Monthly Cooking Thread, March 2022

[Jamestown1630]

I’m not much of a baker, and these ‘Easy King Cake’ recipes using refrigerated cinnamon or crescent roll dough have intrigued me. This one is from ‘The Painted Apron’, and uses refrigerated cinnamon rolls:

https://thepaintedapron.com/2017/02/21/take-out-tuesday-cinnamon-roll-king-cake/

************************************************

We mentioned Spoon Bread on some thread last month, and I was craving it. While looking for a recipe, I found some interesting twists on it. My grandmother used to make it from scratch, and I think she also sometimes used a Washington Flour mix for it. (That isn’t available anymore, but I believe the Weisenberger Mill still has one.)

Granny didn’t put canned corn in it, but I happened upon this one using Jiffy Cornbread Mix and canned kernel and creamed corn. It’s probably more of a corn pudding or casserole, not really like the traditional Spoon Bread, but it turned out great. The only change I’d make to this recipe is to not mix it directly into your baking dish, but mix it in a big bowl and then spoon it into a casserole (and don’t make my mistake: I did it in a big souffle dish, and it took a lot longer for the center to firm-up. You will want to do it in a more shallow square or oblong dish):

Spoon Bread

1 pkg. “JIFFY” Corn Muffin Mix

1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

1 can cream style corn

1 cup sour cream

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 1-1/2 quart casserole dish.

Pour margarine or butter and corn into dish. Blend in sour cream.

In separate bowl, beat eggs and stir into casserole. Add muffin mix. Blend thoroughly.

Bake 35 – 40 minutes or until center is firm.

Here’s the Jiffy website with lots of other recipes using their mixes:

https://site.jiffymix.com

***********************************************

I’ve never made an Irish Soda Bread, but I thought this year I’d supplement my husband’s obligatory St. Patrick’s day Corned Beef and Cabbage with it, and this one looks good. (Lots of people add raisins or currants, but that’s apparently not authentic and the ‘real thing’ is made with just a few ingredients). From ‘Baking a Moment’:

https://bakingamoment.com/irish-soda-bread/

-JT

[Jamestown1630]

This month: Some easy breads for March.

(If you would like to be on or off of this monthly cooking thread ping-list, please send a private message.)

-JT

[MomwithHope]

Hi, how about posting your crusty full of holes bread recipe?

[AbolishCSEU]

King arthur website has a decent king cake recipe

[Jamestown1630]

lOL! I always liked the notion of ‘Beer Bread’, because it somehow sounded to me like it was ‘crusty and full of holes’ - a savory, sort of sour, yeast bread.

The one time I tried a recipe, it was like any quick-bread loaf...

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks.

[Ellendra]

Here’s my favorite yeast bread recipe: https://www.thekitchn.com/japanese-milk-bread-22987020

I usually swap the white sugar for brown, and add a spoonful or two of whole wheat flour. That gives it a nice nutty taste. This recipe has the texture of Wonderbread, but the flavor of homemade. It’s great for sandwiches and toast.

[lizma2]

Just made this spoon bread recipe last week!

Put a bit a sugar in it.

Krusteaz corn bread taste a little bit better than Jiffy.

Have yet to conquer the perfect ciabatta bread. Gonna work on this and Chicago rolls this weekend.

My problem is I love to cook more than I like to eat. Have two filled freezer!

[Flaming Conservative]

Ooh, that spoonbread recipe sounds delicious! I’ve made soda bread before. It tastes very much like a fresh loaf of white bread to me, with a different crumb, but still delicious.

[Jamestown1630]

I’ve never really made it - I had an old recipe from some low-fat diet book that was pretty nasty. But I will try a real one this month.

[Jamestown1630]

I’ve seen recipes for ‘milk bread’, and I will check it out. Thanks!

[sockmonkey]

*** My problem is I love to cook more than I like to eat. Have two filled freezer! ***

Oh, I am one of those, too, but resist freezing because it seems like “leftovers”. I, too have two stuffed freezers. I am trying to not be such a food waster, but cooking is my therapy. Lots of times I will have several main dishes going at once. eg: pot roast.meatballs, pot of chili.

[Liz]

King Cake using refrigerated cinnamon or crescent roll dough.

.....I like it.......

Has that “Chopped” vibe.

[bgill]

Back in the 70s, I used a 1, 2, 3 beer bread recipe but made muffins.

1 can of beer
2 heaping T sugar
3 C Bisquik

Be very careful with it. That’s how I got my hubby.

Tip - At the beginning of covid, there was no flour so I bought Bisquik. Hate that overly salty stuff so it’s sat in the pantry for two years. Recently, I’ve been using it half and with all purpose flour in bread making. Don’t add salt to your yeast recipes and it works just fine.

These days, I’d add flour to the beer bread recipe to cut the salt. I suspect they’ve changed the Bisquik ingredients as it used to not be as salty. YMMV.

[bgill]

It is good. It is a Christmas and Thanksgiving table must have. Version - 1 box Jiffy, 1 melted butter stick, 1 can corn, 1 can creamed corn and 1 C sour cream. No eggs.

If you don’t have cream corn, you can use two cans of regular corn but only drain one of them. Of course, cream corn is better.

Keep the one drained liquid for your veg broth freezer container for soup later.

[Jamestown1630]

I don’t think I’ve ever used Bisquick. Is it just flour and shortening?

[bgill]

Yes. Four, shortening, baking powder and a boatload of salt. There are recipes for it online but have never tried them.

I also bought bought cake flour that’s been sitting in the pantry for two years.

[bgill]

Whew, can’t spell this morning.

[Jamestown1630]

I freeze all that stuff if I’m not sure when I’ll use it.

I don’t understand why everything is so much more salty these days. There are convenience foods my husband and I liked when we were growing up that are just too salty now. (We both liked Hamburger Helper.)

[Ellendra]

Random bread-making tip:

The bread machines I’ve used all had the same 3 problems:

1. The bread came out crumbly. You had to slice it pretty thick to get it to hold together, and even then if sometimes fell apart while you ate it.

2. While mixing, it would kick up flour and sometimes bits of dough. Then later in the baking part of the cycle, anything that had settled on the heating element would start to burn, often setting off the smoke detector.

3. There were always clumps of unmixed ingredients packed into the corners of the mixing bucket.

The solution to all 3 of these turned out to be the same thing: Run the machine twice.

If you run it first on the “bread dough” setting, that gives you a chance to pull the bucket out and wipe down the heating elements, and you can use a wooden tool (not metal, you don’t want to scratch the finish) to dig out anything that got packed in the corners. Just poke those clumps back into the dough, the next kneading cycle will mix them in nicely.

Then, run the machine on the regular bread setting. The extra knead and rise cycles will give your bread a better, less crumbly texture.

Running the machine twice will mean that the yeast eats more of the sugar, so you may want to tinker with the amounts. But I think the improvement to the texture is more than worth it! Not to mention, this means not having to deal with the smoke detector going off!

I’m sure that, somewhere out there, there’s a breadmaker that doesn’t have any of these problems. But I have yet to find it, and all the ones I have tried had the same issues. So, if yours is having problems, try this trick and see if it helps.

Happy baking :)