Homemade Beer Bread

Fall is just around the corner...personally, I'm really sad to see summer go, but on the bright side, my favorite kind of beer is now available (yum, Oktoberfest....so delicious). In the spirit of good fall beers and continuing with my homemade series, I tried out this quick and easy recipe for beer bread. This is a great recipe to accompany with some warm fall soups.

Ingredients
3 cups flour (sifted)
3 teaspoons baking powder (omit if using Self-Rising flour)
1 teaspoon salt (omit if using Self-Rising flour)
1/4 cup sugar
1 can of beer (12 oz)
1/2 cup melted butter (you can use 1/4 cup if you prefer)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Mix dry ingredients and beer together. If you don't have a sifter for the flour, don't just pack it into the measuring cup (otherwise you're get really hard bread). Instead, spoon the flour into the measuring cup, so that the flour is less compacted.

3. Mix half of the melted butter into the dough.
4. Pour dough into a greased loaf pan. Then pour the rest of the butter over the top of the dough.

5. Bake 1 hour (I baked mine for 40 minutes since I used 2 small loaf pans). I recommend placing a sheet pan on the shelf below your loaf pan because some of the butter will probably spill over the edge.
6. After baking, immediately remove from pan and cool for at least 15 minutes.

Enjoy the hearty bread with a light beer taste :)

Credit for this recipe goes to Food.com

Homemade English Muffins

For the 4th edition of my homemade series, I decided to try out a recipe that kept popping up on Pinterest: Homemade English Muffins....I don't know about you, but I love Pinterest; I use it for recipe ideas all the time (if you haven't checked the site out yet, I highly recommend it). I found this recipe for Homemade English Muffins and figured it would fit perfectly with this series.

Ingredients

1 tsp active dry yeast

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 Tbsp butter

3 cups flour, divided

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup cornmeal

non-stick spray as needed

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and 1/2 cup warm water. Stir to dissolve the sugar and yeast. Let sit for 5 minutes or until foamy on top.

Yeast and sugar after getting foamy

2. While the yeast/sugar mixture is resting, combine 1 1/2 cups flour and the salt in a large bowl. Stir well to evenly distribute the salt. In a second small bowl, combine the milk and butter. Microwave the milk/butter for for 30 seconds at a time, stirring until the butter melts into the milk.

3. Pour the yeast mixture and the milk mixture into the flour. Stir until it has combined into a pasty mix. Now take the remaining flour (you should have 1 1/2 cups left) and add 1/4 cup at a time. You may not use all of the remaining flour. Stir in 1/4 cup at a tie until the dough forms a soft, slightly sticky ball that pulls away from the bowl. (I probably used about 1 cup of flour here)

4. Sprinkle a little flour onto a clean countertop and coat your hands in flour. Dump the soft ball of dough out of the bowl and knead it for 5 minutes (if you don't know how to knead dough like I didn't, check out this link). Don't be too liberal with the flour in this step; adding too much will result in tough muffins.

5. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a bowl that has been coated in non-stick spray. Lightly spray the top of the dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until double in size (about 45 min - 1 hour)

The dough covered to let rise

6. Punch the dough down, shape it into another ball, cover the bowl/dough and let rise a second time (45 min - 1 hour or until double in size)

7. Punch down the dough again and turn it out onto a well floured countertop. Using a rolling pin, lightly roll the dough until it is about 3/4 inch thick. Use a round cookie cutter, biscuit cutter, or round drinking glass to cut the dough into circles. When you can't cut out anymore circles, gently ball the remaining dough, roll again, and cut more.

8. Place the cut dough circles onto a sheet pan that has been liberally covered in cornmeal. Sprinkle more cornmeal on top of the muffins. Cover loosely with a damp towel and let rise, once more, until double in size (about another 45 min).

The cut out muffins on a cookie sheet before rising

9. Heat a large skillet over medium-low heat. Spray the pan with non-stick spray. Carefully transfer the fluffy, risen muffins to the hot skillet with a spatula. Cook the muffins in batches in the skillet until they are golden brown and crispy on each side. Make sure to keep the heat low so that the outside browns slowly, allowing time for the inside to bake. It took about 5-7 minutes for each side with mine.

