Perfect 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Well friends, this is why it has taken me so long to even start a blog. It's been a while since my last post. My focus has shifted to food storage this past couple of weeks and I pick up 120 lbs of apples and 60 lbs of pears to can. I didn't add any sweetener to my apple sauce and the pears i did a syrup of half water and half grape juice. I also invested in a dehydrator and have been dehydrating some of those apples.

Pretty successful for someone who hasn't done much before.

During my canning expedition I came across a bread recipe of my sister-in-law's. It was a mix of whole wheat and white flour and also contained shortening. The bread was good so I decided to take the recipe home to see if I could get it to work for us...And it did! Well for the most part. I had to try a second batch to get it to rise how I wanted but I think I got it this time. I found a recipe for 100% whole wheat bread but it was never very consistent and I felt like it had a million different ingredients. I have come to learn over the past couple of days that I think my biggest problem with bread was not kneading it long enough. When I tried this new recipe the dough rose beautifully until I made it into loaves. I decided to do some research and learned that the culprit was most likely my kneading. I found the information here to be quite useful. So I tried a second loaf and kneaded it about 10 minutes and it worked! Here are a couple of pictures of my failed loaf and the one I am very proud of. These pictures really don't give it justice either. It is fluffy and lite and the crust is even chewy!

 Perfect 100% Whole Wheat Bread

2 ¼ cups warm water

2 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp yeast

2 tsp salt

3 cups Whole Wheat Flour

Mix the water and honey, set aside. Combine the yeast, flour, and salt. Add the water and honey and stir with wire whisk until smooth, 100 strokes. Cover and leave until bubbly, 1 hour.

½ cup honey (or 1/3 cup honey + 2 ½ Tbsp water which I did so it wasn’t as sweet)

3 Tbsp coconut oil (in solid state)

Microwave honey and oil in microwave for 30 seconds, stir to combine. Add to the bubbly dough.

3-4 cups Whole Wheat Flour

5 Tbsp vital wheat gluten

3 Tbsp flax meal (optional)

Add the flour, gluten and meal to bubbly dough and knead with mixer 7-10 minutes. Place in greased bowl and cover until doubled, about an hour. Oil work surface and split dough in half. Shape into 2 loaves and place in greased pans. Cover and rise until doubled. Bake in 375 oven for 30 minutes.

I also watched this video to get an idea of how to shape my loaves.

Quick Pumpkin Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls

My second attempt at quick pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Mmm…so good! I have made a few times a recipe for quick cinnamon rolls here. I found it okay but it wasn’t something I would make for a friend. I altered that same recipe yesterday at my first attempt. This morning I did a little more research a came up with this recipe based on the recipe I found here. In essence it is a biscuit recipe made into cinnamon rolls. If you have a favorite biscuit recipe you could just use that and give it a shot. I realized I forgot to add sugar to the dough but we felt it was great without it. It was the closest I have gotten to the texture of a yeast dough cinnamon roll. My idea for the filling came from here.

Quick Whole Wheat Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

DOUGH:

2 cup flour (I used white whole wheat)**
1-2 Tbsp flax meal (optional)
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice*

1 Tbsp butter, melted

3 Tbsp pumpkin puree
¾ cup buttermilk

 

FILLING:

1 Tbsp butter, melted
3 Tbsp pumpkin puree
1 ½ tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice*
1 tsp molasses
¼-1/3 cup brown sugar

 1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

 

Preheat oven to 375 F.
Mix butter, pumpkin, spice and molasses. Put aside.

Mix flour, flax, baking powder, salt and spices with a whisk in a large bowl. I then added my pumpkin and butter and whisked until it was a little crumbled together. I then stirred in the milk until the dough came together. Mine was still a little sticky. I know whole wheat flour tends to make a sticky dough. I am not sure what it would be with a different flour.

Take your dough from your bowl and place it on an oiled/floured surface. I try not to add more flour into my dough so I instead spray my mat/counter and rolling pin  with non-stick cook spray to stop the dough from sticking. You could probably try something like butter. If you aren’t a fan of the spray. Roll out dough into a 12 x 10 rectangle. Spread filling mixture over rolled out dough. Sprinkle brown sugar and pecans over top. Roll dough lengthwise. Cut into 8 even rolls and place in baking buttered baking dish.
Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

GLAZE:

Honestly, for the glaze I just added cream cheese powdered sugar, and maple syrup. The exact amounts I’m not sure. I wanted the maple flavor but don’t have any extract. There was actually some maple flavor to it. I used the recipe here (used full fat cream cheese and dairy milk). I think you could follow that recipe but instead of almond/vanilla extract just use maple. Orrin and I decided we weren’t the biggest fan of the cream cheese. My now food critique husband says he thought the flavors were competing with one another. (This is also the same person who asked of my attempt yesterday, if they were “malleable?” I think he was trying to ask if they were moist or not.) I don’t usually add the icing to cinnamon rolls since it is breakfast but I think I’ll look for a different glaze for next time.

*I made my own pumpkin pie spice on the spot since I hade none premade. I probably did about ½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ t ginger, a little less then ¼ t nutmeg and a dash of clove. (At some point I'll probably 10x a recipe like this and just have my own mix on hand).

**Since no gluten needs to be made my guess is that you could easily use gluten free flours to make this recipe. I like to use other grains where possible so next time I will have to give it a try and let you know how it goes.

A. Crazi Kitchen

This morning I wanted comfort food. My 6 month old came down with a high fever last night and you would think she was my first. I have been a little stressed about it. So naturally I decided to come up with a new recipe for Quick Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls. I had about an hour to get it taken care of. Now, I usually hate cooking in a dirty kitchen. 1. It's just gross. 2. There is no place to make anything.


The Crazie Kitchen. It's only moments like this I am grateful for my glass top stove.

 I decided to go against my better judgment and just go for it. As I was tying to come up with a new recipe while my poor six month old clinged to me and my toddler continuously rammed chairs in the back of my legs I wondered what crazy person decides to make something within a time limit in this chaos. And there it was, the name for my blog. After being married for three and a half years I still had no "go to meal plans" and constantly wondered what to make for dinner. Of course it doesn't help that we decided to focus on a whole foods, vegetarian approach a year or so ago. Now as a disclaimer, we do eat meat every so often, more so in the winter and...at times there will be the use of some processed items like white sugar and flour (gasp). I have recently started taking pictures of recipes I have tried and written how I have changed and what I would like to do different next time. I figured why not start a blog to keep them on. So here I go. Welcome to my journey into making healthy (and good tasting) meals for my little family.
How did my pumpkin cinnamon rolls turn out you ask? Not as sweet as I wanted them. I attempted to make a brown sugar frosting to sweeten them up with a recipe I found online. This is what happened instead:

Texture was something along the lines of Werthers Originals.

I must say though the flavor was wonderful.

This must be the reason for the chair in the back of my leg.