Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Doughnuts and Muffins

Unless you've been avoiding Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, walking down the sidewalk and talking to other people, you know that "Pumpkin Spice Season" is upon us. You can't turn the corner without seeing a PSL (or a pumpkin spice latte, if you want to be formal) in a death-grip or browse Facebook without seeing a love poem to some pumpkin spice. While I pretend to mock them, let's be real, I am one of them.

Smelling cinnamon coated apples basking in the warmth of my oven makes me giddy and apt to spread some baking joy. Hoarding canned pumpkin is a seasonal tradition and unearthing it again in July is always a shock. So yes, I roll my eyes at all the "#PSL" hype… but I partake is a more homemade fashion.

To any co-workers who are reading this post, yes, these are the baked goods I brought into the office! 

Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Doughnuts & Muffins

Adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin purée – not pie filling
• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt (see note above)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (see note above)
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon plus a heaping 1/4 teaspoon each ground nutmeg and ground ginger
• 8 oz (1 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp) all-purpose flour

For the cinnamon-sugar topping:

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F.  Grease the muffin tins and doughnut pan with a little bit of butter and flour.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, salt, and baking powder on medium speed until the mixture is smooth.
3. Lower the speed of the mixer and stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, as well as the flour until they are completely incorporated. Do NOT over mix - this can lead to a tough texture.
4. If you're making doughnuts, fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full, using a scant 1/4 cup of batter in each well (a small cookie scoop works well here). 
5. If you’re making muffins, fill each well about 3/4 full.
6. Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. If you’re making muffins, they’ll need to bake for 23 to 25 minutes.
7. While the doughnuts/muffins bake, stir together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl until well mixed; set aside.
8. Dip the warm doughnuts and muffins in the cinnamon-sugar topping. The muffins will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 to 3 days and may need a cinnamon-sugar refresher before serving. 

Tartine Country Bread

B R E A D. I love you. I could eat you, romantically of course, every day, at every meal and loaves at a time. It doesn't matter if you're white, wheat or country. I will love you just the same and you'll never have to worry about me cheating on you with Mr. Cookie. As long as we can shake things up and throw goat cheese into the mix every once and a while, our love will be eternal.

I rarely do this, if I ever have, but I won't be including a recipe in this post. Not that I don't have it, but that I don't think I will be doing it justice by posting it on my blog. For Christmas last year, "A" received a copy of the Tartine Bread book from an old college friend. If you haven't heard of Tartine, I will assume you haven't been to San Francisco or don't have the obsession with bread that I do. To prepare myself for the Tartine method, I had been building up my starter and learning how to make bread all over again.  

I'm an experienced bread baker and I had to practice the Tartine method. That should be your first clue why the recipe won't be on the blog. The first few loaves were delicious and turned out fine, but the process to get there left me crying, yelling and pulling my hair out. It was hard and why was the dough SO STICKY!? Then one day it clicked. I remembered all the ratios and knew what the dough should feel like between my fingers. During the long bulk fermentation phase, the billowing air bubbles brewing in the bread is now a welcome comfort. I get it and it gets me. 

So I urge you, if you have any desire to make sourdough bread, please, pick up Chad Robertson's book . It's a work of art with pages upon pages of science and instruction. If that doesn't suit you, he has the most wonderful step-by-step photography that a frustrated baker could ask for. If more proof is needed, look at this bread. I did not a minute of kneading and the dough was able to rise in the fridge overnight as to produce a fresh loaf right before a dinner party.

Apricot Maple Cinnamon Rolls

I feel like I could post a picture and present without comment (but I'm a chatterbox so that would be impossible to do). However, I essentially did just that on my Facebook page and boy-oh-boy did the offers start rolling in! I had one friend beg me to come back to Seattle, another started plotting a road trip over to Madison and all the while, "A" is gloating in the glory that is homemade apricot maple cinnamon rolls. Freshly baked on a Sunday morning. All to himself. Even though I did offer up the leftovers, no one seemed willing to make the journey. Oh well, "A's" gain.

While I was ambitious enough to make cinnamon rolls for our weekly Sunday brunch, I was just lazy enough to do the prep work the night before. Make the rolls according the directions but instead of having them do the final rise on the counter, plop them in the fridge overnight for a slow rise. The next morning, bring them to room temperature on the counter before baking.

The thing is, friends, these rolls are shockingly uncomplicated to make. Granted, I do have a KitchenAid stand mixer to do most of the dirty work for me. Even if you don't have a mixer, the dough is so soft and pliable that it would be too difficult to work with by hand.

Apricot Maple Cinnamon Rolls

Adapted from the Joy the Baker Cookbook

Ingredients:

• for the dough:
• 2¼ tsp. (1 pkg) active-dry yeast
• ½ tsp. + ¼ scant cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup water, lukewarm (~115° F)
• ½ cup almond milk milk, at room temp.
• 2 TBSP. packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2¾ c. all-purpose flour + more for kneading
• ¾ tsp. salt
• 4 oz. (½ cup) goat butter, softened

for the filling:

• ½ cup packed light brown sugar
• ½ cup finely chopped walnuts
• ½ cup dried apricots, chopped
• 1 TBSP. ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp. salt
• pinch ground cloves
• 3 TBS. pure maple syrup
• ¼ cup goat butter butter, melted

for the glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• ⅛ cup almond milk

Instructions:

Dough:

1. Combine yeast, ½ tsp. of sugar, and water in the bowl of a mixer. Stir and let sit until foamy, 5-10 minutes.
2. Add remaining sugar, almond milk, brown sugar, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk. Beat until well combined. Using a dough hook, add flour and salt to bowl and mix at medium speed until dough just begins to come together. Turn mixer to medium-high and knead for ~4 minutes.
3. Add the softened butter and continue to knead for ~6 minutes. The dough will be wet and sticky. Knead in another ⅓-½ cup of flour into the dough. Dough should be just slightly tacky and very soft, but it should not stick to your hands.
4. Place in a large, greased boil. Cover with plastic or clean kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1½-2 hours.