One side is cooked, cooking the other

10. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Emily's Thoughts

Overall I thought this was a fun recipe to try (who knew you baked English muffins without the oven?!). It's not very hard, but it does take a decent time commitment--not for the physical baking, but for waiting for the dough to rise. If you want to try making something homemade that your normally never would, this is a good recipe to try. And the muffins taste good. 


Credit for this recipe goes to the Budget Bytes blog.

Homemade Peanut Butter

Continuing with my "homemade" series, where I cook things I would normally always buy at the store, I made homemade peanut butter. Three words for this recipe: simple, easy, delicious. I'm a big peanut butter lover, do so I just had to try out this recipe. And I highly recommend it. 

There are so many ways you can enjoy peanut butter :)

Ingredients

8 oz salted party peanuts or shelled and skinned roasted peanuts

1/4 teaspoon very fine salt (only if peanuts are not salted)

1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons honey

1 to 2 teaspoons peanut oil (extra virgin olive oil works fine if you don't have peanut oil)

Special Tools: food processor

Directions

1. Put the peanuts, honey, and salt into the bowl of the food processor. Process until mixture is fine peanut pieces.

The mixture before adding oil

2. Add oil through the opening at the top of the food processor or all at once. Place the lid back on and continue to process until the mixture is smooth--about 2-3 minutes. (more processing produces smoother peanut butter)

The final product

Storage: store peanut butter in an airtight container in the fridge

Thanks to The Redhead Riter for the recipe!

Homemade Granola Bars #2

For the second post of my "Homemade" series, I tried out another granola bar recipe. I found this one on allrecipes.com. They have a more of a sweet taste than the first granola bar recipe because of the chocolate chips. I made them for my family and they all loved them. And this is really easy!

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup rice krispies

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup honey

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, rice krispies, cinnamon, flour, mini chocolate chips, and salt. 

3. Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, oil, and vanilla.

4. Mix well using your hands. Then evenly pat mixture into the prepared pan.

5. Bake for 30-35 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges. Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm. 

*Don't allow the bars to cool completely before cooling, or they may be too hard to cut. 

Recipe adapted from allrecipes.com

Homemade Granola Bars #1

I don't know about you, but there are certain things that I always buy at the store and would never bother making on my own. One of these things is one of my favorite snacks, granola bars. So I decided to start a "Homemade" series; I'm going to try making things I always buy at the store. Since I've never done this before, I'll be adjusting other recipes I've found.

To kick off the series, I tried out 2 granola bar recipes. Here's the first one that I found from the Food Network, I think these ones are fairly similar to Kashi Chewy Granola Bars:

Ingredients

2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal

1 cup sliced almonds

1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed

1/2 cup toasted wheat germ

3 Tbsp unsalted butter

2/3 cup honey

1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup raisins

3/4 cup craisins (dried cranberries)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch pan and line it with parchment paper.

2. Toss the oatmeal, almonds, and coconut together on a separate sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Stir occasionally, until lightly browned. 

3. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in wheat germ.

4. Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees.

5. Place the butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for a minute, then pour over the toasted oatmeal mixture.

6. Add the raisins and craisins and stir well.

7. Pour the mixture into the 9x13 pan. Wet your fingers and lightly press the mixture evenly into the pan.

8. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool at least 2 to 3 hours before cutting into squares. Serve at room temperature. 

Emily's Thoughts

I made this recipe at my parents' and my whole family ate them up. The bars didn't hold their shape perfectly, but they still tasted really good! The other great thing about this recipe is that you can change it around a little if you want. Don't like coconut or almonds? Use other types of nuts. Want to add dates and apricots? Adjust the amount of raisins and craisins or just replace them all together. And this is really easy! I think I'll start making my own granola bars more often.

Recipe adapted from the Barefoot Contessa.