Category Archives: Bread

This cornbread is light and fluffy with a sweet taste.  It’s great served with black-eyed peas and cabbage.  There is something about baking cornbread in a black iron skillet. It gives it that crisp crust that everyone looks for. Kent and I purchased some stone-ground cornmeal from a man grinding corn in his booth at a festival in Vinton, La.  We took turns turning the wheel as our corn became cornmeal.  When baked, the cornbread was coarse, but flavorful.
by Pat Savoie

Ingredients

1     (14 3/4 oz) can cream-styled corn
6     Tablespoon butter, softened
2     large eggs, separated
1/2  cup whipping cream
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1   cup flour
1   Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/3   cup sugar
1    Tablespoon shortening

Method

Beat butter and egg yolks until smooth.

Add whipping cream and the can of corn that has been processed in a blender until smooth

Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt

Mix dry ingredients with the wet ingredients

Beat egg whites until stiff, then fold into batter

Add shortening to a black iron skillet and heat in 375 oven for 5 minutes

Remove skillet from oven and pour batter into hot skillet

Return to oven and bake 375 for 25-30 minutes

I recently checked out the popular book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library after a month long wait in the request line. I tried the basic recipe and found it to be easy and the bread pretty good, especially toasted with butter and homemade blackberry jelly. It definitely looks great too.  I decided to go ahead and buy the book.  I’m anxious to try some of the sesame seed versions. I’ve included a how-to video below that was created by the authors.  It’s a good prep before the bread making attempt.

From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, submitted by Elizabeth Savoie Dronet

Preparation time: 15 minutes to prepare enough dough for four loaves, to be baked over four days during a two week time period. Each daily loaf will average 5 minutes of active preparation time.

*For planning purposes, I’d like to note that the dough will have to rest for 40 minutes once you take it out of the refrigerator and then bake for 30 minutes.  The recipe also suggests letting the loaf cool before serving.

Makes four 1-pound loaves

Ingredients

3 cups lukewarm water (about 100º F)
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packs)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt
6 1/2 cups all-purpose white flour (no need to sift)
Cornmeal for the pizza peel

Method

1. In a 5-quart bowl, mix the yeast, water and salt. Add all the flour, then use a wooden spoon to mix until all ingredients are uniformly moist. You can also use a dough hook in the KitchenAid mixer for this. It is not necessary to knead or continue mixing once the ingredients are uniformly moist. This will produce a loose and very wet dough.

2.Cover with a lid (not airtight). Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse, about 2 hours, but no more than 5 hours.

3. After rising, the dough can be baked immediately, or covered (non completely airtight) and refrigerated up to 14 days. The dough will be easier to work with after at least 3 hours refrigeration.

4. On baking day, prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal to prevent the bread from sticking when you transfer it to the oven. Uncover the dough and sprinkle the surface with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough (serrated knives are best). Store the remaining dough in the bowl and refrigerate for baking at another time.

5. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick. Create a smooth ball of dough by gently pulling the sides down around to the bottom, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. While shaping, most of the dusting flour will fall off. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out during resting and baking. Shaping the loaf this way should take no more than 1 minute.

6.Place the dough on the pizza peel. Allow the loaf to rest for about 40 minutes. It does not need to be covered. The bread may not rise much during this time.

7. Twenty minutes before baking, place a pizza stone on the center rack of the oven. If you don’t have a baking stone, use another baking sheet. Remove any upper racks. Place a broiler pan or cake pan on a rack below the pizza stone or on the floor of the oven. Preheat oven to 450 F.

8. When the dough has rested for 40 minutes, dust the top liberally with flour, then use a serrated knife to slash a 1/4-inch-deep cross or tic-tac-toe pattern into the top.

9.Slide the loaf off the peel and onto the baking stone. Quickly but carefully pour 1 cup of hot water into the broiler tray/cake pan and close the oven door.

10.Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Allow the bread to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcG4PpG1LcQ

When Kent was going to Loyola Law School in New Orleans in 1978, funds were short, but he managed to give me a Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas. The first thing I made was a loaf of bread. We have continued to enjoy bread making through the years. The kneading feature on the mixer

We were so proud of our bread in 1978!

makes it easy. I still love to knead the dough by hand for the last few minutes before putting it to rise. This Christmas 2010, I received a new Kitchen Aid mixer from Kent. My daughter, Rebecca, and I made this beautiful white bread. The loaf pan was inherited by my mother, Dolores, from her best friend, Melba Wittler’s, mother. Kent was the first in line with his electric knife and stick of butter when it came out of the oven.

by Pat Savoie

Ingredients:

2 envelopes active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
6 to 6 1/2 cups bread flour
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 Tbsp butter, melted

Method:

Combine yeast, water, and 2 tsp sugar in bowl of electric mixer and let stand 5 minutes. Stir in eggs, vegetable oil, salt, lemon juice, remaining sugar, and 3 cups of flour. Mix until smooth, then gradually add remaining flour until a soft dough forms.

Change paddle to a bread hook and knead 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from bowl onto floured surface and knead a few times before placing in a greased bowl, then turning to grease top. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double.

Punch dough down, turn out onto floured surface. Divide dough in half if making 2 loaves. Roll each half into an 18 x 9 inch rectangle. Starting at short end, roll jelly-roll fashion pressing edges to seal as you roll. Tuck ends under and place in 2 greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans. Brush tops with oil. Let rise until double in bulk.

Preheat oven to 375 and bake 25 to 30 minutes. Loaves should sound hollow when tapped. Remove from pans and cool on wire rack. Brush tops with melted butter.

And what would Kent do without his electric knife?

What did we ever do without a Kitchen Aid mixer?