French & other homemade breads & things

This cooler weather gets me in the kitchen trying different bread recipies. It's the only time of year we buy sugar and white flour. Probably not so great on the waistline but oh so good! To the whole wheat honey, pita & foccacia breads I've recently added crossoints, a whole wheat hamburger bun & now Itailian bread all in a months span. The inspiration for French bread came from eating a sandwich at Boca21 in Guadalajara. I figure if I like something, I should be able to make it from scratch at least once.

Do we have any other bakers on board? Call it a phase but it gives me great satisfaction that we grilled hamburgers tonight & had it with fresh warm buns from the oven with homemade mayo. So easy to make and no preservatives. Yet i still lack a good ketchup & mustard recipe. Someone Lakeside makes homemade mustard, I ought to figure out who & get their recipe. Would that be you?

I made 46 loaves of banana bread a couple of weeks ago. The bananas in the back yard were ready.

Did you eat them all or have a large freezer?? I bake banana bread from naners in our yard but also freeze them individually for yogurt/berry/honey smoothies. yum!

It seems I make banana bread everytime we have bananas...they always get too ripe before we eat them all! Should probably stop buying so many....

Just made a tester batch of pita bread the other day and making another one today for our gyros...yum, can't wait.

Arrived 1 week ago so am very very green. I love to bake bread but so far can't find the kind of yeast I'm used to. I came across a small container of bread machine yeast at Superlake for 139 pesos and almost fainted at the cost! Where can I get instant yeast granules and what is it called down here?

Yeast is called levandura and if i were at home i could tell you which brand i use. It's instant & in a gold vacuum sealed bag at both Super Lake & Walmart.

You need to look at the end of the kiosk in SuperLake around the corner from where all the flour is stocked.

Tradi-Pan (La Levadura Casera) is what I use. Five individual packages per box each good for between 300 and 500 grams of flour and I think the cost is only about 11 pesos per box. There are also larger bulk packages of other brands as well if you want to be more precise in your measurements.

MyHomeSweetHome wrote:Did you eat them all or have a large freezer?? I bake banana bread from naners in our yard but also freeze them individually for yogurt/berry/honey smoothies. yum!

I ate one of them and it was DAMN good!

Mainecoons wrote:

MyHomeSweetHome wrote:Did you eat them all or have a large freezer?? I bake banana bread from naners in our yard but also freeze them individually for yogurt/berry/honey smoothies. yum!

I ate one of them and it was DAMN good!

nuts or no nuts? Were they big loafs or smaller ones?? I have one semi regular size bread pan that's starting to get rusty so I asked someone to ship me some new ones. They sent me 4 small loaf pans. But actually, I find that I like them because a large loaf will get moldy anyway being that my husband's the only one that wants whole wheat bread w/eggs in the a.m. We use foccacia bread for paninis or pitas.

I use an instant yeast called Saf-instant. it's white & gold & I store it in the fridge. I've used the red bag before but to be honest, I don't know that much about yeast & I'm not entirely sure as to what I'm doing sometimes :) I kind of take it that it's not necessary to add sugar to instant yeast & I'm wondering if it does any good to "spoof" it in warm water before adding it to my flour. Anyone know? Does different yeast really make the breads taste different? I can make croissants w/this yeast & they knock Costco croissants outta the ballpark, of course, not until after a few failures :)

From my experience...I use instant yeast, but proof it in warm water with sugar before adding to recipe. It makes a heck of a diffenrence in the elasticity of the dough, and I find the dough rises much better. I just bought some yeast so when i make pizza dough again will see if there is a different taste.

http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/Heinz-Ketchup-Recipe.html

http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/Frenchs-Classic-Yellow-Mustard-Recipe.html

I love this web site...they basically do clones of whatever turns your crank...product or restaurant wise. Not all the recipes are free.

http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/Hellmanns-Best-Foods-Mayonnaise-Recipe.html

Read the comments...if you have a concern about using raw eggs in a recipe, I just put the eggs (in the shell) in a dilute solution of microdyn for about five minutes, dry, crack and use.

You want my recipe for caesar salad dressing???

MyHomeSweetHome wrote:Did you eat them all or have a large freezer?? I bake banana bread from naners in our yard but also freeze them individually for yogurt/berry/honey smoothies. yum!

We don't eat 1 loaf, I sell them for super cheap to friends to recoop some of the cost and give some of them away to my neighbors.

I make 3 sizes of loaves. $20p, $30p and $40p.
But none for a while since the trees are not producing right now.

The cost of yeast here is a total ripoff. Super Lake has the Fleishmanns 3 packs for over $ 50 pesos. Used to be $ 42 pesos. Its 99 cents a package in the States.

ferret wrote:http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/Hellmanns-Best-Foods-Mayonnaise-Recipe.html

Read the comments...if you have a concern about using raw eggs in a recipe, I just put the eggs (in the shell) in a dilute solution of microdyn for about five minutes, dry, crack and use.

You want my recipe for caesar salad dressing???

Cripes I must be super lazy. I just buy the big jar at Costco.

BTW, I love that clone website.

You're not lazy Raq. Everyone's different and I happen to react to a lot of the preservatives in "ready mades".

O' course, you haven't tried mine yet either :)

ferret wrote:You're not lazy Raq. Everyone's different and I happen to react to a lot of the preservatives in "ready mades".

O' course, you haven't tried mine yet either :)

Same here, however, homemade is just soooo much better perhaps it’s just a mental block.

Ferret, you really have a point with the mayo. There's got to be a ton of preservatives in that huge Hellman's jar.

How long does homemade last in the fridge?

I always do make my own salad dressings, however using store bought mayo in some of them is obviously not the smartest move. Oooooop's. What's worse I also use it in my Caeser salad dressing which is very popular around these parts.

Any other tips on avoiding the bad stuff?

We do usually cook everything from scratch, however I guess just about every shortcut has risks. I know those tinned soups are just loaded with nasties, so we avoid those.

here's a better mayo recipe link

http://www.food.com/recipe/homemade-mayonnaise-in-the-blender-92815

There are reasons you NEED the entire egg. It has to do w/the different minerals & vitamins & how they are absorbed in the body ;) This mayo is the best I've made! or creamed avocado is even better on sandwiches etc. We can afford fresh avocado year round, another benefit living here :)