Tag: bread

Sourdough Boule w/flavor variations and Pizza Crust options

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

I know we posted pictures of the mini bread loaves that we made for Christmas gifts and I might have mentioned that we used a similar recipe for pizza crust after my kiddos kept commenting on how much the bread dough made the kitchen smell like a pizzeria… we’ve been playing around with the recipes and finally have something we think is good enough to share.

This may not be the easiest recipe to make but it is well worth the effort and it gets easier the more times that you make it. Mr. Awesome has even said that this pizza dough is the best we’ve ever made and he really enjoys it… that says a lot coming from a former Pizza Hut fan!

I’ve also seen some Bagel recipes that are very similar to this bread recipe so I might try that one day… this may just be a one-dough-fits-all kind of situation that would simplify my life a lot right now! We generally use Mondays as our Meal Prep day but sometimes the only thing I actually get prepped is the bread dough for the week… it is so nice to be able to just pull a lump of dough out and have fresh bread whenever we want it or need it!

Just remember that everyone’s kitchen is different and your oven may be different than ours too as ours has not been acting very well lately but we have made these several times and these are the directions that we have been using. The printable recipe is at the bottom of the page.

If you want a recipe for more of a sandwich-type bread then try our Easy Homemade Bread recipe.

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Amish Friendship Bread – A gift that keeps on giving!

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

Are you still trying to come up with a gift idea for someone? This is a great gift to give… either finish the starter out to bake the bread or gift some starter and a copy of the directions to your friends so they can bake their own bread.

I was recently gifted several starters so I had to dig through my old binders to find my old recipes for this gift. It’s been over 10 years since I’ve made any of these recipes. I ended up making 2 loaves of the Basic Recipe, 2 loaves of Banana Bread, 2 loaves of Chocolate Bread, and a double-batch of pancakes, and I still have 2 cups of starter left over to start another batch.

Photo by Liana Horodetska on Pexels.com

I have included the basic bread instructions in this post and I will also try to include a pretty printable for gifting. This would be so cute to give a small loaf of bread with a small jar of starter and the instructions.

There are many other variations available and you can easily search for more flavor variations online. I will try to update the blog with some of the other recipe variations that I have in my binder.

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Easy Homemade Bread

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog16 Comments

I know I’ve mentioned in a few posts that we’ve been making our own bread again. We love sourdough bread but a few of the kids had mentioned that they really wanted something more like store-bought so I tried a few recipes and with a couple of tweaks we have found a combo that we really like… Mr. Awesome and I haven’t been eating much bread but we have tried a slice here and there as it smells so good! It is quite exceptional when it’s still a little warm and smeared with real butter and then drizzled with a bit of local honey… mmmmm!

This bread is great to use as rolls and as an alternative to English Muffins for breakfast. It also toasts up really nicely! We save all the breadcrumbs in a baggie in the freezer to use in our recipes where breadcrumbs are needed.

I recently converted my sourdough starter ‘Fran’ to a pasta madre/lievito madre/stiff dough and I like the results so far. You can learn more about this process HERE. I think I want to try to make some Panettone for Christmas this year so I wanted to get some starters going and get a little more familiar with the process.

I’ve also been researching about the Herman starter and Charlie starters so I may want to them out as well.

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Homemade Croutons

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

Forget the days when croutons were just for salad toppings. We love to eat croutons on our salads, our soups, stews, and we have even been known to eat them as a snack every now and then as well.

I know I have a recipe for homemade croutons somewhere around here but I’m not sure where it is but I’ll update this one if there is anything different about the way I made them the other day.  It just happened that my sister sent home some of the Quick & Easy Garlic Bread and it got pretty hard even though we had it in a Ziploc baggie.

Well, I really didn’t want to throw it out because it was really good and then I had an idea. When we did our last grocery pickup they were out of oyster crackers. I had planned to make Loaded Potato Soup that night as Mr. Awesome had requested it but we really like to eat it with oyster crackers. I had some regular saltines but decided to give it a try with some garlic croutons and they were a HIT!

I skipped a couple of the steps as our bread already had the garlic and butter so I simply had to cut it up and bake it for the most delicious croutons ever. I also keep a baggie in the freezer with scrap bread for making croutons and/or bread crumbs. Continue reading “Homemade Croutons” →

Banana Bread

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

This is another recipe from the old recipe box… who knows how long I’ve had it for sure? I do know it is a great way to use up any old bananas that might be hanging around your kitchen.

This also works great for the freezer. Just allow the bread to cool completely before wrapping in plastic wrap and placing it in the freezer.

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