Filling:

1. While dough is rising, combine sugar, walnuts, apricots, cinnamon, salt and cloves in a medium bowl. Stir in the maple syrup and set aside.

Dough (again):

1. When dough has doubled in bulk, tip it out of the bowl onto a heavily floured work surface. Gently knead the dough until it is no longer sticky, adding ~3 Tbs of flour as needed for ~2 minutes. At this point, the dough is soft, silky, supple, and totally sexy. Let rest on counter for 5 minutes.
2. Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough into roughly a 10"x20" rectangle. Position dough so that the long sides are parallel to you (you'll be rolling from the long side). Brush about half of the melted butter over the top of the dough, enough to coat it well.
3. Dump all of the filling onto the buttered dough and spread evenly, leaving a 1" border at one of the short edges of the dough so the roll can be properly sealed. Lightly press the filling into the dough.
4. Roll the dough into a tight cylinder. Pinch all along the edge to seal. Place dough, seam side down, on a cutting board. Cut into equal slices.
5. Arrange slices, cut side up, in a greased pan (I used a large pie pan). Each roll will have a bit of space on all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in a warm place for 1 ½-2 hours, until they've puffed up nice and big and are touching. (NOTE: is you would like to refrigerate overnight, place the covered unbaked rolls into the fridge at this point. Bring to room temperature before baking.) Place oven rack in upper ⅓ of oven and preheat oven to 375° F during last 15 minutes of rise time.
6. Slide into preheated oven and bake for ~30 minutes, until golden and bubbling. Rub some goat butter on the rolls just after you've pulled them from the oven.

Glaze:

1. While the rolls are cooling slightly, whisk together the powdered sugar and almond milk until smooth. Drizzle over warm rolls.
2. Share with friends. Make people happy. Smile.

No-Knead Beer Bread

So these past two weeks have been kind of hectic insane totally crazy. I am now two weeks into my new job and one week into a little bug I affectionately call The Plague. Oh, and I whizzed on in to the ripe old age of 24 this past Monday. Somehow during all of this I also managed to start and finish the entire Hunger Games trilogy. I think I may have snuck in a nap or two, swirled 'A' into the mixture and came out on the other end alive but lacking a voice. Hopefully a new book, some honey & lemon tea and a little bit a sun will be the cure I need.

As you may have guessed, there wasn't much time for blogging. And by not much time I mean none at all. I think I may have looked at my photo log to see if anything was queued up but that's as far as I got. So here I am, Sunday afternoon, willing my voice to work and ready to blog. If you notice this post is a little bit shorter than most it's because I most likely fell asleep and gave up.

I have been able to cook only a little bit in the past few weeks; it's mainly just food for lunch at work. Now that I'm falling into a routine, I hope it might become a little bit more of a regular occurrence and less of a side-thought. I made this particular loaf of bread maybe a month or more back. Don't worry, it's not sitting stale on my kitchen counter. I think 'A' and I gobbled the whole thing up the night I baked it. As I am a pretty big fan of the no-knead bread movement, I decided to try a little variation on the classic. Throw some beer in (it's extra yeast, right?) and call it good.

I'll save my voice and stop rambling but before I go, I guess you'll want the recipe.

No-Knead Beer Bread

Recipe adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoon water at room temperature
• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoon mild lager at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon wine vinegar

Directions:

1. Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in large bowl. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.
2. Lay 12- by 18-inch sheet of parchment paper inside 10-inch frying pan and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Use a little flour on your work surface if you need to.
3. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined frying pan and spray surface of dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with finger, about 2 hours.
4. About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place a Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and heat oven to 500F.
5. Lightly flour top of dough and, using a sharp knife, make one long, 1/2inch deep slit along top of dough.
6. Carefully remove pot from oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower into pot (let any excess parchment hang over pot edge). Replace the lid and place in oven.
7. Reduce oven temperature to 425F/220C degrees and bake covered for 30 minutes.
8. Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown  20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

Guest Post: Kalamazoo Sourdough

As you may know, I occasionally host a guest blogger or two on The Ginger Cook. Usually this just happens to be a member of my family, but I'm opening to having anyone! Friends? Want to post? As long as I deem your picture as worthy, you may have a shot.


A little bit of background information before I leave this post in the hands of my Dad. A few months ago my dad bought my Mom a standmixer for "her birthday." I say this in quotations because she neither waited to get it on her birthday nor is she the one who primarily uses it. In tandem with the mixer, I bought her a 1973 vintage copy of one of my favorite bread books, The Tassajara Bread Book. 


As you may have guessed, someone else started using it much more than she did. That's right, my Dad stole it from her! How dare he! You really shouldn't stay mad at him for long though, he has been killing it on the bread baking. When I was home for Christmas, he was whipping out some truly extraordinary loaves. Without further ado, here is his new prized loaf of bread: Kalamazoo Sourdough

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Kalamazoo Sourdough

Why should the City by the Bay get all the glory when it comes to sourdough? I’m here to claim some of the glory for the chilly state of Michigan. In this guest Ginger Cook post, “I” am Katherine’s dad, Ed. Lest you fear that I’m diluting the ginger-ness of this blog, rest assured that I’m a redhead as well.

