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National Honey Month: Honey Oatmeal

9/10/2014

September is National Honey Month, and so I'm celebrating by featuring my favorite honey recipes on the Bread Blog. Unfortunately, this winter was so harsh that at the abbey we lost all of our bee colonies except one, which we have been nursing back to health. We are blessed to have the assistance of one of our alumni who is going to give us several colonies next year and has also shared a portion of his honey harvest with us.

Honey oatmeal bread is my number one most-requested recipe, both by Breadheads and by the monks of Saint Bede. I make it in huge batches for bake sales and it sells out in minutes. I've shared the recipe several times on the site, but click HERE if you haven't made it in awhile or are still waiting to try it. Just be aware that the dough is VERY sticky because of the combination of honey and oatmeal, so don't be alarmed if you don't get the smooth and elastic qualities of regular white bread. Leave it sticky and soft rather than adding too much flour. Remember too that multigrain breads like this should be baked to a slightly higher temperature---about 200 degrees F.---or they can be doughy in the middle.

I'll be posting plenty more honey recipes this month, so keep checking in!

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Potato ricers and casserole dishes

9/1/2014

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Most Breadheads know that my favorite dough for any kind of roll or bun is my Best Ever Crescent Roll Dough recipe. The added potatoes make for a soft roll with a tender crumb, and is the secret ingredient in almost all of the recipes for state fair and 4-H blue ribbon winners. Today I made some delicious herb rolls to accompany grilled pork chops for Labor Day, using some leftover parsley potatoes that were in chunks, not mashed. To get perfectly smooth potato for the dough I used a ricer.

Perhaps not everyone is familiar with this rather old-fashioned kitchen gadget, but there's nothing better for producing light, fluffy mashed potatoes. The cooked, peeled potato pieces go into the hopper, and the two handles are pressed together, like a giant garlic press. The process of extrusion forces air into the potato puree, resulting in lighter, fluffier mashed potatoes that are perfectly smooth, and therefore ideal for bread making. There are commercial versions with a slightly different design, some of which cost as much as $130, but you can get the model pictured here, which is the same one I use, for less that $15 at Target.

I baked the rolls in round, glass casserole dishes. I like using round pans for dinner rolls, because they look so pretty in a basket on the table. A 1.5 quart casserole dish will hold a dozen rolls made with 2 ounces of dough each. For a 2-quart dish, you can make the rolls 2.5 ounces each. Any leftover dough can be baked in a loaf pan. Remember that when using glass dishes for baking, reduce the temperature by 25 degrees F., because glass heats up faster and retains heat longer.

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National Honey Month: Honey Oatmeal

Potato ricers and casserole dishes

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