Tag Archives: Yeast

Angel Biscuits

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Angel Biscuits

Angel Biscuits

Ever have one of those meals where you are running around like proverbial headless chicken, trying to make a nice dinner, and yet still, you do 456 things incorrectly while cooking? Please tell me you have evenings like that. If nothing else, lie to me. I’m cool with that.

I made fried chicken for dinner tonight. Ultimately, it was fine, but the burner I prefer to use seems to be having hissy fits lately and has no medium temp. It’s either high enough that the food (in this case, the fried chicken) is somewhat burned on the outside and half raw inside or the oil temp is too low and the chicken ends up greasy. Yes, yes, I know, I could just move to another burner, but one, I LIKE the left hand side and two, that seems defeatist. Please don’t ask me why I stick with it and have food come out poorly, because I have no answer for that other than orneriness.

Then, the socket that I plugged the rice cooker into decided to go on the fritz and it wasn’t until the rest of dinner was done that I realized that the rice had never cooked. I had to plug it in elsewhere and try again. So, now we have 3 cups of cooked rice because no one wanted any by the time they finished the rest of dinner.

One part that turned out wonderfully was these biscuits. I have a lot of friends who aren’t comfortable using yeast and if you fall into that category yourself, these are the biscuits you want to try. They use both yeast and baking powder, so are virtually foolproof, and are so light and fluffy. These come together so easily; you don’t need a mixer of any kind. A couple hours chilling time, bake, and you have a pan or two of amazingly delicious biscuits. These are fantastic plain, or with butter and jam.

You know the drill…. 🙂

Angel Biscuits

  • 1/2 cup warm water (between 105 and 112 degrees)
  • 1 envelope yeast
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 5 cups flour
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 5 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (just plain old salt; nothing fancy)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 cup cold shortening, sliced thin
  • 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, sliced thin
  • 2 cups buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup melted butter
  1. In a small bowl, combine the warm water, yeast and one teaspoon sugar. Stir and let sit for five minutes. it should get foamy and bubbly. If it doesn’t, your yeast is dead; use a different pack.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
  3. Use a pastry blender to cut in the cold shortening and butter until the mixture is crumbly with pieces of butter ranging from pea to nickel sized. Pour in the yeast mix and the buttermilk, all at once. then stir until the dough is thoroughly moistened and you can mash it together into a ball.
  4. Cover the bowl with plastic and put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours and up to 24.
  5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 and lightly butter two 10 inch cast iron skillets (or a buttered baking dish). Dump dough out onto a lightly floured board. Pat into a 1 inch thick circle; fold in half; repeat process twice.
  6. Finally, pat or roll the dough into a 3/4 inch thick round. Cut the dough with 2 inch biscuit cutters. You can use smaller or larger cutters, but adjust your cooking time to suit.
  7. Place the biscuits, sides touching, in the prepared pans. Brush with half the melted butter.
  8. Bake at 400 for 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the pans once during baking, until the tops are golden brown. Brush with the rest of the melted butter and serve.

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Angel Biscuits

Angel Biscuits

Apple Cinnamon Gooey German Butter Cake

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Cinnamon Apple Gooey German Butter Cake

Cinnamon Apple Gooey German Butter Cake




I think I’ve mentioned before (probably many times. I’m getting old and forgetful. Hey, did I mention that I’m getting old and forgetful?) that I was lucky enough to live in Germany for three years in the mid 80’s. Yes, I’m well aware that many of you were barely crawling in the mid 80’s. Just get me my Geritol and call me Granny.

I had my first two children while there and when my oldest was little, one of my favorite things to do was to go to the local Konditorei and by a pastry or nine two. My sons favorite was always one that was similar to American Mallomars but 900 times better. It had a thin wafer bottom covered with a mound of fresh soft marshmallow then coated in chocolate. It was delicious.

My favorites however were anything gooey, messy and preferably with crumbs on or in it. No way to go wrong with gooey and/or streusel, now is there?