Regular readers may wonder why I’m calling this bread recipe Kalamazoo Sourdough, since Katherine is from Brighton, about 2 hours from K-town. There are three reasons for this. First, “Kalamazoo” just has a ring to it, much more so than “Brighton”. Second, our other daughter Caroline is attending college in Kalamazoo at Western Michigan University. Finally, Kalamazoo is home to Bell’s Brewery, one of the best craft brewers in the country and the source of a vital ingredient for this recipe.

This recipe was written assuming that you are using a baking stone or pizza stone. A Dutch oven will also work very well, however it is harder to get the loaves into a hot Dutch oven, so I prefer the pizza stone. If you use a Dutch oven, you don’t need the Pyrex baking dish, since the moisture from the dough will create steam in the Dutch oven. The steam is the secret to a perfect crust.

Ingredients:

•  3 cups bread flour (all-purpose flour is fine also)
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• 1 cup sourdough starter *
• ¾ cup water at room temperature
• 8 tablespoons Bell’s ale (anything ale that isn’t strongly flavored)

 *If you want a little extra rise, you can add one-eighth of a teaspoon of instant or rapid-rise yeast without affecting the sourdough taste too much

Directions:

1.  Mix sourdough starter with water in a large bowl and whisk vigorously until thoroughly mixed. If using yeast, add it to the liquid and whisk some more. Add salt and whisk into liquid.
2. Add flour to water and using a rubber spatula, fold in flour until water is absorbed, then add beer and fold some more. You should have a shaggy ball of dough. If needed, add water a couple of tablespoons at a time until dough reaches the proper consistency.
3. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 10 hours or more, until the ball has roughly doubled in size.
4. Place bowl in refrigerator and let sit for an additional 6 to 8 hours.
5. Cut parchment paper to fit onto a baking stone or into a Dutch oven. Remove dough from refrigerator and knead about 15 times. Shape into a large loaf, or if a smaller loaf is desired, divide and shape into two loaves.
6. Place the loaf or loaves onto parchment paper and spray surface of loaf with olive oil (use a mister). Cover loosely with plastic and let rise at room temperature until doubled in size, about 2 or 3 hours.
7. 30 minutes before baking, adjust upper oven rack to lower middle position and place baking stone on rack. Place a Pyrex baking dish half full of water on the lower rack to create steam in the oven. Set oven temperature to 425 degrees F and let temperature stabilize for 30 minutes.
8. Slash top of loaf with a sharp knife, remove baking stone from the oven, and place parchment paper onto baking stone. Immediately place into oven.
9. Bake for 45 minutes or until internal temperature of the bread reaches 205 to 210 degrees F (a digital thermometer is helpful here).
10. Remove bread from oven and allow to cool on a mesh rack for 10 to 15 minutes before enjoying.

Soft Pretzel Bites

One batch makes a lot of bites!

Have you ever had "one of those weeks?"

I have been having one of those weeks time 5.  I found out I fractured my tailbone and have been utterly wiped out (unrelated to the buttock, I think).  However, there is a plus side to everything.  Now I get to carry around my own cushy pillow and no one can judge me.  Ohhh yeah.  After toting around my cushy pillow, I usually can sleep really well at night, a pretty big plus.  I also found out that I actually really love riding the bus, a big plus that's easy on me & the wallet.  There is nothing better than waking up during my commute to the Eastside by listening to some Stuff You Should Know and This American Life.  Maybe, just maybe, I might start blogging on the bus.  You hear that Ginger Cook followers?  I might have a regular blogging schedule!  Maybe this week hasn't been so bad?

But these pretzels can make any day better.

Small enough to pop in your mouth and no need to feel guilty when you eat 10 of them because you totally didn't eat a whole soft pretzel.  Nope, not at all… 

As I mentioned in the previous post, the next few posts will be food that I made for the Superbowl.  I would consider pretzels to be a quintessential football food (see my earlier argument) and people are usually impressed that soft pretzels can be made outside of a mall.

A French Bread

A brown book cover with a 70's vibe splashed all over has a triangle shaped tear on the cover and a worn spine from being furiously rubbed over the counters of a kitchen.  These are all the signs of a well loved and stand-by cookbook.  Never before have a recommended a cookbook so highly.  But you ask what is this ethereal creature a speak of?  It's a book, no it's a cookbook… no no, it's a bible.  A bread bible - The Tassajara Bread Book.  I had written about my whimsical tale with said aforementioned book in a much earlier post, but credit should be given where it is due.

I was a horrible (well, not "burnt to a crisp" bad) bread baker before I got this book.  As a frame of reference, this was my sophomore year of college and this was my first time with my "own" stove.  I'm probably being a little hard on myself (in the kitchen, I'm only mildly a perfectionist), but my bread never turned out how I wanted it to… or how well my friend Brendan Carson's did.  Or how well my ex-boyfriends dad's did.  Brendan's bread was always so rustic; freeform shapes, thick swirling crust and the perfect amount of air holes.  His bread doesn't even compare to Mr. Seidel's Sourdough, I loved it to it's very crumb.  I would marry it if I could.  These were my bread baking hero's… and what I instantly wanted my bread to taste like.  As you can probably guess, mine wasn't like theirs.  It always seemed to have too strong of a flour taste, the crust was weak and the loaves never rose how I wanted them to.  Being the good boyfriend that he was, Alex sense my frustrations and had the perfect solution.

One day after class I was sitting in his bed, hiding away from the creeping cold that is Michigan winters, and he walked in with a little present for me in his hands.  He said his dad used it and it should help me. Being that I'm a girl and that anything that is wrapped, even mildly shiny and (for me at least) is in the shape of a book, I instantly knew he was about to get some major bonus points.  Tearing off the secular holiday paper I started the best relationship I ever had… with a cookbook.  Looking at the shelves now, I have my fair share of cookbooks.  Some get used a few times a year and other are used so frequently they are never are the shelf.  Some are big and have glossy sleeves to their hard covers while others are floppy paperbacks.  But The Tassajara Bread Book is no doubt the smallest yet probably the one that has the most amount of notes written in the margins, tears and dog ears littering the pages.

