Wednesday, April 16, 2008

What's Cooking Wednesday: Miracle Bread!




Please go to Shan's place for more What's Cooking Wednesday participants.

On the Long and Short Reviews site, they have wonderful recipes every Friday under the "Fun Stuff" button. A few Fridays ago, Judy Thomas posted a recipe for "Mother's Miracle Bread". I will have a link to the original recipe as soon as I hear from Judy. You can find Judy herself at My World of Dreams.

I've been making it occasionally almost daily for my family and it's been a huge ginormous hit. My only problem with the recipe was that it called for LOTS of butter and all white flour (probably why it was such a great hit). I've been tweaking the recipe, because I wanted less butter, more whole grain and less sugar. I could tweak it a lot more for my tastes, but I'm mostly making it for my DS, who has a less healthy palate than I do. So here is the compromised version:

Judy Thomas's "Mother's Miracle Bread," Revised





Ingredients

1 cup water (110 degrees F)
2 packages of yeast
5 TBS butter, melted
3 TBS olive oil
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt
2 cups of whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour


1. Combine water and yeast in a large bowl and let sit for five minutes. With a wooden spoon, stir in butter, sugar, eggs and salt. Add flour, one cup at a time, and beat in all you can (you should be able to use all the flour). In the last stages, mix the dough with your hands to get those last bits of flour in.


2. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours, or up to three days.

3. When you get ready to use the dough, grease your baking pan. (I used some cooking spray in a 9X13 pan). Divide the dough into 4 pieces, and then into 6 rolls (rolling them into smooth, round balls) from each of the 4 pieces. Space evenly in the pan, like this:





4. Cover and let rise for at least 2 hours, or until doubled in size and they've melded together like this:




5. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake rolls until golden brown, about 17 minutes.

Number of Servings: 24

Nutritional Info


Fat: 4.8g
Carbohydrates: 21.9g
Calories:143.3
Protein: 3.7g

As always, nutrition information supplied by the recipe calculator at sparkrecipes.com. Enjoy!

33 comments:

Michelle | Bleeding Espresso said...

Italy friendly indeed! Love it! Grazie :)

Madam Crunchypants said...

I may just need to try this out. I bet I won't burn them...

Jen said...

I'm trying to go to more whole foods and healthier recipes, Michelle, so hopefully they will be more Italy friendly, too.

Stick with the 17 minutes and you can't burn them. It really is miracle bread.

That's so funny, Ben, I just said that on bleedingespresso.com, where Michelle wrote about the most amazing restaurant in Palermo. This bread is nice and easy.

nyc/caribbean ragazza said...

yum, yum, yum! I can't wait to move into my apartement so I can cook again.

Jen said...

How soon will the move be, NYC? Do you know yet? Oh, right... now I'm remembering.. "maybe Tuesday, maybe Sunday" - oy - Italy! ;-)

Flower Child said...

this is great! I'm not really a bread baker - I need to learn. this looks like a good place to start. and I'm glad you use more whole grains and less sugar - that's the direction we're moving in as well.

Korie said...

I LOVE bread. Love, love, love, LOVE bread. Which is also one of the reasons I have 20 extra kilos on myself. It looks great, but I'll stick to the eggplant lentil stew I saw on here a few months back. Yum.

anno said...

Mmmmm... I can smell these from here! Yum!

Jen said...

This is actually a great place to start, Flower Child - I can bake well, but my bread baking was always not where I wanted it, but EVERYONE loves these rolls! And I think you could easily change the mix to 3 cups ww flour and 1.5 white - I just have to make those changes slowly. Don't switch out the butter for the olive oil, though - when I did half and half it was bitter.

Lilac - these are definitely not good to have around unless you freeze them - they're not low cal or low in fat, but again, with a 14-year-old bean pole, they've been useful. ;-)

Anno - have you tried making them yet?

Alex Elliot said...

Those look so good!

anno said...

