Honey Wheat Breadsticks

This afternoon I posted my third recipe made with my brand new WonderMill as part of the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge! I am thrilled to be participating in this challenge.  I love making homemade fresh breads and I am loving making my own flour.  The WonderMill is amazing.  It literally takes only minutes to make your own flour.

This recipe has been a family favorite for years, I simply adapted it to use my freshly milled flour! I hope you give this recipe a try and let me know what you think :)

Check out my full post at the Grain Mill Wagon Blog: www.grainmillwagon.com.

Honey Wheat Breadsticks

Grain Mill Wagon Challenge: Delectable White, Whole Wheat, and Oat Dinner Rolls

For those of you who have been readers @ A Handful of Everything, you may remember that I have joined the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge! Making bread is therapeutic to me and there is little more I love than making bread for my friends and family. With my new WonderMill I am loving making my own flour and combining several different kinds of flour to make some great new recipes.

My post this week is exactly about that, mixing different flours and grains together to make an amazing homemade bread.

Another post will be coming soon! Check out my post and other great blogger recipes at the Grain Mill Wagon Blog: www.grainmillwagon.com

Delectable White, Whole Wheat, and Oat Dinner Rolls

Easy No Knead Wheat Bread

Last night I posted my first recipe made with my brand new WonderMill as part of the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge! I am so excited to be participating in this challenge.  I love making homemade fresh breads and I am having a hay day making my own flour.  The WonderMill is amazing.  It literally takes only minutes to make your own flour and I have been ecstatic with the results. There has been some serious experimenting going on in my kitchen :) Needless to say the actual bread has been disappearing at an alarming rate, but that just gives me an excuse to make more!

My husband laughed at me the day it came in the mail.  I was like a kid in the candy store putting the parts together and running around buying grain to use! What can I say, I'm a Food Geek :)

Anyway, I hope you give this recipe a try and let me know what you think.

More is coming soon! Check out my post at the Grain Mill Wagon Blog: www.grainmillwagon.com

Easy No Knead Wheat Bread

Christmas Tree Bread

I look forward to baking with the ladies from #Twelve Loaves every Month.  Though I've missed the last few I was determined to join them this month since December and Christmas time are a favorite at my house and the theme was Holiday Breads!!! This recipe was given to me by my Mother-in-Law which I modified slightly and my boys devour this rapidly.  This would be a great base for a Danish or other sweet bread too, it's amazing!  I hope you enjoy it :)

Here are what the other #Twelve Loaves ladies are making!

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Coffee Cake by Liz at That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Cranberry Apple Cinnamon Rolls by Dionne at Try Anything Once Culinary

Cranberry Orange Scones by Renee at Kudos Kitchen by Renee

Crunchy Almond Holiday Bread by Paula at Vintage Kitchen Notes

Holiday Breakfast Wreath by Lora at Cake Duchess

Mini Toffee Banana Bread with Caramel Sauce by Holly at A Baker's House

Nut Brittle Topped Holiday Bread by Deepti at Baking Yummies

Pandoro by Karen at Karen's Kitchen Stories

Stollen by Renee at Magnolia Days

Print Recipe

Christmas Tree Bread

4 cups flour
1 Tbsp yeast
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups powdered sugar
2-4 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

In a Kitchen Aid mixing bowl combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour with the yeast.

In a saucepan heat the milk, shortening, sugar, and salt just until the shortening is almost completely melted, stirring constantly.

Add to the flour and yeast and mix well.

Add the eggs slowly while the mixer runs at a slow speed.

Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and then mix for 3 minutes at medium high speed.

Stir in as much of the remaining flour on low as needed to make a moderately stiff dough.

Place in a greased bowl turning once to coat.

Cover and let rise in a warm place for an hour.  Punch down, recover and let rest for 10 minutes.

On a floured surface roll out the dough to approximately a 15x10" rectangle.

Cut the dough into 1" strips with a pizza cutter.  To shape lay a 10" strip of dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for the tree trunk.  Take another strip fold in half and twist for the bottom branch.  Repeat using a 8, 6, 5, and 3" strips.

To make a different shape cut a long strip in half and simply cut long strips to desired length to form the branches.

Let the dough rise until double.  About an hour and 25 minutes.

