Cloud Bread / Woopsie Bread

This recipe is a great bread substitute when you are trying to eat healthy and lose weight, or if you are diabetic. Properly stored, it has a good bready texture and slightly sweet taste.  Just right for sandwiches, short cake desserts, even pizza crust!  Zero carbs and extremely LOW in calories. It has been a life saver on my weight loss journey and I hope it helps other people too.  

Cloud Bread (Woopsie Bread)

Ingredients:

3 eggs, yolks separated and kept in a bowl

3 tablespoons sour cream (yogurt or softened cream cheese can substitute)

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1 packet sugar substitute

Directions:

1.        Mix sugar substitute, cream cheese and egg yolks until smooth and creamy.

2.        In a separate bowl, whip egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy with stiff peaks (almost like whipped cream). 

3.       Add half the yolk mixture to the egg whites a VERY GENTLY fold them into the egg whites until well combined, to avoid deflating the egg whites. Do not be tempted to quickly stir-- only fold. Repeat with the second half of yolk mixture. 

4.       Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Place parchment paper on a baking sheet to prevent bread from sticking. Spoon egg micture onto baking sheet, spreading them out to make 3 inch circles, 1/2 inch thick. Bake 30 minutes, or until light brown. 

5.       Remove from oven. Allow to cool a few minutes, then gently beel bread circles off parchment paper. Serve immediately. Or quickly place in a plastic zip bag or tight sealed container (while still warm) to keep bread soft. Bread will become crumbly and fall apart easily if it is left out.

Pie Dough For Tender, Flaky Crust

This pie crust recipe is slightly different from my other one, in that it is less sweet.   I prefer this recipe when making savory / meat pies.    Generous portion, tender, flaky (more so than my other one) and delicious!   Classic, simple flavor that actually goes great with both sweet and savory pies.   

Pie Dough For Tender, Flaky Crust

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter-flavored vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces
• 1/2 cup ice cold water 

1Directions:  

.       In a large mixing bowl, blend flour, salt, and sugar until combined. Add butter and shortening, cut the butter/shortening into the flour using 2 butter knives or a pastry cutter.  Continue cutting/blending until none of the butter/shortening pieces are larger than a pea. 

2.       Sprinkle water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.  Roll out to ¼ inch thick between 2 sheets of wax paper or parchment paper and use as top and bottom crusts for our favorite pie.  

Dad's Southern Cornbread

 For cornbread, Dad always made it “southern style”—baked in a cast iron dish, cut in squares with butter on top.   He almost always bought the Alber’s boxed brand (that blue and orange box). A few times, he got adventurous and strayed, but 90% of the time he used the recipe on the back of the Alber’s box. He added his own twist, though— a can of corn with the liquid drained for extra moisture and heartiness. I think once he even tried cream style corn. But he liked the texture of the whole kernel kind. He preferred to use and electric mixer to blend the wet and dry ingredients together, because he thought it came out more even. But it is easily done by hand too. When it was done, he always spread some butter or margarine around over the top, to keep it moist and soft. So here is the recipe with Dad’s little twists:

Dad’s Southern Corn Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Albers White or Yellow Corn Meal (or any kind you have)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 can (15 oz.) whole kernel corn, liquid drained (or cream style corn)
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine (for spreading over the top after baking)

TIP: Sometimes Dad would add 1/2 stick melted butter, mixed into the batter. Gave it a great flavor and made it extra moist. 

Directions:

1.       Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease 8-inch square baking pan, or a cast iron skillet.

2.       Combine corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in medium bowl. Combine milk, oil and egg in small bowl; mix well. Add milk mixture to flour mixture; stir just until blended (and melted butter, if desired). You can use an electric mixer to combine them, or do it by hand.  Allow batter to sit for about 15 minutes-- this gives it time for the corn meal to soak up some liquid and be less grainy. Pour batter into prepared pan/skillet.

3.       Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and spread the tablespoon of butter or margarine over the entire surface of the cornbread, to keep it soft and seal in the moisture. Cut into squares, or wedges. Serve warm.

NOTE:  Use medium cast iron skillet, or a 13x9-inch baking pan; bake as above. Recipe can be doubled. 

FOR MUFFINS:
 

Spoon batter into 10 to 12 greased or paper-lined muffin cups, filling 2/3 full. Bake in preheated 400°F oven for 15 minutes.

Auntie Anne's Soft Pretzels (Secret Recipe)

Ok everyone, if you love those hot, soft, slightly-sweet yet very buttery Auntie Anne's soft pretzels you find in airports, malls and some large shopping centers...   Then this recipe is going to make you extremely happy!   You see, they do sell Auntie Anne's at-home pretzel baking kits, complete with the secret pretzel mix, and other ingredients to mix up at home.   I got this particular recipe from a former Auntie Anne's employee who took one of the kits home and did some tedious figuring on the contents and ingredients, so we can all make our own at home, without having to buy the kit!  But I am sorry, I cannot tell you who he is.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I have lived in Germany for a few years, and that is pretty much the home of pretzels.  Me and my Dad used to buy authentic German soft pretzels from the street venders over there.  Europeans use a much finer-ground flour than we do, and oooooohhhhh does it make for some soft, tender bread!   Mmmm.   And I can say, Auntie Anne's was the closest I have ever tasted to German pretzels.   But in America, the closest you can get to European flour, is bread flour, or a regular flour / bread flour mix.  Its not that big a difference though, you can just use regular flour, it still comes out awesome.   

