Swedish Limpa Bread

I had a good laugh as making bread became such a new passion during Shelter in Place. Stores ran out of flour, yeast was scarce and people were leaving Zoom meetings to tend their sourdough starters.
I have been making my own bread for over 20 years on a regular basis, ever since I bought my first bread machine. I know purist may complain but I love my bread machine, with it, making my own bread becomes manageable.
 I have a soft childhood memory of a neighbor bringing over this very different kind of homemade bread, at least it was different from what was in our home in the late 50's and early 60's.  For some reason the name stuck with me like a sweet melody...Swedish Limpa Bread.
I was excited to find a recipe in my favorite bread machine recipe book: Bread Machine Magic (Linda Reghberg & Lois Conway). These days I have the machine make the dough and then I shape it into loaves, let it rise and then bake it myself.

Swedish Limpa Bread
This recipe makes two 6 inch loaves.

Ingredients...put them into your bread machine in this order.
1 1/4 cup water
2 1/2 cup bread flour
1 cup rye flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
grated rind of two oranges
2 teaspoon active dry yeast

1) Set the machine to "dough", on my machine it's 90 minutes.
If you are making this bread without a machine...you are on your own and I sure you can figure out how to get it to work.

2) Once the dough is done remove from the machine and form into two round loaves.

3) Place them on a lined baking sheet ( I use silicon mats, parchment works as well).

4) Dust the tops of the loaves lightly with flour and score with a cross hatch.

5) Heat your oven on the lowest setting for two minutes.

6) Cover the loaves with a clean dish towel and place in the barely warm oven for 50-60 minutes.

7) Remove the loaves ( and the dish towel) and preheat the oven to 375 F

8) Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.

9) Cool on a rack and enjoy !!

Notes
These loaves freeze beautifully.
They make great toast with a bit of orange marmalade.
I have experimented with using 3/4-1 cup whole wheat bread flour for some of the white flour.
It works well, making a slightly denser loaf.

My new favorite chocolate chip cookies recipe

There are chocolate chip cookies and then there are chocolate chip cookies.
It took me a while to find a recipe I really liked, when I did, it had a lot of steps and took days to make. The good news was they were excellent, the bad news, I was not inspired to make them very often.
Recently I found another recipe that I adapted from a Moosewood cookbook.
It measured up to my standards but is easier to make. I have also decided to keep my blogging simpler, you all know what butter, sugar and eggs look like.
Taking and posting photos is a lot of work ;-) So here's to keeping it simple !!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter at room temp
1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cup unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons water
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

1) Preheat over to 375 F, prepare baking sheets with parchment, silicon baking mats or butter.
2) In a large mixing bowl cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth and light.
3) Beat in the eggs, until well blended.
4) In a separate bowl or measuring cup whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
5) Stir dry mixture carefully into the the wet, mixing well.
6) Add vanilla and water, stir.
7) Stir in the chocolate chips and the nuts.
8) Drop a dollop of batter onto the baking sheet leaving room for them to spread.
  I put about a dozen to a sheet.
9) Bake for 10-12 minutes total, I like to switch the baking sheets half way through the baking time.
Do not over bake them, so check after 8 minutes. They will be golden around the edges but still soft in the middle, at least that’s how I like them.
10) Allow to cool, if you can stand to ;-)

The recipe yields about 30 cookies and the batter freezes well.

  

The best molasses cookies...I'm back !!

It has been eons since I have posted on my blog, not because I haven't been cooking, more a question of time and inspiration. I use my blog all the time to look up recipes, there are some great ones !! Now two things have aligned to motivate me to post again...time, due to the pandemic and need. There are recipes I have been using that I have to search for through old text threads and browser histories.

These soft chewy molasses cookies are so good and strangely enough they are vegan. I first made them for a vegan friend, now I make they because they are soooo good. I have no idea where I got the recipe, I have only two cut off images of the ingredients and the instruction. My apologies to the original chef.

Chewy Molasses Cookies. Yield 30-40 cookies

Ingredients

 1 cup soft vegan butter *
1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
 3 1/4 cup all purpose flour
 1 tablespoon baking soda
 1/2 teaspoon salt
 1 tablespoon ground ginger
 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg or cardamon
1/2 cup white sugar for rolling

* I use Miyoko's vegan butter, I think it give a better cookie than other brands.

 Instructions 
1) Preheat over to 350 F. Line two large baking sheets with silicon baking mats or parchment paper.

2) In the bowl of a standing mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until creamy.

3) Add the molasses and vanilla, scraping the sides and beating until smooth.

4) In another bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.

5) Carefully add the dry mixture in two batches to the creamed batter, mix on low speed to combine.
    The dough will be thick but not dry.

6) Place the white sugar in a small bowl,  roll the dough into balls, then roll in the sugar to completely coat.  Place on your prepared baking sheet. The size of the balls is up to you.

7) Bake for 11-12 minutes, switching the sheets half way through the baking time. They will begin to crack on top, they will look very soft but they firm up when they cool. Try to leave them for 10 minutes to cool, it's a challenge !!

Enjoy !!

Notes:
-They ship and freeze very well.
-The original  recipe warns you to measure the flour very carefully...I go slightly under rather that over...