Tag: yeast

Categories
Bread Breakfast Dessert

I ‘concha’ take my eyes off this gorgeous sweet bread

Manteconchas are mini versions of the traditional Mexican sweet bread and are loaded with cinnamon.
Manteconchas are mini versions of the traditional Mexican sweet bread and are loaded with cinnamon.

Several weeks ago, over at our office, we were gifted something I’d never tried: conchas.

If you’re unfamiliar, like I was, a concha is a Mexican sweet roll. It gets its name from its crispy topping, which looks like a seashell.

Well, I was completely hooked after trying them. It was like getting to have bread and dessert all at once, and what midwesterner can resist such a combination?

I looked up how to make them, and of course, it’s an art form, but since I sometimes like a good challenge, I decided to try an easier version in the form of “manteconchas,” a mini version of the classic dish, and they did not disappoint.

The recipe I tried comes from the company website “Bread Stamps.” You can find the original at https://breadstamps.com/manteconchas. I added extra cinnamon and vanilla in my version and converted the amounts from grams.

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Manteconchas

Manteconchas are mini versions of thetraditional Mexican sweet bread and are loaded with cinnamon.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine Mexican
Keyword conchas, manteconchas, sweet bread

Ingredients

Bread Ingredients

  • 2 teaspoons yeast (1 packet)
  • 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon lukewarm milk
  • 3 tablespoons melted butter
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/16 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour

Topping Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/4 butter softened
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3-4 drops cinnamon oil flavoring
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • Food coloring

Instructions

  • For the bread, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk. Combine the milk mixture, along with the butter, sugar, salt, egg, vanilla, cinnamon and about half of the flour into a mixer with a dough hook or start by mixing with a wooden spoon. Knead/stir for four to five minutes, and then add the rest of the flour and knead for seven to 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth. It will be sticky.
  • Spray a bowl with cooking spray (spray your hands, too, to make handling the dough easier), and transfer the ball of dough into it. Cover it and let it rest for about 30 minutes at room temperature.
  • For the topping, combine all of the ingredients, adding as much food coloring as you like at the end (you can split the mixture into several sections and get multiple colors, if you want). Knead the topping until it is smooth and then flatten it into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for about 20 minutes.
  • Once the dough is done resting, line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners and then separate the dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll each into a ball, and place them in the lined cupcake tin.
  • Now split the topping into 12 equal pieces (I rolled mine into a snake to do this, and it was super easy to split evenly). You’ll want to minimize how much you touch the topping, because it will get sticky quickly. I recommend working with it on a piece of waxed paper to make it easier to pick up.
  • Take each piece of topping and roll it into a ball. Using the heel of your hand, flatten the ball out to a disc about the same diameter as the cupcake tin wells.
  • Stamp the piece of topping with a cookie stamp or use another tool to make a shallow design in the top. Do not cut all the way through the disc.
  • Transfer the stamped discs to the tops of the bread, and let the manteconchas rest for another 45 minutes.
  • When the time is almost up, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 13 minutes. The bread that is peeking through the topping should be lightly browned and fully set.
  • Remove the manteconchas from the cupcake tin and let them cool before storing them in an airtight container.

These had a great, warm cinnamon flavor, and they were so pretty, too. The best part about these is that you can choose your color and design for any time of year.

I didn’t have a cookie stamp, so I used my biscuit cutter and just cut partway down to create a bunch of circles or curves. Just be creative with it.

Obviously, this is a bit of a time consuming recipe with having to wait for the dough to rise, but the excitement when you take these out of the oven and the bread has risen through the cracks in the topping is pretty palpable.

And now that I found this recipe, I might just stick to the mini version of conchas. It’s just as delicious but a little kinder to your waistline.

This piece first appeared in print on Sept. 10, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Bread

Even old yeast can rise to the occasion

Making yeast rolls doesn’t have to be a long commitment. These come together and out of the oven in only an hour.
Making yeast rolls doesn’t have to be a long commitment. These come together and out of the oven in only an hour.

I was digging through our refrigerator last week, reorganizing and looking for hidden “treasures” that were stuffed into the back corners when I stumbled on some packets of yeast.

I cringed a little, because I didn’t really remember when I bought them, and they were well over their expiration date.

In a waste-not-want-not mood, I did some Internet searching on how long yeast would survive in the fridge and was relieved to find I wasn’t alone in my yeast abandonment. One lady said she had 13-year-old yeast in her freezer that she still used from time to time.

Mine was nowhere near being that antique, so I decided to give it a chance (and added an extra packet to the recipe for good measure).

Luckily, the little guys survived their neglect in the back of the fridge, and we enjoyed a fantastic, quick and easy dinner roll recipe.

If you’re not into making yeast dough because you don’t like waiting for things to rise, you’ll be very happy with this recipe. You should be able to get done in about an hour, start to finish.

I found it on the blog “All Things Thrifty” by Brooke Ulrich. You can find it at https://www.allthingsthrifty.com/homemade-rolls-in-1-hour-guaranteed/. I’m not going to give you her full recipe—I quartered it, and it still made 16 rolls, which seems like a much more manageable number than the amount the original recipe makes.

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Quick Homemade Rolls

Making yeast rolls doesn’t have to be a long commitment. These come together and out of the oven in only an hour.
Course Side Dish
Keyword bread, sweet rolls, yeast

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 3/4 cup milk I used skim
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup hot water
  • 1 egg
  • 2-3/4 cups flour plus more for counter
  • 1 tablespoon dry active yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • about 1 tablespoon butter to brush tops

Instructions

  • In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the butter, milk, sugar and hot water and microwave for three minutes.
  • Meanwhile, set up a mixer with a dough hook (or get ready to do some serious hand mixing).
  • Add the microwaved mixture, eggs and 1-1/4 cups of the flour to the bowl and mix well.
  • Add the yeast and salt, mix again.
  • Add the remaining 1-1/2 cups flour, and keep mixing.
  • Now let the mixer go on high for about 10 minutes. (Or get to kneading pretty aggressively by hand for about the same amount of time. The dough will be super sticky, so have more flour on hand.)
  • Liberally flour your work space and be ready to keep adding to get the dough to a non-sticky consistency. Keep kneading and adding flour until it’s not going to stick to your counter when you roll it out.
  • Roll the dough out into about an 18-inch circle and use a pizza cutter or knife to cut the circle into wedges. (I cut mine into 16ths for perfect dinner roll size.)
  • Roll up each wedge, starting with the wider end and place on a greased baking sheet.
  • Put the sheet in a warm spot in your kitchen and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Let the rolls rise for 15 minutes. They should look nice and puffed up.
  • Bake at 375 minutes for about 10 to 12 minutes. They’ll be golden brown on top.
  • Right out of the oven, brush the rolls with a thin layer of melted butter and serve warm.

I will definitely put this recipe onto a card in my recipe box for regular use, and if I’m ever tasked with bringing rolls to a family event, you can bet I’ll do the full recipe and get a ton of rolls in very little time.

These had great flavor, and we might’ve spoiled our dinner a bit by enjoying a couple before we had food on the table.

I was glad my poor yeast got its chance to shine after waiting in my fridge for so long. I suppose I should clean out those shelves a little more often.

This piece first appeared in print on May 31, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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