Monkey Bread

                Today I will talk about something wonderful. And that is Monkey Bread. Basically, Monkey Bread is a yeast dough made into small balls that are rolled into a cinnamon-sugar mixture, piled in a pan, and drizzled with oil. When it is done baking, you have a delicious pull-apart, cinnamony yumminess.

                I made it for the first time when I was making challah a few months ago and had too much challah dough. You see, my freezer is quite small, so I do not have room to store the 8 challah that my 7-cup of flour recipe makes. So I turned half of the dough into challah, and the other half had to serve another purpose. I had been reading about Monkey Bread for a long time, and I thought it was time.

                Last night was actually my third attempt at Monkey Bread. I made my challah dough recipe, which is the first recipe in Shira Wiener and Ayelet Yifrach’s The Taste of Challah. It is recipe that produces an incredibly fluffy challah….maybe too fluffy as you will soon see. I left my braided challahs and prepared Monkey Bread on my counter to rise while I went to the supermarket. When I returned, my Monkey Bread was humongous! It had doubled in size, and some of the cinnamon-sugar rolled balls had rolled off of the loaf and onto the counter and floor! Once it was in the oven and rising a bit more from the heat, more cinnamon-sugar balls rolled off and landed on the bottom of the oven. (One of which is still there—it was too stuck to pry off while the oven was hot!) But it baked beautifully, and I have one report that it tastes good. My first hand report is upcoming—I had already brushed my teeth by the time it was ready, and who wants to brush their teeth twice in one evening??

humongous Monkey Bread after rising

you can see the runaway cinnamon-sugar balls on the counter, challah pan, and floor

What to do With Yogurt

• Mix in some frozen fruit (they get nice and juicy as they defrost)
• Spoon over oatmeal instead of adding milk
• Chop in your favorite fresh fruit or add fresh berries (mango, banana, strawberries, blueberries…)
• Add in ¼ cup nuts or seeds
• Use as base for a creamy salad dressing or dip
• Mix in fruit and freeze for a yummy cold treat
• Add to mac and cheese instead of adding extra cheese to add creaminess
• Use thick yogurt instead of cream cheese in frosting
• Add to a smoothie
• Swirl in a spoonful of nut butter
• Use instead of mayonnaise in egg salad or tuna fish
• Add ¼ cup raisins, dried cranberries, or your favorite dried fruit
• Sprinkle with some cinnamon or coconut flakes
• Serve with dry cereal such as Cheerios, Chex, or Grapenuts
• Add ½ cup dry oats and 1 cup milk and leave in fridge overnight for overnight oats
• Stir in some jelly or jam
• Drizzle with honey, syrup, or some sugar
• Add some applesauce or fruit compote
• Serve over warm pureed butternut squash
• Use as a spread on toast
• Eat it plain

Lots of Yogurt

                Because my small batch of yogurt was fairly successful, I was ready to try a larger run. I bought a gallon of 1% milk from my favorite National Wholesale Liquidators that sells milk for $3.00 usually. I had in the fridge Stop and Shop brand low fat yogurt that contained live and active bacterial cultures. And I was ready!

                This time, I heated my milk up in a crockpot. It took close to 4 hours for the milk to reach 185⁰F. Then, somewhat foolishly, I attempted to cool the milk by immersing it into a sink filled with cold water. Big mistake! Immediately, the crock developed a hairline crack. I quickly, (with the help of SP,) transferred the milk into 2 cooking dishes, and then let them cool on their own. Unfortunately, I let them cool to lower than 115⁰F, so I put them into the oven to warm them back to that temperature. In the meantime, I put about ½ cup of the yogurt to be used as the starter into a bowl. As soon as the milk was 115⁰F, I mixed about 1 cup milk into the yogurt, and then poured half the starter into each of the 2 cooking dished. I covered the dishes, then draped them with a blanket, and put 2 pots of boiling water on top to help maintain the warm temperature. I let the yogurt incubate for 8 hours. Then, I strained the yogurt for about 2 hours.

                I was intrigued that the yogurt from each of the dishes came out different than each other. The one in the shallow pan incubated at a lower temperature (likely due to the increased surface area it had to let heat escape.) That yogurt was a bit thinner, maybe a tad thinner than typical yogurt, but still definitely a yogurt consistency. The other one was much thicker, closer to Greek yogurt consistency. And both of the yogurts tasted like…yogurt! It was not too tart. It just tasted like plain yogurt. And none of the slightly grainy texture I had in my first one. It made about 4 quarts of yogurt, which means that it costed about $0.75 to make 1 quart of yogurt. I was pleased.  

Now, I have to find another method of heating my milk. I might get a large pot to be used for just this purpose. 

thicker yogurt before straining

thinner yogurt before straining

the yogurts straining!

thick yogurt after straining...it looks like yogurt, right?

My Yogurt Adventure

                I did it! I successfully prepared homemade yogurt. (See my post from last wee about my yogurt plan.) Props to my parents for allowing this adventure to happen in their home with their milk. They did not have yogurt to use as a starter, so shout out to YT and family for sharing with me a spoonful of Stonyfield Organic plain yogurt.

                This is what I did:

1. Find a thermometer. I had one, and then discovered that the battery was dead. Replaced the battery.
2. Pour 12oz Pride of the Farm lowfat milk into top of double boiler.
   
3. Heat milk to 180⁰F. Keep checking temperature with thermometer until it is just right.
4. Keep milk on lowest flame to maintain the milk at that temperature for about 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and let set milk pot in ice bath until temperature is 115⁰F. Keep checking temperature with thermometer until it is just right.
   
