Homemade Soft Pretzels

I found this recipe in the Penzey’s catalogue and thought, well that is just cruel.  This is so simple and oh so good.  It is terrifying for me to know how to make such addictive foods quickly, easily, and with ingredients I usually always have on hand.

1 ¼ cup warm water (105-115 degrees)
1 Tbs rapid rise yeast
¼ cup brown sugar, packed
2 cups bread flour
1 ½ - 2 cups all purpose flour
4 cups water
4 Tbs baking soda
Pretzel Seasonings: Flake salt, garlic powder, cinnamon and sugar, etc.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let sit for a few minutes, until it is frothy.  Add the sugar and 2 cups of bread flour, stirring well.  Add the first cup of the all purpose flour and stir to combine again.  Turn the dough out onto the kitchen table and add as much of the remaining all purpose flour as needed to make a soft dough.  Add a sprinkle of flour at a time while kneading, as soon as the dough starts to stick.  Knead for about 10 minutes or until you have a nice smooth elastic dough ball.  Form a ball and place in a bowl.  Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.  It doesn’t have to double in size but it should be substantially bigger.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Divide the dough into 12-18 pieces.  Bring the 4 cups of water to a low boil and dissolve the 4 Tbs baking soda.

Roll each piece of dough in a “snake” about 18” in length.  Twist into pretzels and pinch the ends into the turns they cross over to hold in place.  Dip each pretzel one at a time into the water for 5-10 seconds, making sure to get the water over the top of the pretzel.  I hold the pretzel on a slotted spoon and this seems to work well.  Shake off most of the excess water and place on baking sheets greased or lined with parchment paper.  Sprinkle with your seasoning of choice and bake for 6-8 minutes.

The pretzels will look done on the top before they are brown on the bottom so lift them with a spatula to check they are done on the bottom before taking out.  Remove quickly to a cooling rack to cool.

Try and tell me you don't want to eat your screen right now. Yeah, I don't believe you.

Morrocan Bread, Kbohz

For New Year’s Day my MIL made a Morrocan stew and I was asked to make some bread, so after a bit of research I found a recipe for Morrocan bread, kbohz, that you are supposed to eat with stew.  Apparently they don’t use utensils, they just eat it with this bread.  We didn’t do that, that would be a carb-overload, but I wanted to try the bread anyway.

White Bread

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar

1 tbs yeat
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 ¼ cup warm water, 105-110 degrees F
Additional flour for kneading
Cornmeal, semolina or oil for the pan

Prepare 2 9” round cake pans by oiling or dusting the pans with a little cornmeal or semolina.
Mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl.  Make a large well in the center of the flour mixture and add the yeast.  Add the oil and water to the well, mixing to dissolve the yeast first, and then stirring the entire contents of the bowl to incorporate the water into the flour.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and begin kneading.  If necessary, add flour in small amounts if the dough is very sticky, or water in small amounts if it is not coming together. Continue kneading for 10 minutes, or until the dough is very smooth and elastic.
Divide the dough in half and shape each portion in a smooth circular mound.  Place onto the prepared pans and cover with a towel.  Allow to rest for 10 minutes.
After the dough has rested, use the palm of your hand to flatten the dough into circles about ¼” thick.  Cover with a towel and leave to rise about 1 hour or until the dough springs back when pressed lightly with a finger.

Preheat oven to 435 degrees.

Score the top of the bread with a very sharp knife or poke the dough with a fork in several places. Bake the bread for about 20 minutes.  Rotate the pans about halfway through the baking time.  The loaves should be nicely colored and sound hollow when tapped.  Transfer the bread to a rack or towel-lined basket to cool.

I also made a wheat-cumin bread which I liked more than the white.  Replace 2 cups of the white flour with wheat flour and replace the sugar with 2 tbs honey and add 2 tsp cumin seeds to the flour mixture.  Prepare the bread the same as above.

Each recipe makes 2 loaves of bread and each loaf serves 6-8 people if you just eat bread with your meal, if you plan to use the bread in place of utensils a loaf will probably serve 4 people.

As far as bread goes this was really pretty easy, and tasted pretty good.  The outside was crusty but not too hard and the inside was soft.  It did have a smaller crumb than I was anticipating, but it wasn’t dense by any means. All in all a good flavored bread without a whole lot of effort.

No-Rise Bread

I have discovered the absolute most dangerous recipe ever.  I absolutely love bread, so I have to limit myself because it is just so calorie dense.  Since I found this recipe a few weeks ago I will admit I have made it quite a few times.  It is just so easy to make and you can cut it back to make just a few rolls so you don’t actually have to have a ton of bread lying around the house all week.  That is a big reason why I usually don’t buy bread.  I usually just want one piece of bread to go with one meal for the week, but when I have to buy a whole loaf I end up eating a piece of bread every night until it’s gone.  But with this recipe you can really easily scale it back so you don’t have that problem.  I have cut it down to 4 rolls but I haven’t tried 2 yet so I cannot verify if they will still turn out the same for that small of a batch, I don't really think it would work but I could be wrong, let me know if you try it.