P.S. Alex, you still, to this day, get so many points and I think of you every time I use this book.  I am so grateful you gave this to me - I made me the (if I don't say so myself) pretty spiffy bread baker that I am today.

Moral: Get this book.

If anything, you'll have more recipes like "A French Bread" that I made for the 437th time a few weeks ago.  Every Tuesday night I truck over to West Seattle to watch Glee with Julie and Katrina at her parent's house.  Usually we don't do much before hand, but this time we decided to have a traditional sit-down-with-parents dinner.  We all brought a different element of a meal - as you can probably assume, I brought the bread.  I choose to make this loaf mainly because I just love this bread.  I love how the crumb swirls within the loaf, how it toasts perfectly, how it makes the greatest french toast ever and … well… HOW QUICKLY it rises.  I mean seriously, two loaves of bread that is perfect for sandwiches but also impresses dinner guests that can feasibly be made in a afternoon?  Do you KNOW how rare that is?  As you can tell by how I'm spazzing out, it's pretty rare and pretty awesome.  Don't believe me?  Try it yourself!!

A French Bread
Adapted from the Tassajara Bread Book

Ingredients I:

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 3 packages dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 3 cups unbleached white and 1 cup whole wheat flour

Ingredients II:

• 4 teaspoons salt
• 3 cups unbleached white flour
• flour for kneading

Directions:

1. Dissolve the yeast if the water until bubbly, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the honey until well combined.  Stir in the initial batch of flour one cup at a time and beat for 100 strokes with a spoon (this is according to Tassajara, I stick it on my stand mixer with a dough hook & knead it for a little bit).  Let rise for 45 minutes, or until doubles in size.
2. Fold in the salt, making sure not to tear the dough.  Fold in (again, I knead in using my stand mixer, but don't think I haven't made this completely by hand before) the second batch of flour one cup at a time until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.
3. Knead, using additional flour as needed, until the dough no longer sticks to the board and is smooth (this will take about 10 minutes).
4. Let rise until doubled in size, about 50 minutes.  Punch down.  Let rise again until doubled in size, about 40 minutes.  Shape into two loaves by flattening them out into a large rectangle then rolling them up tight like a rug.  Pinch the seam into the loaf and place seam side down.
5. Place the the loaves on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with cornmeal.  Let them rest for about 20 minutes.  Brush with water.
6. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes and then spray the loaves with water.  Continue baking at 375 until well browned, about 35-45 minutes.  As soon as the loaves are removed from the oven, brush the tops with garlic butter.

Sourdough Pizza Crust

I know, it's been a while.  And I think of some really good reason why my posting has become more infrequent than thunderstorms in Seattle (more on that sad fact later). This time I have a really really good reason, I mean, really good, as to why I am once again allowing myself to be backlogged.  I was sickest I've been since my bout of Swine Flu (pardon me, H1N1) last year.  What began on Saturday as a sore throat and a stomach full of angst transformed into a full-blown "can't get out of bed" sickness.  On Monday, I couldn't lift my head off my pillow.  When I made phone calls to my mom and work, I had to gingerly set the phone on my ear and squeak as loud as I could to try and make my little voice heard.  Hopefully I pulled at your heart-strings enough and you'll forgive me for my slip-up.

The original date of this photo is so prehistoric, I think dinosaurs pondered over the artistic value of it.  That's right - I took this photo in early September... of this year!  I made this pizza dough the second time I was going to hang out with who I am now happy to call my group of friends.  Friends, consider this your official shout out.  I had met Matt though Nick (who I know from U of Michigan).  While I met technically Julie and Christine at the same place I met Matt, I barely did, so it doesn't count.  Matt introduced me to Julie, Christine, Aaron and David when we went out one night to Barca in Capitol Hill.  We all realized (except for Julie and kind of Matt) we were all new to Seattle, we liked each other and make a very good decision to be friends and hang out that coming Sunday.  At said Sunday pizza making/game playing night I was introduced to Gabe, Christine's boyfriend.  Phew, get all those 6 degrees of separation from Mr. Bacon?

Anyways, I made some pizza dough to use for the pizza decorating part of the gathering.  This photo does not do it justice.  While it doesn't have the stereotypical tang of sourdough, it did have a depth of flavor that most doughs don't have.  It also had a wonderful texture.  I was able to stretch one batch of dough into two large thin crusts pizza's - and even the thin crust had a nice crunchy chew to it.  The best part of this recipe?  It uses the discarded cup of starter from feeding the sourdough starter!  That's a win in my book!


Sourdough Pizza Crust
Adapted from King Arthur Flour
Ingredients:

• 1 cup sourdough starter, unfed (straight from the fridge)
• 1/2 cup hot tap water
• 2 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

