DIY Wheat Bagels

Make your own bagels in an evening! A little on the labor intensive side as far as breads are concerned, but easy enough to fit between commercial breaks, or as a break from reading a good book, or whatever the evening in's entertainment may be. Homemade bagels are both delicious and inexpensive to make!

Ingredients:
Dough
3 cups lukewarm water
1 ½ tablespoons active dry yeast
1 ½ tablespoons salt
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
6 ¼ cups whole wheat flour


Water Pot
water
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions:
1. Mix dough ingredients in order of appearance. (First the water and yeast, then salt,then sugar, then sugar, then flour)


2. Allow to rise 2 hours. (Watch a movie while waiting perhaps?) This time can be slightly longer if desired/more convenient.


3. Dust the counter with flour and divide the dough into 12 approximately equal pieces. Shape into balls by tucking the edges under and sticking to the bottom.

4. Let rise 20 minutes. While waiting, turn the oven to 450 F. Place a cast iron pot or metal tray on the lower of the shelves. This will be used to add ice to create steam inside the oven. Additionally, fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. 


5. When 20 minutes are up, the oven should be preheated, and the water boiling. Add the baking soda and the sugar to the water at this point. 


6. Poke a hole in each piece of dough and gently stretch from all sides. The hole will shrink down again after cooking, so make it a little bigger than you think it should be. 


7. Using a spoon or other convenient utensil, gently place a bagel onto the boiling water. Allow to cook for 2 minutes, flip, and then cook another minute. Place onto a lightly greased baking pan. You may be able to do 2-3 at a time if your pot is large. 

8. Throw a couple of ice chunks into the pan at the bottom of the oven, and place your bagels on the upper shelf. Cook 18-20 minutes or until brown.  

Delicious!

Simple Flour Tortillas

Ever wondered how to pros do it at Pancheros? Here's a recipe to get you started in the art of tortilla making. Homemade tortillas fresh and hot off the skillet trump store-bought tortillas any day of the week!

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 Tbs butter
1 1/4 cups water

Instructions:

1. Mix dry ingredients in bowl.
2. Soften butter then mix with dry ingredients until evenly distributed.
3. Add water a little at a time until dough is soft but not sticky. May not need all of the water.
4. Split dough into about 12 balls. Let sit 10 minutes.
5. Preheat skillet to medium to medium-high heat while waiting.
6. Roll out dough balls into tortillas. Lightly flour to keep rolling pin from sticking. Should be thin and about the size of the skillet.
7. Cook tortillas one at a time about a minute per side. First side should bubble while cooking.

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Fantastic! Enjoy!

Cinnamon Bread

Here's a wonderful recipe my fiance and I discovered while playing the "let's cook something with the things we have on hand" game. A delicious dessert bread for anyone who loves cinnamon. Note: we used powdered buttermilk and added the powder to dry ingredients and the water to wet ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 Tbs & 1½ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

¼ cup oil

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

4 Tbs butter

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Grease 9x5 loaf pan.

3. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, 1½ tsp cinnamon, buttermilk powder, and salt.

4. In separate bowl, combine water for buttermilk, oil, eggs, vanilla. Beat well.

5. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Mix until combined.

6. In third bowl cut butter into small chunks, add 1 Tbs cinnamon, combine into pea size bits.

7. Fold cinnamon butter mixture into batter.

8. Pour batter into loaf pan.

9. Bake 45 minutes. Insert toothpick, if isn't clean or bread seems unstable, cook another 5 minutes. 

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