DRIVE BY RECIPE; make your own sweetened condensed milk... it's a quickie, don't blink

   

I try to remember to have Sweetened Condensed Milk on hand because I cook with it fairly regularly.  Sometimes I fail miserably at 'keeping things in the pantry that I need".  I like to think I'm not the only one.

I have an EASY fix is to make your own; truly it's dead easy.  You're going to love this.

This stuff works just like the stuff in the can and it's a fraction of the cost and really, it's delicious.

DRIVE BY RECIPE:

TRACY'S HOMEMADE SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK

INGREDIENTS;

2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 T butter, (I use salted, if you use unsalted, then add a pinch of salt)

splash of vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS;

Combine the milk and sugar in a heavy pan, set on a medium flame and cook (simmer and stir often) it till it's pale yellow, super thick and and bubbling like lava.

Take off head, add the butter and vanilla.  Transfer it into a container with a lid, leave to chill on counter then pop it in the fridge till you want to use it.  It technically lasts weeks but in practice, a couple of days before it's used up :)  

THAT'S IT!  go on, take it off your 'to buy' list and put it on your 'to make' list!

I'll get more play by play pics up later today but I wanted to get this driveby up for you. 

/enjoy

Jewish Rye Bread (seeded) Lots of steps but not much work involved in each of them. About 5 hours from start to finish, it's worth it for these delicious, rich, dense, flavorful loaves

I love rye bread.  I find it obnoxious to pay 4 times the cost of most breads in the grocery store for  a small loaf of Jewish Rye.  I looked in a bakery not too long ago and they wanted 7 SEVEN! dollars for ONE loaf of rye bread.  oh, I think not.

I make a ridiculous amount of bread.  I supply me and some of my friends with loaves of it.  I have a friend with half her freezer dedicated to my bread!  *cool*

Anyway, I figured how hard could it be to switch out from white loaves of Italian, french, hard, soft, crusty, crunchy, rolls, baguettes, sweet, salty, sourdough, croissants, brioche or pretzels?  I kind of have mastered the world of yeast.

I scoured old books as well as the Net for recipes and ideas and methods and after all of it, I came up with this alchemied version of Jewish Rye bread.

There are a lot of individual steps but each step only takes moments of time so if you're going to be at home, then you may as well make these loaves.

TRACY'S SEEDED JEWISH STYLE RYE BREAD

This recipe has one additional rise which adds incredible flavor but also adds an hour to the time.  It's worth it, trust me, I wouldn't mess with you on this one.

OK, so this is a little convoluted.  TRUST me.  Read it all before you go ahead but it's not nearly so involved or obnoxious as it looks :)

FIRST MIX:
In the bowl of the kitchen aid, combine:

3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup rye flour
1/2 tsp yeast
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon brown sugar (lightly packed)
1 1/2 cup water

SECOND MIX
In a small bowl, combine

2 cups all purpose flour (slightly heaped)
1 tsp yeast
2 Tablespoons caraway seeds (or a little more if you're a real fan)
1 heaped tsp of kosher salt

ADDITIONAL

2 tsp vegetable oil
salt water for spraying
ice for steam in the oven

Combine FIRST MIX in the bowl of your kitchen aid mixer and stir with a spoon till it's smooth.  Combine the SECOND MIX in a small bowl and just mix with your fingers till combined.

THEN, carefully sprinkle the dry mix OVER the first (wet) mix.  DO NOT COMBINE.  Cover and leave it until the first mix erupts out through cracks in the dry mix over it.  Weird but a really standard method for this sort of bread.  Mine took about an hour.
   

So, when it's all oozy, add 2 tsp of vegetable oil and take it to the machine like all the other breads.  The only extended time is the first bit of waiting for the liquid to proof.

I mixed it with the dough hook by hand before I hooked it up to the machine.  Let it mix for a bit then crank it on high and let it knead for you.  It should clear the sides of the bowl and pull up from the bottom.  You can add up to 1/4 cup more all purpose flour but wait at least 5 minutes into the kneading before you do.
   
Beautiful, clearing the bowl and the bottom.  The dough is SLIGHTLY sticky and very soft.  We want it that way.  Dump it onto a lightly floured board and knead it a few times to feel really involved. We want smooth and soft dough. When you press your thumb in, it should spring, slowly and happily back up.
   
Lightly oil the top and put it into a bucket with a lid to rise.  We want it to double.  Mine took 20 minutes to do this! WOW!  Happy dough!
   
Gently tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently flatten it.  Pull the top down and roll it into a log about the size of a snake that would make you run, screaming.  Cut it into two pieces and put it on a cornmeal coated sheet pan.  Cover it with a towel or greased cling film or a tin and leave it.  Mine doubled in about 20 minutes.
  
