Focaccia Bread – The Perfect Fancy Sandwich And Traditional Appetizer

Focaccia Bread – The Perfect Fancy Sandwich And Traditional Appetizer
by: Mary Walsh

Focaccia bread is a staple in classic Italian meals. It is best enjoyed with olives, herbs, tomatoes (sun-dried) and cheese. You could also eat it by itself as a meal or as an appetizer.

Focaccia bread is made from basic bread dough used in making pizza crusts. It is said to have originated from the time of the Etruscans from North Italy. Some believe that Focaccia originated in Ancient Greece, during the beginning of the first millennium before Christ. The word Focaccia itself is a direct derivation from the Roman term panis focacius.

The recipe for Focaccia bread has spread to other regions, including the Middle East. The practice of dipping Focaccia into soups and vinegar started during the Roman times. At that time, it proved to be a cheap but filling meal for most people.

At present, Focaccia bread has its own dip made out of vinegar and is usually served as appetizer. The difference lies in its preparation. The dough transforms into Focaccia bread after adding toppings. Also, you could make your homemade Focaccia bread according to your tastes and preferences.

You are free to add little bits of herbs and cheese for that light flavor. However, you might want to add more toppings if you're wanting something more fully-flavored.

Here are the ingredients that you will need to create the basic dough:

1 tbsp/1 pkg of active dry yeast
1 tbsp of sugar
1- 1/3 c of water (hot)
2 tbsps of olive oil
3-1/2 - 4 c of flour (all-purpose)
2 tsps of salt

For the toppings, you'll need the following:
1/2 c of olive oil
Tomatoes (sun-dried), sliced
Olives or onions (caramelized)
2 tbsps of cheese (either Parmesan, Romano or Asiago); grated
1/4 tsp of salt (coarse)
2 tsps of fresh herbs or 1 tsp of dried herbs, either thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil or dill

Create your bread dough by dissolving yeast with hot water. Let stand for five minutes. Mix together all your ingredients for your bread dough inside a big bowl. Stir the ingredients together until the mixture becomes stiff and sticky.

Flatten the mixture into a flat & floured board/surface then knead steadily for ten minutes. Cut dough into half then shape each dough piece to a roll measuring 1/2 inch thick. Put the pieces into well-oiled cake pans and cover with plastic/serran wrap.

Let dough rise for an hour and thirty minutes. Preheat the oven up to about 400 deg. Fahrenheit. When your dough doubles in size, press firmly into cake pans and create indentations throughout your risen dough. Put the ½ cup of olive oil lightly into your dough. Then, add in your toppings afterwards.

Place dough into the oven and bake it for around 25-30 minutes. Make sure that your dough turns golden & brown. After baking, take bread out & let cool before serving.

Make Delicious Cinnamon Raisin Bread With Your Bread Maker

Make Delicious Cinnamon Raisin Bread With Your Bread Maker
by: Mary Walsh

Bread machines have become more & more popular lately. A lot of homes now are equipped with bread machines, especially with the growing popularity of bread as a healthier substitute for heavy meals.

Bread machines are easy to use and come equipped with manuals for omplete

instructions. The very first bread maker was marketed and released in Japan in 1986. It took a while before it became popular in U.S. and the U.K.

The most popular manufacturers of bread machines include Black & Decker,

Panasonic, Breville, Cuisinart, Moulinex, Toastmaster, Kenwood Limited and DeLonghi.

Bread machines usually have different cycles for each type of dough.This includes whole grain dough, straight white bread and European-style dough. But the newer bread machines have automatic timers which allow it to operate even without someone operating the equipment.

Contrary to popular belief, you could actually use bread machines to create more than just your plain loaf of bread. You could use it to create delicious bread varieties such as Cinnamon Raised Bread.

Cinnamon Raised Bread would be great breakfast accompaniments as well as perfect partners with after-meal coffee. Use your own bread maker to create tasty and delicious Cinnamon Raised Bread that you and your family can enjoy every morning.Here's a recipe to create that delicious Cinnamon Raised Bread.

You will need the following ingredients:

400 grams whole flour
2 tsps yeast
150 grams bread flour
3/4 tsp cinnamon; ground
100 grams mixed fruits/raisins
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 c water
1.5 tbsps sugar (brown)
1.5 tbsps oil (sunflower)
1.5 tbsps whey (powdered)
2 tbsps gluten

Get a pan big enough for the mixture and put all your ingredients inside your pan. Choose the appropriate cycle in your bread maker. Refer to your manual for this.

Place pan inside your machine then let it run continuously for about ten minutes. Afterwards, check your dough's consistency. Dough must have that sticky consistency. If consistency is not there yet, add in a teaspoon of water and cook for several minutes. Do these steps until you get the exact texture for your dough.