6. Add a bit of the milk to the spoonful of yogurt that is in a bowl at room temperature.
   
   
7. Transfer warm milk to insulated hot cup.
   
8. Pour the milk-yogurt starter mixture in.
9. Seal cup and put it in hot water bath. The water was about 125⁰F.
   
10. Wrap in towels to keep it insulated. 
    
11. Over the next 3 hours, I checked the temperature of the water bath twice and added more hot water to bring the temperature back up to 125⁰F. After that, I just let it sit undisturbed overnight.
12. After a total of 16 hours, I opened up the incubated milk.
    
13. I secured a thin rag over the top of a container and strained the yogurt through it for about 1 hour. I was left with some whey in the container. 
    

                I would definitely call this a success! The flavor was not too tart as I feared it would be after reading so much ahead of time. It did not taste like any yogurt I had eaten before, but it definitely tasted like yogurt! There was a slightly grainy texture to it, which from my reading may have to do with heating the milk too rapidly or moving the yogurt too much while it incubates. I will try to heat it slower next time and then leave it to peacefully incubate.

                 Anyone else want to try this? 

My Yogurt Plan

I have been reading up on yogurt. That is, making yogurt at home. I enjoy yogurt as part of my breakfast every day, and I was wondering if there was a cheaper way to have yogurt. I saw an advertisement for a yogurt maker, and a whole new world that I never knew existed was opened to me! My first though was to purchase a yogurt maker. Many different companies make them, and they are at a few different price points. Then, as my research progressed, I discovered that yogurt makers do not actually make your yogurt for you. Most of them are merely a warming device. They maintain the yogurt at a constant temperature to promote the growth of the bacteria that have been added to the previously heated milk. My further reading led me to discover that there are other methods of incubating yogurt that do not involve a special device. And besides, where would I store it??

Disclaimer: I have not made yogurt yet. It is on my agenda though. Perhaps it will work. Perhaps it will require some tweaking before I get it right. This is my plan: I will use my second, not yet used, crockpot to incubate my yogurt. I might have to try it a few times until I can get the temperature settings correct. But I am getting ahead of myself. Do you want to know how it is done? Well, I will tell you.

1. Heat 2 quarts milk to 180⁰ F and maintain milk at this temperature for about 5 minutes (I plan to use a thermometer)
2. Cool milk to 110-115⁰ F (again, I’ll need the thermometer)
3. Pour about 1 cup of milk into a bowl that has a few tablespoons of yogurt that contain live active cultures, and gently mix
4. Pour yogurt-milk mixture back into milk
5. Incubate milk at 110-115 ⁰ F for 8-24 hours (I think this might be the hardest part) Once this time is up, the milk should have thickened into yogurt
6. Now put in in the fridge to cool
7. Eat!! (the best part hopefully)

From my extensive reading, there are some issues that can come up. Sometimes, the milk does not thicken into yogurt. This can happen if the yogurt with the bacteria is added before the milk cools to 110-115⁰ F, because the bacteria will be killed from heat at higher temperatures. It can also remain liquidy if the yogurt cools below temperature while incubating, because the bacteria need that warm temperature to multiply. It also seems that homemade yogurt is typically thinner than the store bought varieties, as sometimes companies add thickeners. This can be remedied by straining the yogurt through a cheese cloth or stirring in powdered milk to the milk while heating.

So this is my proposal to myself: Brendel, make some yogurt! It might take some experimenting until I get good yogurt. I will keep you updated. Also, I still owe you my margarine-less sugar cookie recipe…I haven’t forgotten!

If any of you have made yogurt before, please let me know your experiences and any tips you have.

Chanukah Traditions

The Jewish holidays are always a time for cooking and baking yummy foods. One of my favorite Chanukah foods are sugar cookies. You are correct, you can have cookies on any holiday, but on Chanukah they are a special tradition for me.

Typically, the one time of the year I use margarine in baking is for making sugar cookies for Chanukah. I love making Chanukah-themed cookie shapes and glazing them with a simple powdered sugar-based glaze. I always had difficulty finding the perfect proportions of oil, flour, sugar, and other ingredients to make dough that has a good consistency for making shapes with cookie cutters without using margarine. Until this year.

This Sunday I wanted to make sugar cookies. I had forgotten to purchase margarine at the supermarket last week, and I had no intention to take the cold trip out again. So, as any determined person will do, I asked my sister-in-law if she had a margarine-less sugar cookie recipe. And in fact she did! The recipe did require some tweaking. I used less oil than it called for, and added some extra flour and sugar. Once they were baked, I realized I should have used less baking powder, because sugar cookies are not supposed to grow or get a little bubbly like these did.

I wish I could share the recipe with you…and the other people who have already asked for it. But, sadly, I did not measure my ingredients! I plan to remake the cookies, but this time measure the oil, flour, and sugar that I use. On the agenda in a coming week is to give you the margarine-less sugar cookie recipe. 

Before Glaze

After Glaze!!

How Much Coffee Can I Drink?

                The media have so much to say about coffee these days. Is it safe? Maybe it is even healthy? In general, the only question about coffee’s safety comes from its caffeine content. It is considered safe for most adults to have 400mg of caffeine per day. People with heart conditions or other medical conditions may have a lower safe limit. Supplements that contain caffeine can pose a risk to some—with high enough intake of those, there is risk of caffeine toxicity.      In the day to day life of a coffee drinker, it will take about 4 cups of coffee to reach the recommended daily limit.

                Research has actually shown a link between coffee intake and decreased risk of some disease such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease. Additionally, research has not been able to confirm a link between coffee intake and increased risk for diseases. Still, there is not enough evidence to encourage non-drinkers to start drinking.

                What is the bottom line? I would say that coffee is okay in moderation. Just watch out for what comes with it…sugar, creamer, whole milk, and the flavor syrups. Once those are added, coffee goes from being an okay option to a high-calorie, high-sugar choice.