2 ½ cup warm water (105-115 degrees)

6 Tbs sugar

3 Tbs yeast

2 Tbs oil

6 cup flour

2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Stir together water, sugar, yeast, and oil.  Allow to sit for about 5 minutes or until it is frothy on the top  Add flour, salt and baking powder and mix well.  Once you stir in the dry ingredients and they are pretty well incorporated, turn it out onto a clean work surface and start to knead.  Knead the dough, it should still be a little sticky but well mixed.  This can be made into rolls, a bread loaf, or even a pizza crust, so roll out or drop onto a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes. 

Serves 16, 210 calories, 2 g fat

I have cut this in half for 8 rolls and by 4 for 4 rolls and both turned out fine.  This bread is super simple, very fluffy and has a nice yeasty flavor.  How can you beat homemade bread that you can have mixed and baked in under 30 minutes?

Sweet Cornbread

This cornbread is more like corncake.  O will admit the day after I made this we actually ate it for dessert.  It has a really light and fluffy crumb and is very sweet.  This was probably the best cornbread I have ever had, definitely the best I’ve ever made.  It’s very quick and easy to make and for a low cal main dish like chili you can easily include these calories, especially if you make this 12 servings.  Just be careful, it’s so good you will have a hard time not eating a second piece!

1 cup corn meal
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbs and ½ tsp baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Soak the cornmeal in the milk for 10 minutes.  Mix in the remaining ingredients then pour into a cast iron skillet or a greased muffin tin.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

If you bake this in a muffin tin you can easily make it 12 servings, but if it’s baked in a cake pan or cast iron skillet I have a much easier time cutting 8 servings than I do 12 and calorie wise you really should strive for 12.

12 Servings, 182 calories, 6 g fat
8 Servings, 272 calories, 10 g fat

Banana Nut Bread French Toast

I saw this idea on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives the other day and thought it was the most brilliant thing I had ever seen, so of course I made it as soon as I had a chance.  In the restaurant he made banana bread French toast bananas foster as a dessert, and that does sound pretty outstanding, but the idea of banana bread French toast really excited me.  I am embarrassed I hadn’t thought of it before myself.

2 slices Banana Nut Bread
2 eggs
¼ cup milk
½ tsp cinnamon
2 tbs butter, divided

Slice bread and place in refrigerator overnight to firm it up and dry it out some.  This will help keep it from crumbling when you soak it in the milk/egg mixture.
Beat eggs, milk and cinnamon in a bowl and soak the bread on both sides.  Melt 1 tbs butter in a skillet over medium heat and add the bread, one slice at a time.  Once the egg has cooked and browned some, flip the bread over and cook the other side.  Remove to a plate and repeat with the rest of the butter and other piece of bread.  Dust with powdered sugar and serve with maple syrup, or just eat without either, you can’t really go wrong.

The amount of calories in this is of course going to be determined by how large of a slice of banana bread you use.  If you do large slices (1/8 of a loaf) this will be about 550 calories and 32 g fat.  This is rather high in fat for a breakfast but it’s ok to allow yourself to indulge every so often, just don’t make it a habit.

Banana Nut Bread

When I was in college I experimented with a number of different banana bread recipes, looking for my favorite.  This recipe to me is the one and I have stopped my search.  For me the texture is key for these types of breads.  I want a large crumb, something fluffy but moist, not like a muffin or a bread crumb.  The way to create the crumb you want is through the creaming style, and the moistness is dictated by the fat and the sugar.  To me the combination of all of it is perfect, but you may like a different crumb and that’s ok.

2 ½ cups sugar
1 cup shortening
3 eggs
1 ½ cup mashed bananas
3 cups flour
1 ¼ cup buttermilk
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cream the sugar and shortening until the shortening is no longer in chunks.  Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.   Mix in the bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla.  Mix in flour, baking powder, and baking soda and mix until just combined.  Stir in the nuts if desired.  Pour batter into 2 greased 9x5 loaf pans and bake 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Banana bread is another one of my weaknesses, so I will give you some ideas of calories and you decide on portion sizes, I’m not telling you how much I ate.


1 loaf, 3195 calories, 151 g fat
8 servings/loaf, 400 calories, 19 g fat
12 servings/loaf, 266 calories, 13 g fat

I usually end up making the 2 loaves and taking one to work because I cannot have 2 loaves of banana bread in the house, I must get rid of that temptation pretty quickly.  Most everyone likes banana bread so it is always appreciated when you show up with some.
I typically stay away from shortening, but I have tried banana bread with different types of fats, and this produces by far my favorite.  Since I make this only once or twice a year I feel that it’s ok to splurge.  Just make sure you aren’t splurging more often than not, we are trying to keep trim here!