Directions

1. Stir any liquid into the sourdough starter, and spoon 1 cup starter into a mixing bowl.
2. Add the hot water, flour, salt, yeast, and Pizza Dough Flavor. Mix to combine, then knead till smooth and slightly sticky, about 7 minutes at medium speed using a stand mixer with dough hook. Place the kneaded dough in a lightly greased container, and allow it to rise till it's just about doubled in bulk. This might take 2 to 4 hours; it might take more. A lot depends on how vigorous your starter is. For a faster rise, place the dough somewhere warm (or increase the yeast). To slow it down, put it somewhere cool.
3. Drizzle two 12" round pizza pans with olive oil, tilting the pans to coat the bottom. Place half the dough in each pan. Cover, and let rest for 15 minutes. Gently press the dough towards the edges of the pans; when it starts to shrink back, cover it, and let it rest again, for about 15 minutes. Finish pressing the dough to the edges of the pans.Cover the pan, and let the dough rise till it's as thick as you like. For thin-crust pizza made from fairly fresh starter, this may only be an hour or so. For thick-crust, using an old, little-used starter, this may take most of the day. There are no hard-and-fast rules here; it all depends on the vigor of your starter, and how you like your crust. Once you make it a couple of times, you'll figure out what time frame works for you.
4. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 450°F.
5. For a thicker crust, pre-bake the crust for about 8 minutes before topping. Top, then bake till toppings are hot and cheese is melted and bubbly, about 10 minutes. For thin crusts, bake for 4 to 5 minutes, then top and bake for an additional 8 to 10 minutes, or till toppings are as done as you like.
6. Remove from the oven, and loosen the edges of the pizza with a table knife or heatproof spatula. Carefully lift it onto a cooling rack; you can serve it right from the pan, if desired, but a cooling rack helps keep its bottom crisp. Serve hot.

No-Knead Sourdough

Here is another delicious no-knead bread to add to your repertoire.  It's made in a similar fashion as other no-knead breads, but with the your sourdough starter instead of a little bit of active dry yeast.  Sometime, hopefully soon, I hope to write a tutorial on sourdough.  Sadly, I feel as though I'm a genius on the subject yet and I in no way want to lead you astray.  As I have mentioned earlier, the first attempt at a sourdough starter was a little bit lackluster and I had difficulty starting it.  I sort of 'cheated' and used a little tiny bit of active dry yeast.  I really mean it, MAYBE a 1/4th of a teaspoon, but more like an 1/8th.  Then I combined it with some flour and water in a large jar and let it sit. 

But sit it did not.  I came back from class a few hours later (remember, I was making this my senior year of college) and it had exploded all over my kitchen.  Well, not technically, but I did had the blob reincarnated.  It was spewing out of its jar, onto the counter and I think a little even crawled onto the floor.  And I had no idea how to stop it.  I remember hearing once (I think it was Alton Brown?) that "yeast hates salt" - i.e. it stops it from growing.  It helped, but then it never came alive again.  When I made some bread with said starter, it had the right texture but no sour taste.  I read more about sourdough and tried to revive it (partially successfully), but it was laid to rest in a plastic garbage pail tomb before my move out west.  My current starter, given to me by my friend Ann, is fantastic!  So sour!  The texture is consistent and it's not fussy!

This no-knead wasn't as sour as other loaves of bread that I've made, but it was easy, definitely had a chewier texture and a 'sour' aftertaste.  But the crust, OH, the crust… it was wonderful!  So thick and with the right amour of crunch.  It was wonderful on my sandwich I made for lunch the next day or on the peanut butter toast I made for breakfast the day after.  If you're uncomfortable with sourdoughs but want to try your hand at making them, I recommend this recipe!

No-Knead Sourdough
Ingredients:

• 15 oz bread flour (about 3 cups)
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 11 oz lukewarm water (1.25 cups, plus a tablespoon)
• 1/2 cup sourdough starter, fed

Directions:

1. Mix the salt with the flour, and the sourdough with the warm water. Then combine all the ingredients and mix for 20 seconds or just until all of the flour is wet. If you work the mixture, you will have a loaf with a tight crumb.  I wanted one that had big air pockets, so I worked it as little as possible.
2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and then a tea towel (this helps trap in heat), and leave it to rise at room temperature overnight (about 18 hours).
3. The next day dust the dough with a bit more flour and fold the sides into the middle to form a round loaf, dust a towel with stone ground cornmeal (or coarse salt) and place the loaf onto it seam side down, putting more cornmeal on top then fold the towel over.
4. Let the loaf rise until it has doubled in size again. When the loaf has almost doubled in size, but the dutch oven in the oven and set it for 475 degrees (it is important to put the dutch oven into a cold oven so it doesn't experience thermal shock).
5. When the dutch oven is rocket hot, place (toss) the dough, seam side up, into the dutch oven, and put the lid back on. Bake for 25 minutes, during this time the lid will trap moisture from the dough which will allow the crust to stay stretchy as the bread continues to rise. Then take the lid off and turn the oven up to 475. Take the loaf out of the oven once it is brown and crusty, 15-20 more minutes.

Sourdough Bread

I finally made a successful loaf of sourdough bread.  Back in April I attempted to make a sourdough starter from scratch.  At first, the starter bubbled out of its container like a middle school science experiment gone dreadfully wrong.  Once I controlled that, it decided it wasn't going to listen to me and just exploded all over my kitchen, engulfing my counter.  I had no way to control it but to add some salt to try and kill the yeast.  Bad decision.  Turns out, I also killed the ability for the starter to get sour.  I made two loaves of bread from the starter and while they had the texture of sourdough... they just weren't sour.  As you could probably guess, said starter for shoved to the back of my fridge and was sorely neglected...

Jump to August and a new starter.  While hanging out and cooking with Ann Dornfeld a week ago she mentioned how her dad was an avid baker and had a well loved sourdough.  Lucky for me, I was able to take half of it home!  Post yoga class the following day, I excitedly procured half of a very sour smelling starter.  Soon after arriving home I fed it and promised to love it forever.  As I would have to discard a cup of the starter the next day anyways, I decided it was time to foray into sourdough once again.  This time, I would try King Arthur Flour's "Extra-Tangy Sourdough" to try and ensure I would have a sourdough.  Success!!!