German Butter Cake is one of those desserts that you can also serve for breakfast based simply on the fact that it resembles a coffee cake/crumb cake and it is a yeast based cake. Anything with yeast means it’s a bread and you can always serve bread for breakfast. This gooey cake is, as I said, yeast based instead of baking powder, but don’t let that scare you away. It’s extremely easy to toss together. The most time consuming part of this recipe is peeling, slicing and sauteing the apples. The rest is pretty much wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

This isn’t the prettiest cake but it’s delicious. I covered the base with a layer of sweet buttery sauteed apples before I coated it all with the crunchy, crumbly topping. The topping stays partly gooey, as it’s supposed to, but it also get a nice crunchy, crackly edge.

Serve this as it or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. You’ll devour it no matter what. 🙂

You know the drill… git to cookin’!

Apple Cinnamon Gooey German Butter Cake

  • Cake-
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 packet dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup milk, warmed to between 110-115 degrees
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon each of cloves, cardamom and nutmeg
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • Apples-
  • 4 small Granny Smith (or other tart) apples, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • Topping-
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 2/3 cup flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon Fiori De Sicilia flavoring (optional. If you don’t have it, don’t sweat it)
  • 2 eggs
  1. Start your apples first so they have time to cool. In a medium pot, melt your butter. Add in the sliced apples and cinnamon. Cover the pot and saute the apples over low heat until the apples are crisp tender.
  2. Toss in the sugar, mix well and crank the heat up to medium. With the cover off, saute until they start to caramelize, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool.
  3. Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk. Let sit for five minutes.
  4. For the cake, in the bowl of a stand mixer (this can all be done by hand or hand mixer if need be), combine the butter, sugar and salt. Mix on low speed until creamy. Add in the milk mixture, then the egg and vanilla extract, then the flour and spices.
  5. Put your dough hook attachment on and let it knead the dough for a minute or two. It is not a dry dough, so expect it to be a bit sticky and tacky. Remove it to a small bowl and let it rise until double, about one hour.
  6. In the stand mixer bowl with the beater hook, combine the butter, flour and sugar. Mix on low for a minute; just to get it all combined.
  7. Add in the eggs, vanilla and Fiori De Sicilia (if using). Beat at low speed until you have a mixture that rather resemble s crumbly cake batter. Set aside.
  8. Spray a 13×9 inch pan with cooking spray. Punch the dough down and then press it onto the bottom and half an inch up the sides of the pan. Pour the cooled apples and any saucy mixture in the pot over the top of the base. Use your fingers to arrange the apples so they cover the bulk of the dough.
  9. Carefully spread the topping over the dough, taking care to not move the apples all over the place. After this is done, let the cake alone for 20 minutes or so so that it can rise a bit. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
  10. bake the cake at 375 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes, just until the base is cooked through and nicely golden brown. The topping will still look gooey. Thus the name 😛
  11. Let cool for about 20 minutes before trying to cut it or it will just ooze everywhere and you’ll end up with half the topping in the pan rather than on the cake.

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Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

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I’ve never been a huge bread fan. At least not when it came to the store bought kind. I ate it when I was a kid because…well, I ate everything when I was a kid. But I much preferred a pack of Lemonheads or a piece of fried chicken. Now though, I kind of like some of the store kinds. Not the ones in the bread aisle; they still suck donkey toes. But I love how so many grocery stores are now branching out into making artisan breads or at the very least, they stock more than an occasional loaf of stale French bread.

The problem with the fact that stores have gone gourmet is that I now bake less (as the lack of posts shows). When it’s so easy to grab a loaf of fresh rye bread or fresh Vienna bread at ones local Kroger, it is easy to become lazy. And since lazy and I are friends from way back (I could tell you stories about my mother being convinced that I would never ever learn to keep a house clean. Mom, wherever you are, I’m sure you’re tickled that I now keep a clean home and am actually pretty anal about it.), I’ve been lazy. And being me, I have felt guilty about being lazy. I haven’t been giving my family the baked goods they love nor keeping up in here. But now, with the weather getting colder, I, like so many of you, am back to baking. Yay for baking! You will not however, be getting the recipe for the pumpkin sticky buns I made the other day because they pretty much stunk. I have another version I will be trying and posting. Todays homemade bread though? Yep; you’re getting that recipe. This comes form the cookbook Bon Appetit, Y’all” I love this cookbook. Good southern cooking and the writing is sweet in parts, funny in others. There is a recipe in there for Honey Whole Wheat bread. Since I’ve been trying to eat better, I wanted to make this as opposed to say, one for “There is no nutrition whatsoever in this bread” white bread. Though I’m not sure the home made honey butter I slathered all over my piece helped the cause of nutrition hehe.