Meanwhile heat oven to 400 F.  Bake for 12-15 minutes and cool completely.

Mix the powdered sugar, milk, an vanilla to make a good drizzling consistency.  Add food coloring if desired.  Transfer the glaze into thick (freezer) zip top bags or piping bags.  Snip the corner with a pair of scissors.

Drizzle the glaze over the trees.

With a spatula transfer the trees to a serving plate! Rip it apart and enjoy :)

For the #TwelveLoaves group this month we are baking Holiday Breads perfect for the season! In November we made amazing spice breads. Here you can share your  December Holiday Bread (yeast or quick bread). 

Let's get baking!

If you’d like to add your bread to the collection with the Linky Tool this month, here’s what you need to do!

1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your blog post; this helps us to get more members as well as share everyone's posts. Please make sure that your bread is inspired by the theme!

2. Please link your post to the linky tool at the bottom of my blog. It must be a bread baked to the Twelve Loaves theme.

3. Have your Twelve Loaves bread that you baked this December, 2013, and posted on your blog byDecember  31, 2013.

#TwelveLoaves is a monthly bread baking party created by Lora from Cake Duchess. #TwelveLoaves runs so smoothly thanks to the help of the lovely Paula from Vintage Kitchen Notes and Renee from Magnolia Days.

The 2nd Day of Bloggy Christmas!

Brought to you by:

           

On the 2nd Day of Bloggy Christmas Miss Joy Bee gave to me easy Soft and Buttery Crescent Rolls!

Refrigerated dough ready to roll and bake into soft and buttery crescent rolls.

Crescent rolls are great holiday tradition.  The dough is very versatile and can be used not only as rolls but in many other recipes too.  I love crescent rolls but I'm very suborn too.  I don't like to buy bread products if I can make them myself.  These rolls use yeast instead of baking powder so they are more bread like than biscuit like, and take longer.  It may take longer to make but a little time spent and you can have crescent rolls to store up to 3 months in your freezer.  Then they are ready to thaw, roll, and bake at your convenience. And they taste great with out any strange ingredients.

Ingredients:

224g luke warm water (1 cup)

6g active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)

22g sugar (1 1/2 Tbsp)

23g dry milk (1/3 cup)

508g bread flour (4 cups)

2 eggs

6g salt (1 tsp)

57g butter (4 Tbsp)

Pour the warm water (about 100 degrees F) in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Sprinkle on the yeast and then the sugar and let sit for about 15 minutes until frothy.

Once the yeast is active add the dry milk, flour, eggs, salt, and butter.  Stir on low speed with the paddle attachment until ingredients form a ball.

Switch to the dough hook and knead for 8-10 minutes until the dough is soft, supple, and elastic.  It should be tacky but not sticky (it should not stick to your finger when you poke it and should pull away from the sides of the bowl but it may stick to the bottom a little)  You may need to add more flour to reach this consistency.  

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, rolling to coat it all over.  Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1-2 hours until doubled in size.

Turn out the risen dough and divide into 4 equal pieces.  Shape each piece into a ball and cover and let rest for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut 4 pieces of parchment paper into roughly 9 by 13 inch rectangles.

On a sheet of parchment, roll out one ball of dough to about the size of a sheet of paper (8x11 inches) or at least an 8 inch circle or more of an oval.

Cut the rolled dough into 8 triangles (like a pizza).  Then roll the parchment and dough into a cylinder and place in a large freezer bag.  Repeat with all of the dough balls (put the rolled and bagged dough in the fridge while rolling the rest).  The dough can stay in the refrigerator for up to a week or freeze for up to 3 months.

If your crescent rolls are frozen thaw over night in the refrigerator.  Remove dough from the refrigerator, unroll the dough and parchment and brush the top of the dough with butter.

Roll each triangle starting at the wide end and ending at the pointy end.  Curve the rolls into a crescent shape and place the roll with the pointy end down on a baking sheet.  Repeat with all triangles. Then cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until almost doubled in size (it may take about 1 or 2 hours to warm up out of the fridge or quicker in a warm spot).  If you are making rolls immediately (not freezing or refrigerating) it only take 20 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 400F.

Bake the rolls for 14-18 minutes until golden brown.

Serve with any meal and enjoy.