While I wouldn't say this was a super sour loaf, but it did have that "tang" to it.  It definitely had an amazing texture and a good crust, so I have to give a shout out to Ann for giving me such an amazing starter.

But sadly, while I was cutting some bread to make croutons to put in my soup, I gave myself a pretty good cut on my thumb (don't we all?).

Extra-Tangy Sourdough
Adapted from: King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

• 1 cup "fed" sourdough starter
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 5 cups unbleached AP flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons salt

Directions:

1. Combine the starter, water, and 3 cups of the flour. Beat vigorously.
2. Cover, and let rest at room temperature for 4 hours. Refrigerate overnight, for about 12 hours.
3. Add the remaining ingredients, kneading to form a smooth dough.
4. Allow the dough to rise in a covered bowl until it's relaxed, smoothed out, and risen. Depending on the vigor of your starter, it may become REALLY puffy, as pictured; or it may just rise a bit. This can take anywhere from 2 to 5 hours. Understand this: sourdough bread (especially sourdough without added yeast) is as much art as science; everyone's timetable will be different. So please allow yourself to go with the flow, and not treat this as an exact, to-the-minute process.
5. Gently divide the dough in half.
6. Gently shape the dough into two oval loaves, and place them on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise until very puffy, about 2 to 4 hours. Don't worry if the loaves spread more than they rise; they'll pick up once they hit the oven's heat. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.
7. Spray the loaves with lukewarm water.
8. Make two fairly deep horizontal slashes in each; a serrated bread knife, wielded firmly, works well here.
9. Bake the bread for 25 to 30 minutes, until it's a very deep golden brown. Remove it form the oven, and cool on a rack.

Garlic Bread with Mozzarella and Parmesan

If you had come to at least a few Les Voyageurs potlucks, you would know that I had made this fairly frequently.  When up to it, I would also make my own bread from scratch (I recommend Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread).  More often than not though, I would run over to Zingerman's and pick up a loaf of the Rustic Italian or Farm Bread.  For this recipe it is crucial to get bread that has a thick crust and a tight crumb.  Most importantly, it keeps the cheese was melting through.  Secondly, these types of bread get a nice crunch when baked (more correctly, broiled).

You ask why I have been making this for so long yet am only now posting the recipe?  I have a good answer, I didn't want my 'secret' recipe available to the masses.  Well, that was selfish on me so I am making up for lost time by positing it right away.  That, and I think my parents will want to make this once I'm in Seattle.

Ingredients:

• One loaf of crusty bread, cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 2 tablespoons of butter, melted
• 6 tablespoons of olive oil
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• Italian seasoning & oregano to taste
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• Grated Mozzarella (about 1/2 cup)
• Grated Parmesan (about 1/2 cup)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to Low Broil.
2. Mix together ingredients, except for cheeses, in a bowl.  Slice bread and arrange on a baking sheet.  Using a spoon, drizzle on olive oil mixture over sliced bread, making sure to cover entire surface of a slice of bread with mixture.
3. Place in oven and broil for 2 minutes, or until bread started to toast.  Remove from oven.
4. Top bread with cheeses and return to over and broil for 3 to 4 more minutes, or until the cheese starts to brown.  But be careful!  At this stage it can go from beautiful to burnt very quicky!
5. Serve hot/warm.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

The best way to survive at the Bivouac is through bribery.  My birthday was last friday (the big 22!) and I wanted my shift covered so I could spend my birthday how I wanted.  I wanted spend time gathering up free things (mainly food) all around Ann Arbor with my little sister; we were successful!  I wanted to go out to Dominick's for dinner with my family; we ate outside and sipped on sangria.  Most importantly, I wanted to hangout with friends that night!  But I was scheduled to work!  Have no fear - bribing with baking is here!


After sending out an email with a link to my blog promising I can (try) to cook almost anything they could dream of - Andrew took the bait.  He signed a sub-slip agreeing to cover my shift with one stipulation - I would make him whole grain bread (sans any rye).  I brought this in for him the day before my birthday and I believe he had it less than 5 minutes before digging in.  It suffices to say that he's this breads biggest fan.  It wasn't too hard to make, so I think I'll make this again for my use!


PS - the loaf of bread is a little oddly shaped because I rolled the dough up so it was too long... and had to forcibly shape it into the bread pan.


Honey Whole Wheat Bread
Adapted from Photo Blog


Ingredients:

• 1 cup water (plus 4 tbsp if you're at high altitude like me)
• 1 cup milk (plus 4 tbsp for high altitude)
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tbsp (or packets) yeast
• 2 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Heat the water, milk, butter and honey on the stove using a candy thermometer. Stir occasionally. When the mixture reaches 125-130 degrees F, remove from heat. (If it's any hotter, there is a good chance the yeast could deactivate)
2. In a large bowl, mix the all purpose flour, salt and yeast. 
3. Add the heated liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix for a few minutes until evenly blended. 
4. Begin adding the whole wheat flour, add two of the cups of flour one cup at a time and gradually add the third cup during kneading. Depending on humidity, you may need more or less flour.
5. Knead for 5-10 minutes, until the dough is elastic and slightly sticky.
6. Separate the dough in half and place in two lightly greased bowls. Cover, then let rise for 45 minutes or so, until the dough looks about double in bulk.
7. Once the dough has risen, punch down and knead briefly, until pliable. 
8. Roll each section of dough with a rolling pin until it forms a flat square or rectangle, then roll the flattened dough into a snug jelly roll. Seal the seam by firmly pinching and patting the dough together. 
9. Grease your baking pan(s). Place the rolled dough into the pan, seam side down. Let rise for about 30 minutes, or until the pan is pretty well filled.
10. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-30 minutes, depending on how dark you want the crust to be. 
11. Let the bread cool COMPLETELY after removing from the oven - don't you dare slice into it until you can't feel any warmth coming off of it - even then I'd still wait 5 minutes more!