Since machine is automatic, it will finish off kneading all by itself then will shift to its baking cycle. After bread maker has completed its cycle, let bread cool inside your pan (10 mins.). This will allow crust to soften some more.

After bread has cooled enough, cut it using a sharp knife. Place a bit of butter on top if preferred. This bread will be excellent for serving with coffee or tea. The Cinnamon Raisin Bread will stay good for quite a few days if stored properly.

Fast And Easy way To Make Your Own Bread Crumbs

Fast And Easy way To Make Your Own Bread Crumbs
by: Mary Walsh

Do not even think of throwing out those leftover bread & rolls! Gather all those extra pieces of leftover bread, pretzels, crusts and crackers then use them to create fresh, homemade crumbs. These small, fine particles of dry bread are primarily used for crumbing or breading foods.

Fried foods can be more crisp and crunchy when cooked with bread crumbs. They're also used for making stews more thick and rich and for stuffing poultry.

To get you started, you need the following materials:

One big bowl that can fit 32 cups of mixture
One big airtight container w/ seal
Two pieces of freezer/Ziploc bags, in big gallon sizes
Food dehydrator
Food processor/blender

You'll also need spices to create your very own crumbs. Be sure to stock up on the following:

Garlic powder/salt
Basil
Green onions (dried), chopped
Oregano
Black pepper
Parsley
Seasoned salt
Dill
Rosemary

You could actually add any spice you want. Some really good flavors you could make include lemon-sage crumbs, Parmesan-Oregano crumbs, Almond and Garam Masala crumbs and Coconut-Lime crumbs.

Use your freezer/Ziploc bags to keep all the bread leftovers you can get. Fill them up and put them inside your refrigerator. After getting 2 bags full of leftover bread, then you can proceed to producing your crumbs.

Take the bags out from the refrigerator and let them thaw in room temp. for about 2 hrs. Then open the bags & put your leftovers inside the food dehydrator. Slice the big pcs. into small ones so you'll not have trouble fitting them inside the dehydrator. Set unit at low temperature and let bread pieces become dry completely (6 to 8 hrs). To avoid waiting, you can do this step the night prior so that next morning after waking up the crumbs will already be dehydrated completely.

Take the bread from out of the dehydrator then put them inside the food processor. Blend or chop the bread pieces. Make sure that all bread pieces turn into very fine crumbs before turning off your food processor.

Now add the herbs and spices to the processor. You can add 1 tbsp of each for just the right amount of seasoning. Cover food processor again and blend the mixture. Mix these for about 30 seconds. After that, store the fine crumbs inside an airtight container and keep them where it is cool and dry. Use these homemade crumbs as coatings for chicken, fish, meatballs and meatloaf.

Teach Your Kids How To Bake Yummy Banana Bread

Teach Your Kids How To Bake Yummy Banana Bread
by: Mary Walsh

Baking is definitely one good way to bond with your children.They'll have fun stirring the yummy mixtures in your bowl (and putting their finger on it too so they can lick the leftover batter).

Admittedly, letting your children loose inside your kitchen with you could create a huge mess, but what's a little clutter and spill compared to a great experience that you will share with them? Not to mention if you end up baking delicious banana bread that you will share with your whole family.

The children will see how painstakingly you prepare the food that you serve them and they will appreciate the time and effort you spend in preparing their favorite treats. Plus, you could also teach your children how to take directions as you anticipate them of the succulent results that lie ahead.

Mashed up bananas give the bread its distinct light sweet flavor. It became a staple in American cookbooks, especially when baking powder and baking soda became immensely popular during the 1930s.

It was speculated that banana bread originated during the early 18th century. Because of the simplicity of the recipe, banana breads became more and more popular as time went by.

Indeed, there's nothing like smelling the aroma of sweet banana and cinnamon when you pull the bread out of the oven. The delightfully crisp crust, with its mouth-watering golden brown color, is absolutely one of the best in the world.

The quality of the bananas that you will choose in making the bread is a huge factor that contributes to the taste of the finished product.

Lots of people believe that the best bananas for the bread are the ones with flesh that already turned soft and skins that already turned brown. Normally, people would throw away these overripe bananas, but this can actually be used to create the perfect banana bread.

Here are the recipe ingredients that you will need for baking banana bread:

3-4 pieces of mashed up bananas
1.5 cups of flour
1/2 tsp of salt
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1/4 cup of softened butter

Mix eggs, sugar, vanilla extract and butter together into your big bowl. Toss in mashed up bananas then stir well. Add in salt and flour to your bowl then stir them up until evenly blended. Be careful not to over-stir though.

