Sesame Braided Bread

The nice folks at ViSalus sent me a whole bunch or their products to sample and to cook with. I've been stuffing cookies into my husband's lunch, and I've been playing around with the shake mix.

The shake mix is meant as a weight-control product, and I have to say that a shake made with it is very filling.

But my plan was to use the shake mix as a meal supplement - adding extra nutrition to foods we normally eat. If you recall, my husband needs to gain some weight.

I recently made a bread-machine loaf that I really liked, but I decided to make a bread that was a little more interesting.

This braided bread is similar to a challah, but it's a little softer; not quite as dense. It's really, really good - rich, buttery, eggy, and just a teeny bit sweet.

One reason for this bread's softness is the instant mashed potatoes. Yup. I use instant mashed potatoes quite often in bread. I never use it for making mashed potatoes.

When you buy it for making bread, check the ingredient list. The more expensive brands tend to have flavorings and other ingredients. You don't want that.

The less expensive brands tend to have nothing but dried potatoes - that's exactly what you need. Just potatoes.

Sesame Braided Bread

1 egg, plus water ot make 1 cup
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup ViSalus Vi-Shape shake mix
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
2 1/4 cup bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup instant mashed potatoes
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water) or Quick Shine*
Sesame seeds, as needed

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the egg-and-water, honey, shake mix, yeast, and bread flour. Knead until the mixture is smooth and is becoming elastic.

Add the salt, butter, and mashed potato flakes. Knead slowly at first until the butter is incorporated, then increase the speed and continue kneading until the dough is smooth, elastic, and feels a little "bouncy" if you press it.

Cover the mixer bowl with plastic wrap and set aside until the dough has doubled in size - about an hour.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or sprinkle it with cornmeal.

Flour your work surface, turn out the dough, and divide it into three equal pieces. You don't need to be completely precise, but get the as close to equal as you can.

Roll each piece into a rope about 15 inches long.

Line the three ropes up and pinch the three together at one end. Braid the ropes together and pinch the ends together when you're done.

Transfer the finished braid to the prepared baking sheet. Tuck the pinched ends under and adjust the loaf so it's straight and even. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside until doubled in size - about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

When the loaf has risen, remove the plastic wrap. Brush the loaf with the egg wash or spray with Quick Shine. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake at 350 degrees until the loaf is nicely browned, about 30 minutes.

Transfer the loaf to a rack to cool completely before slicing.

*Quick Shine is a baking spray that makes bread shiny and helps seeds stick. Sometimes I use it instead of making an egg wash just to brush one loaf of bread.

This post was sponsored by Visalus.

Chip Dip (and then it was ice cream)

There has to be a 12-step program for this ice cream addiction of mine. Maybe it that I'm in love with the ice cream maker I just reviewed. Maybe it's a calcium craving.

Maybe I'm just crazy.

But whatever it is, I keep making different flavors of ice cream. Some of them are fairly normal. And then there is chip dip.

Because chip dip is also a recent addiction. It started with some potato chips that I got as samples, and then I decided that dip would be a good idea. So I made chip dip. The cheatin' kind. Using Penzey's Chip Dip stuff. It's so easy. Just mix the chip dip seasoning with sour cream or yogurt or whatever. I usually combine sour cream and yogurt. And then it's ready. It's better after it has been refrigerated for a while, to let the spices hydrate a bit, but it's just fine right after mixing.

Last time I made chip dip, when I was licking the spoon, I thought that it might make an interesting ice cream flavor. Maybe served with some potato chips as a garnish.

And once I got the idea in my head, I couldn't shake it. Chip dip ice cream. Savory instead of sweet. With a salty garnish. Oh yeah.

I started by making:

Chip Dip

1 cup sour cream
1 cup creme fraiche
1 cup Greek-style yogurt
2 tablespoons Penzey's Chip Dip seasoning

Mix well. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Turning it into ice cream

That was great for chip dip, but a little thick for churning for ice cream. And then I had to tweak it because the first time around the flavor wasn't quite what I was looking for. You see, when something is frozen, the flavors can change a little. Some get muted, which makes others stand out.

And when it was frozen, I wasn't crazy about the texture, so I had to make that work, too.

This is still pretty solid (and a little crumbly because of the small amount of sugar) when it comes out of the freezer, but it's pretty awesome when it's thawed enough to be scoopable. It's also a little weird. But good weird.

Chip Dip Ice Cream

2 cups prepared chip dip (above)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Penzey's Chip Dip seasoning

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate to let the additional chip dip seasoning hydrate.

Churn in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions.

Transfer to a storage container and freeze until firm.

Ice Cream Biscuits - Just two "ingredients"

Yes, I mean to put ingredients in quotes, because the two ingredients are not actually single-ingredient items. But still, when you're mixing this up, you only need two things.

Easy peasy.

This concept came about when someone asked about ice cream bread, which seems to be making the rounds on blogs lately.

I hadn't paid attention to them as they wandered across blogs, but when it was explained that ice cream bread is a quick bread or muffin that's made with ice cream and self-rising flour, my very next thought was "biscuits!!!"

Thanks to Nathalie Dupree's book Southern Biscuits, I knew that biscuits didn't have to be made with butter. I'd made cream biscuits and yogurt biscuits with her recipes.

So, why not ice cream biscuits? Yes, why not, indeed.

So I scurried to the kitchen and whipped up a batch.

I figured they'd be a little bit sweet, so they'd be perfect for the biscuit version of strawberry shortcake.

What surprised me was how high they rose. They also took a little extra longer to bake than normal biscuits because the ice cream was so cold.

They were a little sweet, but not crazy sweet, and they were crunchy on the outside and soft inside. Nice for strawberry shortcake, for sure.

I used a peach ice cream I made recently, because I thought the fruity flavor would be good in the biscuits. Use whatever flavor you like.

Ice Cream Biscuits

1 cup ice cream
2 cups (9 ounces)  self-rising flour
Butter (for the tops of the biscuits - optional)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Let the ice cream get soft while you're waiting for the oven to heat. It doesn't need to be completely melted, but it shouldn't be chunky, either.

Put the self-rising flour in a bowl and add the ice cream. Stir until all the flour is moistened. If the dough seems dry, add a little milk or cream. If the dough seems too soft, don't worry about it.

Flour your work surface - you can us self-rising flour or all purpose. Turn out the dough and shape it into a rough square. Flour the top of the dough, and roll to about 8x10 inches. You don't need to measure. Eyeball it and imagine something a little smaller than standard sheet of paper.

Fold the dough in thirds, like a letter. Roll again to the same size (use flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the counter or the roller) and fold again. Roll and fold one more time.

This time, roll to the dough to about 5x10 inches. Use a 3-inch biscuit cutter to cut three rounds from the dough. I used a fluted cutter, but a regular round one is fine.

Gather the scraps, taking care to keep the layers you've created in the dough horizontal. Roll and cut more biscuits. I got two from this reroll, then gathered and rerolled again to get one last biscuit for a total of six.

Put the biscuits on the baking sheet. Brush with butter (or milk, if you like) and bake at 425 degrees until the biscuits are nicely browned, about 18 minutes, depending on how cold the dough was when it went into the oven.

When the biscuits come out of the oven, you can brush them with a little more butter, if you like.

Let the biscuits cool on a rack.