Irish Soda Bread

I have been a horrible, horrible food blogger.  It is encroaching upon a month since the last time a wrote anything!  I know you don't want to hear my excuses, but I swear I have some!  First, I was on a cruise for the first week of March.  Here is some photographic evidence:

Aren't my housemates BEAUTIFUL with their new hairstyles? 

I know, woe is me.  But when you're cursing in the Bahamas, there isn't any access to a computer, let alone internet.  But when I came back to Ann Arbor, I decided to download a trial version of Aperture 3.  As amazing as it is, I knew it would be a little longer until I was able to by the program.  I mainly wanted to use the trail version to play around with and try editing some photos.  The problem was that I couldn't access my Aperture 2 photo library and I was too afraid to upload anything new into Aperture 3!  After going home and having my dad work his magic on my dear mac, I was able to get into Aperture 2.  Sad thing is that I fell in love with Aperture and I finally bought it this week!  Now I can upload, organize, and play around with photos like never before!

Now back to the food: I love Irish soda bread.  Scratch that, I love traditional Irish soda bread.  Most of the recipes floating around on the Internet call for ingredients like butter, raisins and eggs… my dear non-Gaelic friends, that is not traditional.  The fewer ingredients, the better.  I adapted this recipe from the Merlin Menu and just now realized that I didn't follow the directions.  This is a good thing, though!  The bread turned out perfectly.  My housemate, Kate, was even bragging to people at the bar that I was the first person to make Irish soda bread she liked.  And everyone at The Environment Report gobbled it up!  It's so easy to make and is such a crowd pleaser - go make some as soon as you can!

Side Note:  I didn't have any buttermilk, so I mixed two and a half cups of milk with 2 (and a little bit more) tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice that I let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bread flour
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 to 2 1/2 cups buttermilk. 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat. Whisk both flours, sugar, and baking soda in bowl to blend.  Add buttermilk; stir until a sticky balls forms.
3. Divide into two loves.  Turn out onto floured surface and knead briefly until dough comes together, about 5 to 10 turns. Shape into a round ball and place on baking sheet. Sprinkle flour onto of the Cut a large X, 1/2 inch deep across the top of the dough.
4. Bake until the bread is deeply browned (30 to 45 minutes) and sounds hollow when tapped on the top. This bread will "look" done well before it is, so prepare to generally bake for the full time shown.

No-Knead Ciabatta

I have already had a bit of experience making no-knead bread - but this one takes the cake.  I love Ciabatta bread and have made it is the past  - but it usually takes a lot longer (actual work-wise) and is a lot more labor intensive.  I did have trouble getting the "hollow knocking" sound on the bread - I didn't have a loaf pan large enough to fit over the loaves.  Instead, to make sure a good crust formed, I frequently sprayed the inside of the oven with some water.  Another trick is placing a pan full of boiling water on the bottom of the stove.  I kept one loaf for myself (it made a wonderful black-bean burger bun and canvas for peanut butter sandwiches) and gave the other to the boys at 505.  This is a great sandwich bread - make it now!

No-Knead Ciabatta

Adapted from Jim Lahey

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of bread flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast or active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
• 2 cups of tepid water

Directions:

1. The night before, mix the flour, yeast and salt. Slowly add the water as you bring the dough together with either your hand or a spatula. The dough will seem too wet, then seem too dry. It should end as a fairly shaggy and wet dough.
2. Cover the dough with a clean cotton cloth or a piece of plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm room for 12-18 hours
3. When you check the dough the next day after the allotted time has passed, it should be a bubbly wet dough.
4. Gently slide the dough out onto a floured cookie sheet. Split the dough into two and shape the dough into the desired shape of Ciabatta, which is a long slipper like shape. Cover the dough and let rise another 1-2 hours. It will roughly double in size.
5. Before the dough is done rising, preheat the oven to 220C. Place a baking tray in the middle rack.
6. Place the loaves on the baking tray and cover them with an upturned loaf pan.
7. Cook the bread for 20 minutes, before lowering the oven temperature to 180C and cooking for a further 10-15 minutes or until nicely coloured, when ready the bread will also sound hollow to a gentle knock.

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread

I made this? Seriously?  Legitimate artisan bread was crafted by my own hands and pulled out of the oven?  It's true!  I had wanted to try making this bread, especially after trying the speedy version of no-knead bread.  I must say, this is so much better.  It tasted like sourdough and I got beautiful irregular holes:

The only reason I hadn't made this before is because of time constraints.  While the actual time of 'physical labor' need for this bread isn't substantial at all - you still need to let the bread rise for about 18 hours.  My best recommendation (and what I did) is to prepare the dough the night before you plan to bake it, let it rise over night, and in the morning make the bread.  This dough is quite sticky, so make sure to have enough flour on hand to use on your hands and to flour the dough/cotton kitchen cloths.

I used this bread in "over night french toast" for Christmas morning so we would have a nice, hearty, breakfast but without having to take someone away from the family to slave away in the kitchen making breakfast.  I hope to post the recipe ASAP because the recipe received RAVE reviews!

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread
Adapted from The New York Times

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

Directions:

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes. (This is what my dough looked like right before I started working with it... dotted with bubbles)
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

YIELD: One 1 1/2-pound loaf

And a closing photograph - my dog PRAYING for the bread to fall on the ground.  I had to shoot outside because my lightbox is at my house in Ann Arbor:

God Bless Bella!