Next, pour mixture into 2 well-greased loaf pans, making sure that it is evenly distributed. Now put the pans inside the oven and bake cake at around 350 deg. F for 45 mins. To check that the cake is ready, insert a clean toothpick at the center. If it comes out of your cake clean, then you can take it out of the oven.

Learn About The Basic Steps in Bread-making

Learn About The Basic Steps in Bread-making
by: Mary Walsh

Believe it or not, baking your very own homemade bread does not involve rocket science. Some people think that baking is difficult because you'd really try to follow instructions precisely so that you will get the texture and taste of your bread right. Although, the easiest way to have bread is to buy them at grocery shops, for some, commercially-made bread does not really suit their tastes and they'd rather opt for baking their own homemade bread, as tedious as it may seem at first.

Let me tell you that there is nothing like smelling the succulent aroma of good bread you actually baked yourself. Admittedly, it takes lots of practice before you'd be able to produce the perfect loaf of bread. On your first few baking ventures, you will end up with loaves so hard that you can't eat them anymore. Trial & error is something that you would need to go through when trying to create your very own homemade bread. Also, you must also learn baking the traditional way, even if your kitchen is stocked with all the modern tools that you would need. For instance, you should learn kneading your dough with your hands and not rely on electric mixers every time.

If you really want to get into baking, you should know some basic stuff, like flour and yeast. There are lots of these flour types available in today's market, but the very best one that you should use still is your basic bread flour. Its high gluten content produces great results when it comes to taste and texture. Use bread flour on your first few attempts when you're baking. When you're already getting the hang of it, that's when you're ready to experiment using other types of flour during baking, you could use whole-wheat flour for healthier variety of breads.

Yeast is really a very fickle baking ingredient. This organism likes sugar and warmed water. Water that is very cold or very hot will end up killing your yeast. So in order to control yeast, you'll need to put in salt into your baking mixture. Without salt, your yeast will get out of control then eat up everything.

Starters are very important for novice bakers. This is especially true if you want to make good sourdough breads. The taste and texture of sourdough bread relies heavily on yeast quality. This is why sourdough bread in San Francisco tastes better than those made in other places. The reason behind it is that the natural yeast present in San Francisco's air is really ideal for making sourdough.

Weather also plays a considerable part in producing quality bread. It basically dictates the amount of flour that you'll need. Dry weather means that you should use lesser amounts of flour and humid conditions require additional flour

Easiest Ways to Make Authentic Sourdough Bread

Easiest Ways to Make Authentic Sourdough Bread
by: Mary Walsh

Sourdough bread is usually included among the favorites of many bread connoisseurs around the world. Novice bakers find it difficult to capture the intense and deep flavor present in Sourdough breads. It also takes considerable practice in creating the perfect sourdough breads.

They say that sourdough bread likely originated around 1500 BC in Ancient Egypt. It became the main bread consumed in Northern California during the Gold Rush period. There are several regions, such as San Francisco, that's known for producing the best sourdough in today's market. In fact, sourdough bread is very much a part of San Francisco's culture. It's the perfect bread to partner with soups such as chili, cioppino and clam chowder, as well as most seafood dishes.

But the thing is, you could make your individual version of sourdough bread right inside your very own kitchen. It's not as hard as it sounds. You'll only need two ingredients, flour & water. Unbleached bread flour is recommended for starting bakers but you also try using flours made of whole-wheat & rye. You could also use organically grown flour if you want. You'll also be needing a clear glass jar big enough to hold in all the mixture.

Here are the directions to creating your very own sourdough starter:

First Day: Cleanse jar thoroughly. Put 1 c of your choice flour & 1 c of water into your jar then stir the mixture. Use a plastic or wooden spoon for this. Don't attempt using your metal spoon. Find any damp clean towel then use this to cover your jar. Store jar in any warm place. Ideal temperature is somewhere around 70 - 80 deg. Fahrenheit.

Second Day: All you need to do is to take care that your jar is still securely in its place. Bubbles may appear inside your jar, but don't worry about this.

Third Day: Open your jar & observe that there might be a bit of a sour smell. Don't be alarmed. This is normal. Now throw away 1/2 of your mixture. Add 1/2 c of lukewarm water and 1/2 c of the flour to your mixture then stir it well. Next, cover your container again then return it to its original location.

Fourth to Seventh Day: Do the third step in Days 4 to 7. Throw away 1/2 of your mixture and add fresh water and flour to your jar again.

By the seventh day, the container should be already filled with bubbles. The expansion in its volume indicates that your starter can now be used. You could now use this mixture for baking your very own sourdough bread, or store it for future use