"Braided" Nutella Bread!

NUTELLA!  Yes, everyone's favorite hazelnut spread, right?  I'm sure you've pinned at least 4 or 5 pins that have something to do with Nutella.  If you haven't, this post may not be for you.

Maybe you've seen it and skipped over it because it looked difficult to make, or maybe it's sitting on your food board.  I know many of you have thought that this would be divine if you could figure out how to make it.  I was intimidated, I won't lie.  I haven't really used yeast before, so I enlisted the help of a couple family friends when I tested this recipe.  :)

The pin should take you to a website called Good Home Design, but there be careful.  There are a lot of pins for this particular recipe that are incorrectly linked!  Even though I tried fixing the link on the pin on my board, Pinterest won't allow you to go to the website.  :(  

Good Home Design is the correct originating website though. 

Here are the ingredients and instructions for the Braided Nutella Bread from the website:

• two and a half cups of all purpose flour;
• a half of teaspoon of yeast;
• a cup of water;
• a teaspoon of salt;
• a tablespoon of sugar;
• some Nutella;
• cornmeal;
• one egg;

Start by dissolving yeast with a quarter of a cup filled water, poured into a small bowl. Take another bowl, and while you let the yeast rest for 10 minutes, mix in – with the use of a stand mixer – the appropriate amount of flour, salt, and sugar. Add the yeast and mix at a low speed. Smoothly turn the speed to medium and keep turning for 7 minutes.

Get another bowl and lightly oil it and place the dough you recently made in there. Cover it with a plastic wrap and in about an hour of sitting in a warm place it will double in size.

Roll some of the dough in order to make a circle. Careful you leave enough because you’ll have to make another circle in a few minutes. Take the Nutella (be careful to take it out the fridge for a while so it would be easy to spread; you could also microwave it for 30 seconds to be sure) and pour an even layer on the surface, but leaving half an inch of margin of dough all around.

The next step is to place another roll off dough (Nutella free) on top. Afterward, place it on a parchment-lined or silicon-lined baking sheet. It’s advised you sprinkle the sheet beforehand with cornmeal. Use a knife to cut the dough down the middle, but keeping one end intact. Look at the image for guideline.

By turning the cut side toward the top, twist the ends of the dough overtop each other. Do this for every cut you made. For the next 20 minutes, let your future bread sit in a dry place, but make sure you cover it with plastic wrap. In the meantime, prepare the oven. Set it to 350°F. Before placing the dough in, brush it with some egg wash. Then, bake at this temperature for about 20 minutes. To get that lightly brown look and taste on top, raise to 425°F and bake for another 5-7 minutes. It’s done! Let it cool before serving.

If that doesn't sound intimidating to you, you're braver or more confident that I was when I first read the instructions!

Before we attempted to make the bread, we read through the comments.  I find that when I test recipes, I check to see if any readers, much like yourself, have tried the recipe and what they say about it.  One of the biggest issues we noticed was that the amount of yeast the recipe calls for is not enough.  We were definitely glad that we read the comments because 1/2 tsp of yeast is definitely not enough!!  So there, we give you change #1, use the entire packet of yeast.  We dissolved that in 1/4 cup of warm water, as stated in the directions.  When it came time to add the dissolved yeast to the flour mixture, we then added 3/4 cup water to the mixture (change #2).  When we placed it in another bowl to allow it to rise, we let about 2 hours to pass.  This is only because we forgot about it since we forgot to set a timer.  :p

When it is time to take the dough and roll it out, one thing they do not mention is that you will need more flour.  If you're as inexperienced as I am with dough, you will need to flour your space so that the dough will be manageable.  Change #3- flour your rolling surface!

Stephanie working with the dough

 

Jayson stepped in to roll out the dough and shape it.  Since we were experimenting, we didn't take the time to get a bowl to cut it out to be a circle.  

Stephanie spreading out the Nutella.  I don't know about you, but we do not 

refrigerate ours, especially since the container says not to!

 Jayson cutting out slices in the dough

Teamwork!

Stephanie twisting the dough.  This made us want to look for a pin that actually calls 

for braiding the bread so that it lives up to the name :)

 Stephanie applying the egg wash

The finished product!