"No-Vampire" Thin (Herbed) Crust Pizza

My first night home at my parents for Christmas break I made this for dinner for my mom and me.  We were both SO ravenous that we pretty much ate the entire pizza (save for 4 small pieces)... and use the full-size stove that the pizza is resting on for reference.  Because of the whole vampire craze that is going on right now, my mom and I thought it was funny that this pizza would be a perfect vampire repellant.  The dough has minced garlic (and other herbs) in it & we topped the pizza with garlic-y pesto, onions, garlic, spinach, blue cheese, and mozzarella.  I love how the strong flavors all complimented each other! And a note of the dough - it was a relatively short rising time (about 45 minutes) because I hot-boxed in the oven at 100 degrees until it was doubled in size.


For the Dough/Crust:
Ingredients: 

• 1 packet of yeast (about 1 tbsp)
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Cup warm water
• 3 Cups flour
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil, plus more to coat the pan and dough
• 1 Tsp salt
• 2-ish cloves of minced garlic
• a few shakes of Italian seasoning, oregano, and rosemary

Directions:

1. Mix yeast, sugar, and warm water. Stir gently until combined and no clumps remain. Let mixture sit for about 5-10 minutes. Add flour, oil, garlic, herbs, and salt, beating in with a spoon.  Using your hands, gently push the dough together until it forms into a ball. Kneed for 2-3 minutes. Brush a thin layer of olive oil over the dough and cover with Saran wrap. Let it sit and rise in an oven heated to 100 degrees for about an hour (it only took me 45 minutes), or until doubled in size.
2. When your dough is ready to go, you can do one big pizza or two pizzas and roll until it is thin. Transfer the rolled dough onto a cookie sheet coated generously with olive oil. Brush a generous amount of olive oil on the top of the dough. Make sure that all parts of the dough is covered in olive oil- both top and bottom. (If it's not completely coated, you won't get an even golden and crispy crust). Poke the dough a few times with a fork (this prevents the dough from bubbling up while in the oven). Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
3. For the toppings I used: pesto, mozzarella, blue cheese, garlic, onions, and spinach.
4. Bake the topped pizza in the 425 degree oven for about 7-10 minutes, or until the cheese melts and becomes bubbly.

Crusty No-Knead Bread

I have been baking bread for about 3 years.  Sometimes the bread comes out beautiful, crusty, flavorful, and just like I wanted.  Other times I knead bread for hours and hours praying that I will be rewarded with a bread that was worth the effort.  Usually the longer I work at getting a bread to be perfect, the worse it turns out (not ALWAYS though - sometimes my effort is graciously rewarded).  I was a little skeptical about trying this recipe - a bread the promised all the results with none of the effort?  Alas, it is true!  While I was studying for Ethnobotany and writing up some things for my journalism classes, the dough slowly rose in my kitchen and I don't think it could have been easier to cook.  I did use the "speedy" recipe for no-knead bread (about 4 and a half hours compared to 12 to 18 hours) from The New York Times, but I plan on trying the original no-knead bread sometime in the future.  Check back in the morning to see how the bread tastes (the housemates and I are using it for our sandwiches tomorrow).

Speedy No-Knead Bread
Adapted from the New York Times

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bread flour (I used Kind Arthur Bread Flour)
• 1 packet ( 1/4 ounce) instant yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I used Kosher Salt)
• Oil as needed (Pam cooking spray works fine)

Directions:

1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature.
2. Lightly oil a work surface and place dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes more.
3. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6-to-8-quart heavy covered pot (I used a dutch oven) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under dough and put it into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.
4. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack for about 30 minutes before cutting into and enjoying!

Look at that texture!

Cinnamon Rolls

This is a tried and true favorite from one of my favorite (and most abused/covered in food) cookbook: The Tassajara Bread Book. I made these for a couple of reasons. First, my grandpa really likes cinnamon buns - I dropped them off at my grandparents house Friday afternoon and they loved them! Second, I have to keep my co-workers at Bivoauc fat and happy. Third... does they need to me a third? Who doesn't like cinnamon buns? Most of the cinnamon buns turned out well, but the final pan of buns that I put in the oven kinda were a little over cooked. I fell asleep for a hot second... so those were a little over cooked. Oh well - I'm pretty sure people still ate them. If you did get one of the kinda over cooked ones - I swear I'm usually better than that.

But for the actual cinnamon buns, I used a yeasted Norwegian Coffee Cake recipe for the dough.

Cinnamon Buns

Adapted from the Tassajara Bread Book

Ingredients:

For Dough:

• 2 packages of active dry yeast
• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 5/8 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground cinnamon
• 3 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

For Cinnamon Bun Filling:

• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 (ish) tablespoons cinnamon

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast in liquid and stir in the 1 1/2 cups of white flour, adding a couple of tablespoons of the sugar. Beat well, and set aside to rise (I proof mine in an oven heated to 100 degrees and then shut off).
2. Cream the butter, and then cream in the sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
4. Fold the butter mixture into the yeast sponge along with the salt and cinnamon. Then fold in the flour, one cup at a time, as necessary to form a soft dough. Knead the dough until smooth, using more flour as needed.
5. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.
6. After it has risen, roll it out on a floured board in a rectangle 3/8 inch thick. Brush on melted butter.
7. Sprinkle on the brown sugar and cinnamon.
8. Starting at one edge, roll up the dough fairly tight as you would a carpet. Cut the toll in sections about 1/2 inch thick, and place the sections flat on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving space around them to rise and spread out. Let them rise for 20 minutes.
9. Brush with an egg wash (1 egg beaten together with 2 TBSP of water) and bake at 375 for about 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown.
10. Frost with a powdered sugar glaze (powdered sugar beaten with milk until desired consistency is reached).