I'm getting there... rising times & schedules are always a deterrent. I'm pretty sure your days seem to have more hours in them than mine... or at least you seem to pack more in them than I do!

Jen said...

They are good Alex!

Anno - I just make the dough when I'm making breakfast, because it's about a five minute prep, then I leave 'em in the fridge until I'm going to be home for a bit, do the roll thing and let them rise. The baking is a whopping 17 minutes, so that's not a problem. ;-)

Shan said...

Looks delicious!

Momisodes said...

Those look wonderful! Up to 3 day in the fridge is right up my alley! I love playing with bread. I have to give this one a try :)

Jen said...

Shan, your pulled chicken looked great, too!

Sandy, that's one of the things I love about these - doing them in stages...

Goofball said...

24 servings? that's a lot of bread. What do you consider as a serving.

Pff I never bake my own bread, we always go to the bakery...then again, Belgian bread in bakeries is better than what I've ever found in the US or Canada but I might have been looking at the wrong locations.

Sister Sassy said...

My fam would love this, they are totally carb freaks!

Jen said...

Yes, Goofball, it's two loaves' worth for this recipe. So it's 24 rolls or two loaves with 12 slices each.

That's why my carb-freak DH and DS love it so much, Sassy!

janey jay said...

Kneading dough is one of my favorite things to do -- so theraputic. These look great -- and I love the fact that you can make the dough in advance and just toss in the fridge.

Jen said...

Well, the sad part of this, Jane, is no kneading! ;-)

Wholly Burble said...

I was doing good until I got to the stats--I'm assuming the count is for ONE round piece as a serving. Way out of my allowable--but they made my mouth water while I was reading and looking at the pictures. I'm sure my fellows would think they're great!

La delirante said...

Oh, I wish I had a good kitchen so I could prepare this recipe :( It looks delicious :) I might try it once we get a decent oven :)

Jen said...

WB, there are ways to tweak this - was it the sugar statistic that was the problem? They're actually fairly big servings. You could really cut way back on the sugar - use just a TBS for the whole batch to tweak the yeast. If the fat is an issue, that could also be pared back.

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Wholly Burble said...

Carbs and fat would have been pretty high for me. I've been eating the Eziekiel bread when I want bread--but other than that, at this time, there's just not much in the way of bread that fits with what I can allow myself. Once I get my blood work done again, all of my restrictions may become more relaxed--but for now, I'm really having to tow the line.

One of the things I'm looking into are ways to use fresh home-grown sprouts in bread-making. I've heard there's a recipe that uses ALL sprouts and NO flour--they sell it at my local cooperative--so if I can get my hands on the recipe, I might give that a try.

BusyDad said...

from just that list of ingredients, there's NO WAY this bread would not be killer good! Damn w8loss wednesday...

glamah16 said...

You make these almost daily!? Wow. I need to make some.

Jen said...

Jim, the key is to have ONE per meal or whatever. And you can probably cut down on the fats, use egg whites, etc.

Courtney, I have a 15-year-old son. 'Nuff said, lol. I have one roll, D has 2 - 3 and C eats the REST. Yikes! And he's a beanpole. Life is unfair.

WB - not sure about all sprouts bread. That sounds interesting.

Pixie said...

Hi Jen, thanks for leaving a comment for me on Ben's blog and directing me to the other blog. Shall add you to my reader and come back later for a proper browse!

Pix

Betsy said...

Jen, these look awesome! Thanks again for another great recipe!

Grimm said...

Wow, this looks like something even I could make!

Althought it may have to be under the close supervision of the women in our house - it is their kitchen and they are VERY protective.

Looks delicious!

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I love the look of the crust onh this bread:D

Jen said...

Pixie, I'll definitely be over your way, too.

Betsy, I have to find out how your rolls worked with the cut back on sugar

Grimm - it's so easy, and I think it would be a hit with all the women in your life (except maybe Lucy until she's a bit older)

Val - It's a soft-ish crust. I've wondered, actually, if it might benefit from an egg wash.