The verdict: It was good, but definitely need to tweak it a bit more.  The dough wasn't as flaky as we wanted it and we thought it could be sweeter.  The husband described it as "pretzel dough with Nutella."  We're definitely going to experiment with this more and once we perfect it, I will definitely share it!  If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share!

Cheers!

Texas Gold, Chess Squares, Golden Gooey-ness!

FINALLY!  My first dessert post!  If I was still in the military, a dessert recipe would honestly be the first recipe I'd be blogging about.  When I was working full time, trying to balance family, home, and school life, I would try to cook every night (which of course wasn't always successful).  The one thing that I know I would make time for on the weekends is baking desserts!  I'm guilty of having a huge sweet tooth and am always game for trying out different cake, cupcake, brownie, etc. recipes!

This particular dessert I've never had or heard of before.  The pin that I have saved calls it "Texas Gold" and the website calls it "Chess Squares."  All I know, it that it's easy to prepare, only uses 5 ingredients, and a hit with my family.

Source: kevinandamanda.com via G on Pinterest

The recipe, thanks to Kevin & Amanda's blog, talks about how they wanted to originally try making something called "Crack Pie" (I hope to try this one day!), a dessert from Momofuku Milk Bar in New York.  They were turned off from trying it because of the 22 ingredients and almost 2+ hour prep time!  Thank goodness they shared this quick version!

Alas, the recipe and directions:
1 box yellow cake mix
3 eggs
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
4 cups (1 lb) powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 300 and spray a 9×13 dish with cooking spray. Mix cake mix, melted butter and one egg to a soft dough. Press into the bottom of the pan. Mix powdered sugar, softened cream cheese and remaining two eggs until smooth, about 1-2 mins. Pour on top of crust. Bake at 300 for 40-50 minutes until top is golden brown.

Seriously, that's all there is to it.  Making these Chess Squares were incredibly simple that it made me check the recipe constantly to make sure I wasn't leaving anything out or missing a step!

Fresh from the oven!

A slice that was devoured in under a minute ;)

Don't be tempted to bake it longer when the cooking time is up because the middle isn't brown!  You'll run the risk of loosing that gooey texture!  As long as the edges are brown, you're fine. :)  My husband, who is the only one in the house without a serious sweet tooth (unfortunately my kids have my sweet tooth), said that this dessert was the right amount of sweet for him.  It wasn't over powering and he enjoyed the texture.

Cheers!

7up Biscuits!

I don't know about you, but biscuits from scratch have always intimidated me!  I've never really experimented or even dared to mess around with dough- a feat that now is no longer an issue!  Tonight, with an easy 4 ingredient biscuit recipe, I have successfully made biscuits from scratch!

 

There's the screenshot of the pin from my food board.  Maybe you've seen it yourself; the description reads that 2 batches were gone in 3.5 seconds?  It definitely had me wondering how good they were!  I visited the originating site of the recipe, scrolled through the comments and was sold on how easy it sounded.

As found on Monster Mama's blog:
2 c Bisquick mix
1/2 c sour cream
1/2 c 7up
1/4 c melted butter
Preheat oven to 450º
Cut sour cream into your Bisquick mix, then add 7up - it will make a soft dough. Now sprinkle your counter with a little Bisquick mix then add dough and pat it out.  Melt butter and pour it into a 9" square baking pan. Cut your biscuits up and arrange them in pan on top of melted butter.
Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.


I'm partial to Sprite, and grabbed that instead of the 7up- don't think it makes any difference between the two.  I read that a lot of readers wanted to try Sierra Mist to cut out HFCS (I will never understand people cutting this out since many of us never heard about it being a problem growing up, but I digress), and that substitution shouldn't be a problem either.

3 ingredients ready to be mixed

For melting the butter, I put it in my baking dish and placed it in the oven as it was warming it.  Better than constantly playing the microwave game, right?

Now, for patting the dough out, it will be super sticky!  My dear husband came to my rescue when he saw me struggling with it. :)  He did end up adding at least another handful of bisquick mix to the dough for it to be manageable enough to cut into pieces to place in the pan.

