrooms until soft and tender, add salt for flavoring
  2. Cook sausage (remove from casing and crumble) in some olive oil
  3. Cook pasta (follow directions) and then lay out on a oiled cookie pan to prevent from sticking to one another
  4. Add a layer of sauce to bottom of casserole dish to help prevent sticking
  5. Add layer of pasta
  6. Can create layers as desired – I did mushrooms with sauce and cheese (mozz/parmigiano/ricotta as dollops), then another layer of noodle, then a layer with sausage and sauce/cheese.
  7. Repeat a few more times (depends on amount of pasta and sauce you have)
  8. Top layer: Add sauce and then cheese layer
  9. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 375 F for 30-40 minutes, then uncover and bake additional 15 minutes.
  10. Let sit for 10 minutes before cutting and eating.

-StewsCat


Brownies!

It’s been awhile. That’s kind of the theme for this place, not that anyone is really paying attention. In the end I like having this as a record of my baking/cooking and traveling adventures and to look back on for recipes that have worked (don’t usually publish things that don’t work because why keep that). The other night I decided to try my hand at some brownies. Aside from cookies and banana bread, I don’t do much in the way of sweets baking. D isn’t a huge cake person so haven’t really had a desire to do that. I am not opposed to pies though just haven’t got around to attempting anything. So brownies it was. I looked up a few different recipes and of course looked to Ina Garten since she has some good recipes (especially booze ones). I then kind of modified it to my own. D wanted to incorporate some peanut butter into it. I was initially going to do a PB swirl type thing but then elected to just use the peanut butter chips I had.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter
  • 3.5 ounce dark chocolate (had a bar of some random Russian chocolate)
  • 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter chips
  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 3 eggs
  • ~1 Tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 1/4 AP flour
  • 1 packet (~ 1 Tbsp?) of instant coffee

Directions

  1. Using a bain marie (I did a makeshift one with a small pot with simmering water and a metal bowl on top), I melted the chocolate and the dark chocolate bar.
  2. I then mixed in the cocoa powder (probably could have added more as the final product didn’t come out as chocolatey as I was hoping).
  3. In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, vanilla, eggs and instant coffee
  4. In 3rd bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder
  5. After letting the chocolate mixture cool some, mix into the sugar/vanilla/egg mixture.
  6. Coat some peanut butter and chocolate chips in flour
  7. Fold in the flour mixture to the wet mixture from step #5. Then add in the chips.
  8. Poured the final mixture onto parchment paper in a 8 by 8 pyrex pan
  9. Baked at 350 F for about 30-35 minutes (until a toothpick came out clean)
  10. Let sit on rack for 30 minutes and wait until cooled to cut.
Prior to baking
After baking

Overall it came out pretty good. A bit more cake like than fudge like. As stated above, could use more cocoa powder. Overall a pretty simple recipe.

-StewsCat