American Sandwich Bread - without Bread machine

My last post was back in 2015 and it's after 3 years I want to resume writing here. I am not a great writer, nor great artist. I presume writing my blog lets me more creative and alleviate my ideas. Like everyone, I too had enormous reasons in not being consistent here. With more changes in life, it became impossible to oblige with my blogging. Although, I am a person who welcomes changes and enjoy varied activities. I have been monotonous and flat with my cooking, as my kids never liked more flavors in food. And now, they love to explore more flavors and appreciate assorted cuisines. My daughter loves baking, so it is time for me to refine my baking skills.

Bread is the one that is sort after by all of us in the family. My mom is very particular of the ingredients in purchasing store bought bread. It is the hardest thing to convince her when it comes to what I feed my kids. I keep making my bread quite often and finally landed up with a superior fine quality recipe.

Making bread involves more intense work. And there is nothing beats the flavor, and comfort of a home-made bread. The smell of a freshly baked bread always lingers around the kitchen. If you never had success with the end product, don't give off to the expert bakers. I took umpteen trial to make a better quality bread.

Breads can be made using bread machines, no-knead ones. It is not a hard way to follow either of them. But most of us do not carry a bread machine and use our hands for kneading. In-fact, I still do not carry a kneader or mixer for kneading. I rely on my and my husbands hands for kneading. The below recipe let you to make 1-9inch loaf of American Sandwich Bread. Lets get into the recipe.

Fresh Home baked Bread without Machine

When I step out to buy any grocery, I get confused with too much of options these days. One such confusions comes in choosing the yeast I buy. I wanted to look into what each yeast is for and what major variations they could bring?

Some facts from the web, the particular brand which I buy has these options for the type of yeast to choose;

Cake (moist) - the traditional live yeast; needs to be dissolved in water
Active dry - the traditional dry yeast; needs to be dissolved usually with a bit of sugar
Instant - contains a bit of yeast enhancer (citric acid, maybe some other stuff?) and is possibly more concentrated than active dry; does not need to be dissolved
Bread Machine - exactly the same as instant in a different package
Rapid Rise - larger amount of yeast enhancers and other packaging changes to the granules. Does not have to be dissolved. Works very fast and is intended for straight doughs that you want to complete within an hour or so. Generally not used by artisan bakers who seek slower, not faster, rise.

The confusing part is that some manufacturers reverse the meaning of "instant" and "rapid rise", and vary on which they call "bread machine".

Homemade Butter Naan | without Yeast

Baking is slowly getting in pace or I'm getting in pace with baking. Though, not a regular baker, I love to try new recipes at home. And Sundar likes to try something completely new recipes and new cuisines too. I always have hesitations trying new things as they might not turn to our liking. I was avoiding yeast based recipes just because of this fear. There are so many wonderful recipes that go missed if you still immerse in that fear. But some have
replacements to yeast recipes.

Butter Naan is one of the recipes which we order on our regular basis at an hotel. If this is missed at a hotel visit, then we tend to feel that we have certainly missed something at the visit. That is what my aunt tells me everytime. And by default most of us order only butter naan. It is something like a basic dish to order and you can continue with other varieties as an addition to it.

First I wanted to try the non-yeast version, then planned to try the yeast version. But now I feel this simple recipe sounds too good!

Moist Mango Nut Bread

Why does Mango come in this season? We are all Mango maniacs in our home! When we find yellow Mango in the shop, we get them! These mangoes are from Ecuador, and they are lovely to make desserts or any other baking. They are not juicy but sweet and tender to bake.
They are quite similar to Alphonso mangoes. Quite lot of fibers and when they are naturally sweet we do not require much sugar for baking.

I prepared a small loaf of the bread and it hardly lasted for 2 days. I always like to share (testing samples, may be!) my new creations with my neighbours. But this time, I hardly had a very small piece to give. So I prepared some more for today, I think by the time Sundar is home they will be distributed :)

The bits of mangoes dotting the bread and the slight crunch of nuts makes this one of my favorite breads. This recipe was passed on to me by my aunt from some TV show. When I baked for the first time, I used eggs and today I ran out of eggs. So added Mango puree instead or by increasing the oil. Just blend few pieces of the yellow goodness and blend it and replace for the egg whites.

Bread roll chaat

Call it Bread roll chaat, or Sandwich rolls, or bread rolls! What ever you call it all means the same, and I like it with this name! We always crave for some chaats. Any kinda chaats, it is great to have as a winter day snack. Sundar, comes home looking for some snack always! But some days are so busy with both my kids, that I hardly prepare my dinner. And time runs out thinking what to prepare?

So, I suddenly remembered that its the fortnight event tom! So, I at once went to Rinku's blog and was looking at the menu card and my pantry. I found hard to match them up. And finally came the roasted Sandwich rolls.

Bread Pizza - Delight in every bite!

A lazy weekend morning begins quite late after friday midnight movie. None of us like to have a regular rice or even dosai for that matter! Of course we all want cook something healthy. We most of the time purchase only multi-grain bread without HFCS.  So, without anything different on this bread will be really mind-numbing. Bread pizza is a very popular snack, an instant gratification as a snack, for killing our craving for pizza.
I would be happy to have any snack at any time of the day! Nothing else gives such a contentment than a snack esp., on a weekend. When sundar wakes me up with a coffee in the morning, and milk for kutti sundari, anything in this world would go for this!
Bread Pizza is a slight heavy for a snack! Still, if it is going to be a weekend morning I would go for it. Less time consuming and less work intended.
Sundar was hurrying to his friends house shifting and I need to prepare something before that! There is no time for big baking or deep frying. And there were almost 8-9 loafs of bread. I have been looking for the bread pizza recipe all over but never felt a satisfying one! I have already made pizza, so lemme do this myself.

You need
8 slices of bread
3 tspn of marinara sauce for each bread
1 pack of shredded Mozzarella cheese
Capsicum cut into 1" squares (2-3 squares for each bread)
Onion sliced (as per taste)
1/2 cup pitted Black olives
Crushed red pepper to taste
salt to taste

On a baking tray, brush with olive oil. Place 4 breads, and apply marinara sauce lavishly, I used 3 spoonfull for 1 multi-grain bread and do this for all the breads. And now keep all the chopped veggies over the sauce.

Finally, add the shredded cheese, remember to use the packet of cheese to be used for 8 breads. If you add extra cheese, it might not get cooked well. Bake at 420F for about 10 to 15 mins. For Hasini, I added a slice of cheese after baking, and it almost melted over the pizza by the time she was about to eat.

Top with salt (we wanted to have little, as we used low fat shredded cheese), and crushed red pepper. Serve hot with tomato sauce.

I'm sending this recipe for the Kids delight even celebrating their 3rd anniversary