Spray the loaves with salt water and slash the tops.  Put them in a 450 degree preheated oven for 15 minutes.  I throw ice cubes on the bottom of the oven floor to create steam with all my loaves and I did for these as well.  I think you should as well.

After 15 minutes, lower the heat to 375 and transfer them to a stone and bake for another 30 minutes or until they sound hollow when you knock on them.  Transfer to a rack and wait, painfully, for them to cool completely.

   

The moment of truth:

Shatteringly crisp crust.  Tender dense but soft crumb.  Flavorful.  Richly floral with caraway. I've nailed it completely and totally.  THIS may be the most successful bread I've ever made.
 the knife shatters the crust and cuts through the soft crumb beautifully.

No tearing, the smell of the caraway is amazing.

The crust is so perfectly even.  The flavor of this stuff is amazing.  The texture and crumb is more than I ever thought I could ever ever produce.
 

I'm delivering the second loaf to a friend who will test for me to see if it really IS as good as I think it is.  In the mean time, seriously, go make this, now.

/enjoy

Garlic Pull Apart Cheese Bread , my version

You're going to want to sit down for this one.....

Here's the beauty shot, right up front.  I think we should take a moment and look at this.  Yeah, it's light and airy but substantial and tender.  It's laced with garlic and cheese and herbs and pepper.  It's one of the best things I've "winged" in a very long time. 

I've had a rough day, I wanted something decadent.  I wanted something rich.  I wanted something comforting and delicious. I wanted something extravagant.  I'd planned on pasta for dinner, this seemed the brilliant side.  I must say, in this instance, I think I have absolutely nailed it.  First time out, no testing, no opinions from friends, nothing.  Make these.  You'll LOVE them!!  

TRACYS GARLIC PULL APART CHEESE BREAD

2 cups a/p flour
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 cup +2 TB warm water

1/4-1/2 cup butter
3 garlic cloves (or more or less to taste)
parsley, salt, pepper, oregano
grated Parmesan cheese (as much as you love)

Just the long winded, commentary and pictures version of this recipe today.  

In a vessel that has some form of measurement on the side (I use my http://www.acemart.com/kitchen-supplies/food-storage-accessories/food-containers/square-white-food-containers/food-container-square-polyethylene-white-cop10731/prod4653.html )  put in the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, water and mix with a spoon or spatula for a minute or so until it's a relatively cohesive shaggy blob of very very very wet dough.  Put the lid on and leave it to rise until it's doubled.  MINE took 30 minutes BUT remember I make bread daily so I have yeast in the air and everything rises faster here. 

Lightly butter a dish (hahahaha  did I seriously take two pictures of buttering?  hahaha sorry)

 

In a glass bowl combine the butter, garlic, herbs and microwave until melted.  Mix in a little cheese and taste to be sure you love it.  Be sure to keep it quite liquid, we are going to coat the dough in this stuff.

  

When the dough has risen/doubled, it looks like this, hardly a dough but TRUST me here.  I haven't steered you wrong before with this super wet dough and I won't this time either.  I don't have any before pictures because I was making this up as a quickie and it was when I pulled the dough out that I realized I was going to blog this...  just in case you were wondering.
 

Tip it onto a relatively well floured board and flip it a time or two.  Pat it into a rectangle and with a bench scraper, chop it in half then chop each half into a bunch of little pieces, I think I got 22 or so.  Roll them into little, loose balls.  Try not to use too much flour, just enough to have the dough not stick to your hands.  I put a little on my palm then clap it off. 

  

Roll each ball in the melted butter/herb/cheese mixture and put in the prepared dish.  Be quick here, a dunk and flip is all it needs.  Do NOT fret about the butter that isn't absorbed yet, this is NOT going to end up an oily mess, I assure you.
  

Arrange them in a flat layer in the dish and leave them to rise.  I put mine in the oven with the light on for about 30 minutes to go from this to this:
 

Bake in a PREHEATED oven set at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until you can pull the center ball out and eat it and know that it's cooked :)  Yep, I DID!  I grabbed the middle one by the 'head' and yanked it out and ate it!  MMMMMMMMMMMM

You can pull and eat straight from the dish, after you let it rest about 5 minutes, or you can tip it out and pull it...  Connor went mad for it, there's none left!!  He said it was the best bread I'd made and that's high praise because we all know exactly HOW much bread I cook.

It's a quick and easy and CHEAP side for any meal but worked beautifully with my pasta tonight.  The balls are rich and buttery but still have good texture and chew because the base dough is good, quality, old school and in fact it's the "crusty Italian loaf" dough that I make but I simply cut the recipe in half.  

Here's some requisite beauty shots:
  

  

I tipped it out to see what it was like upside down... oh yeah, crunchy bits on the edges, hello!

  

And, we're back to this...  Seriously, go make this.  You're going to love it

/enjoy