Ready to be formed and cut!

And here is our finished product out of the oven!  Sorry I forgot to take a picture of a piece out of the pan and the inside of a biscuit.  :(

"Sprite" biscuits!

These biscuits came out very light and fluffy!  My kids did enjoy them, didn't think they were "hard" as some ready to be baked biscuits from the refrigerator section can be.  A recommendation for those of you trying it out- brush some melted butter on the top before placing in the oven.  :) A recipe I will be definitely be adding to my book! 

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Source: thenibble.com via G on Pinterest

Does anyone else get a bit excited when they see ripe bananas on the counter?  I know I do, and as soon as I saw that I had 3 ripe ones that it meant two words: banana bread!  I'm so glad I'm able to post this recipe tonight! It almost didn't happen because 1. I didn't think we had enough honey and 2. I originally thought I read the recipe called for whole milk when it calls for whole milk yogurt, in other words whole fat yogurt.  Thankfully, my husband saved me and my urge to bake tonight and picked up some yogurt after work. 

I am able to bring to you my first baking pin tonight!  When I pinned it a few days ago, the description simply said "The Best" Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Recipe.  Naturally, I was intrigued, especially after reading the recipe which called for half the amount of flour I was used to, one less egg, and no white sugar at all compared to the regular recipe I'm used to (sans chocolate chips).  I knew I'd make this my first baking pin of the year!

I gathered up my ingredients and measured them out so I'd be ready for each new step since the recipe suggests that you have them readily available to mix.  I don't think I've ever really used my prep bowls to bake before, so I pulled them out.  Felt all fancy using them as I followed along the recipe. :)  I didn't have any baby bananas, just 3 normal sized bananas.  We don't have them in grocery stores here in California unless you go to the Asian markets, so don't feel like you can't use this recipe if you don't have any kind of access to baby bananas.  It's fine if you don't have a sifter, you can use a strainer or a fork or wire whisk for combing the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.  Don't fret if you don't have a stand mixer, I used a hand mixer, and if you don't have that, don't worry!  If you read the last sentence of step 3 in the directions , you can hand mix everything as well!  A piece of information he probably should've mentioned at the beginning. :)



I timed each time I mixed as the directions stated.  When it came to incorporating the flour mixture in with the wet mixture, I poured in the flour mixture when I counted on 1, 3, 5, and 7, (since it wants you to only mix this part for 10 seconds) and then mixed two more seconds so that the flour couldn't be seen anymore.  I added the yogurt and mixed with the hand mixer on the lowest setting, and then switched out to a spatula to fold in the chocolate chips.  This is what my mix looked like:

Since you're only mixing in the yogurt for 5 seconds, you should still see some strips of white in the mixture.  If you didn't grease/butter your bread pan before you started, don't forget to do it before you pour the mixture in your pan!  The mixture filled up the pan!

I set my loaf in the oven for 50 minutes--at 45 minutes, I didn't get a clean toothpick.  After 50 minutes I pulled the loaf out to cool.  If you get a toothpick that is a little dirty when testing the middle of the loaf, you should be fine since you might've hit a banana chunk.  Let the bread cool down for at least 5-10 minutes before you think about cutting into it to taste!  In our house, we keep our loafs in the bread pan so our furry kids (dog and cat) don't try and knock it down from the counter top to eat it-serious!

My loaf definitely cooked faster around the top and edges (as expected) and the color came out a bit darker than what I'm used to.  It wasn't burned at all, I'm thinking it's due to the use of brown sugar vs using regular.  The inside is definitely moist, but I wouldn't say it was particularly fluffy.  The very center didn't cook all the way unfortunately.  It wasn't "dough" but it was beyond a moist consistency.  I recommend splitting up the mix into two bread pans, which might help with the very center part of the loaf.  I'll definitely be trying this recipe again that way and will be sure to update with that attempt.

The verdict: It is tasty, but not "the best" chocolate chip banana bread we've ever had.  Maybe we should try the baby bananas?  My husband and kids thought it was tasty, but probably because of the chocolate chips more than anything else.  I really wish they had comments turned on for this recipe to see what other readers thought.

Maybe you'll have a better outcome than we did!