Stacey Makes It

About once a month, I go with my fiancé to visit his parents.  They are fond of za'atar , so I thought I'd try and make something with the herb mix. I've also been playing with pizza dough a lot since it only requires one rising before use. Stacey's Roasted Garlic Za'atar Twists: Dough 2c bread flour, organic 1-2c unbleached all purpose flour, organic 2 1/4 tsp yeast 1c water 1/2c buttermilk 2 tbs honey 2 tbs olive oil, organic 1 1/2 tsp salt Filling 1/2c-1c roasted garlic, mashed, mixed with olive oil olive oil, organic 1/2c pine nuts Za'atar 1/2c-1c shredded mozzarella Equipment standing mixer rolling pin bread stone - mine is something like this for pizzas, but you can get rectangular / square ones too instead parchment paper cookie sheet Combine the dry ingredients (with only 1 cup of the all purpose flour) in a standing mixer (you can use a big bowl and a hand mixer, or just use your hands if you have the patience and enduranc...

I've been doing a lot of yeast experimenting lately on my waffle questing. In this recipe, I wanted to find out if I could use yeast as a leavener for a sweet cake (not quite like panettone, more like a regular cake and less like a sweet bread).  I have not found out the chemical reason for it yet, but yeast doesn't like having too much sugar and it under-rises.  I read this on another website, but there was no explanation for why.  If I had to guess non-scientifically?  I'd say that since yeast uses the sugar for food, which later makes it expel gas, perhaps having way too much food turns them into gluttons and then they kill themselves overindulging before they ever get to make enough gas.  All you food scientists out there, feel free to correct me and tell me I'm a moron.  :) At least then I'll get my answer. In any case, here was my experiment. Stacey's Chocolate Yeast Cupcake Experiment Ingredients: 1 3/4c unbleached all-purpose flour, organic 1/...

Yes, it's been a long time again.  I'm having trouble adjusting to my new schedule of driving to Cupertino every morning and trying to get in a morning run.  Also, I've been experimenting with waffles and they're not always that great, so I've been embarrassed to blog them. This is a yeast waffle batter that I adapted to make muffins.  I loved how fluffy the America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book recipe was coming out, so I decided to see if I could adapt it to make muffins. Stacey's Havarti Dill Yeast Muffin Ingredients  2c all-purpose unbleached flour, organic 1.5 tsp yeast 1 tsp salt 2 tsp dried dill weed 1 3/4c lowfat milk, organic 2 tbs honey (although 1 tbs is probably enough) 1/2c olive oil, organic 2 eggs, lightly beaten 5 oz lite havarti cheese, cut in chunks (but you can use regular) Muffin pan Preheat oven to 350F. Mix all the dry ingredients together.  Then heat the milk to about 110F using a thermometer or your handy dandy te...