This is easily made. I don’t have a stand mixer so I did the mixing part by hand. Do your arm exercises; this is a heavy dough 😛 The original recipe calls for shaping this and putting it into loaf pans but I wanted a more rustic look so went for hand shaped freeform loaves. Now this is NOT a light airy loaf so if that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t the recipe for you. This is a heavy, fairly dense loaf. It’s also chock full of flavor and nutrition from the whole wheat flour and wheat germ. I also added some of this Harvest Grains Blend  from King Arthur Flour which upped both the flavor and the nutrition. if you can buy some of this, do so. It’s a wonderfully tasty addition to many baked goods.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

  • 3 1/4 cup warm water (no hotter than 115 degrees; about 110 is optimal for blooming yeast)
  • 1/3 cup good quality honey
  • 2 packets dry yeast
  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 3 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup wheat germ
  • 1/2 cup Harvest Grains Blend (optional- could also throw in a mix of say, sunflower kernels and flax seed)
  • 2 tablespoons sea salt (yes, 2; sea salt takes more than table salt to get the same flavor)
  1. In a large measuring cup, mix together the warm water, yeast and honey. Stir to dissolve then set aside while you mix the other ingredients.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together the whole wheat flour, bread flour, wheat germ, salt and grain blend (if using)
  3. Pour in the yeast mixture (it should be nice and foamy by now). Mix this together well; either by hand or if you are blessed to have a stand mixer, on low speed with the dough hook. Mix just until it is well combined.
  4. Dump the dough (and any dregs in the bowl) out onto a lightly floured board (kitchen counter in my case). Knead the dough well, adding a LITTLE more flour at a time if sticky, until it forms a cohesive mass. Continue to knead for about 10 minutes. You want dough that is smooth and elastic and that, if you poke it, is somewhat springy.
  5. Plop the dough into an oiled bowl. Turn the dough to make sure all of it is oiled, then cover with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel and put in a warm place to rise until it is doubled in bulk.
  6. When risen, divide in half and either shape into loafs and put into oiled loaf pans or as I did, make into 2 freeform loaves. If you do this, put each one onto an oiled baking sheet. Let rise until doubled in size, about 30 to 45 minutes.
  7. While they are rising, preheat your oven to 400. If your oven runs hot, go down to 375. The bottoms on mine got a bit too brown at 400. Bake until nicely browned, about 45 minutes (again; ovens are different so check after about 30 minutes). They should sound hollow when tapped on top.
  8. If in loaf pans,  cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack.
  9. Serve with every bad for you spread you can think of 😀

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I Think My Kids Need Yeast Interventions

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Buttery Yeast Rolls

I swear… I don’t starve my boys. Or at least not daily. Only on alternating Tuesdays and in months with a Y in it.. Generally speaking though, I actually allow them to eat. You would never know it though when I make something yeast risen. I can put it in the oven and come out and find the three of them huddled around the oven, drool sizzling on the glass door as they stare at whatever is in there and ask me “is it done yet? How bout now? NOW? Awwww mannnn… NOWWWW???!”. It’s the cooking version of “are we there yet!?” Thank God 3 of my kids are grown and moved… there wouldn’t be enough room around the oven and I would probably have to call in The National Guard to prevent bloodshed.

So when I made these yeast rolls the other night, I was prepared. I put on my riot uniform and hoisted up my bulletproof shield. I put up cement barriers all around the kitchen, had 911 pressed into my phone ready to press send and had a nice bottle of something high in alcohol at hand to calm my nerves. Then I got to work.  After a few hours, a new bottle of high octane hooch, as well as a few cans of food for the guard dogs and there they were. Hot, buttery, yeasty, “omg, I am gonna fight the kids for these” Buttery Yeast Rolls.The original recipe called for rolling the dough out and cutting it into crescents and yep, they were adorable looking. But…. I was soooo not feeling that ambitious. So I made regular rolls from these instead but with the added twist of a schmear (I love that word) of butter inside the roll before cooking. The original called for smearing the rolled dough with butter and then cutting it into the crescents. I got to the smearing part and got impatient; thus the making it into regular butter filled rolls part. What can I say? I was lazy. Continue reading →