Auntie Anne's calls the wash solution they bathe the pretzels in a "special solution".   But frankly, its just baking soda and water, lol.   Similar to what bagels would be bathed in before baking.   It helps to brown them.   In the past, it was done with culinary lye...    The original name is Laugenbrezel,  Laugen means basically lye.   But baking soda is...  A bit safer?  Anyway,  below is the recipe, with the same measurements and cooking instructions as in the box of the Auntie Anne's at-home baking kit.   Along with a pretzel twisting video, done by and Auntie Anne's "expert" pretzel maker.   Enjoy!

Auntie Anne’s Soft Pretzels (Secret Recipe)

Ingredients:

Dough Mix:

1 ¼ cups warm water

1 tablespoon plus ¼ tsp dry yeast

¾ cups powdered sugar

1 ½ tsp salt

2 tsp vegetable oil
3 ¾ cups all purpose flour (its better to use 3 cups regular flour and 3/4 cups bread flour)

Baking Soda Bath:

4 cups hot water (as hot as tap will get)

½ cup baking soda

Other ingredients:

¼ cup melted butter

Kosher or pretzel salt

Directions:

1.      In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water, let stand 5 minutes. Whisk in vegetable oil.

2.      In a separate bowl, mix flour, powdered sugar and salt.   Gradually add flour mixture to water/yeast mixture.   Add little bits at a time, blending well.   Only add enough flour to form into a slightly sticky dough.  Dough should come away from the sides of the bowl, but it should be soft and easy to knead, not too dry or firm / dense.   Knead 5 minutes on lightly floured surface.  Dough will be nice and smooth when it is ready.  

3.      Place dough into lightly oiled bowl.  Lightly oil some plastic wrap, and cover the dough with plastic wrap (oiled side facing the dough).  Allow dough to rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes, or until dough doubles in size. 

4.      Preheat oven to 425.

5.      Make a bath for the pretzels by mixing baking soda in the 4 cups of warm water until it is dissolved. 

6.      Lightly oil a surface on your counter to lay the dough on.   Remove dough from bowl (without flattening it) and place it on the counter.   Cut dough into 8 equal strips, using a knife, a large pizza roller or a pastry cutter.  Strips should be 1/5 inches wide and 8 inches long.   Cover the rest of the dough, while you work with each piece of dough. 

7.      Roll each dough strip into pretzels, as wide as your finger, long as your arm.   Using the method in this video: 

8.      Dip each pretzel in baking soda solution.  Lay pretzel on a clean kitchen towel to remove excess baking soda solution for a second.  Then place on a lightly greased baking sheet. 

9.      Salt the pretzels (if you want cinnamon-sugar pretzels, leave them unsalted). 

10.  Bake pretzels for 4 minutes, then rotate the pan halfway and bake an additional 2 to 5 minutes, depending how hot your oven bakes.  Pretzels should be golden with a couple of brown spots, but not completely brown all over. 

11.  Remove from oven, let cool a couple of minutes.   Brush with melted butter and eat! (if you want cinnamon-sugar pretzels, dip them in cinnamon/sugar mixture after brushing with butter).

Makes 8 pretzels

Pizza Dough / Pizza Recipe (Homemade)

 I recently discovered that many professional pizza places (and Italians) use a ciabatta bread dough for pizza crust!   So since I had a great ciabatta bread recipe on hand, I decided to try it.  But of course, I did have to make a couple of adjustments to the process for pizza….    And the result was a GREAT pizza crust!   Best homemade pizza I had ever made, really.  And now I feel like I’m never gonna have to pay the high price of delivery pizza ever again!  So I would like to share it with you all—mainly the pizza dough, but I also added some quick instruction on actually making it into a complete pizza.  Enjoy!

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

1 ½ tsp active dry yeast

1 ½ cups warm water (same temperature for a newborn baby bath) 

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 ¼ cups bread flour (or regular flour)

Directions:

1.        In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast, salt and sugar in lukewarm water.  Add oil and blend well.

  

2.        Gradually mix in flour, adding flour one cup at a time.  Don’t add too much flour, but just enough to make the dough “kneadable” but still soft. 

3.      Knead dough about 1 minute, using a light dusting of flour, if needed.  

3.        Lightly coat a clean bowl with cooing oil, and place dough in the bowl, turning it over to coat in the oil.  Cover and let rise in a warm place, 1 hour. 

4.        Punch dough down and lightly dust with flour.   Knead 30 seconds.   Place dough on your pizza ban and form into a pizza dough of your desired shape.   Rub olive oil around the edges of the crust. 

To Make Into A Pizza:

1.       Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

2.      Top pizza crust with your favorite pizza sauce (usually ¼ to ½ cup, most jarred or canned spaghetti sauces work perfectly),  your favorite shredded/grated cheeses (2 to 3 cups, depending how much you like)-- and toppings, such as meat or sliced vegetables (meat should be pre-cooked). 

3.      Bake on center rack at 450 for 15 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and crust is slightly golden.   Remove from oven.  Let stand 3 minutes.   Cut into slices and serve.