"experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." -randy pausch

Monday, April 8, 2013

braids & breadsticks {CRAIGO'S RECIPE!!!}


SATURDAY NIGHT:
sean left for his meeting for the men.
linsey plus 2 came over.
i made tuna melts.
linsey braided my hair.
then max's.
then i passed out ice cream sandwiches.
chase ate mine.
the entire thing.
everyone played in the yard.
plus about 10 neighborhood kids that rode by on their bikes.
then my kids got cold.
b/c of course they were in their underwear.
todd came to pick up linsey and their monkeys.
i corralled my brood upstairs for teeth brushing.
sean opened the garage.
and chase started projectile vomiting.
at which point i yelled down the hall "EMERGENCY!!! run to your room guys!"
and then thought that letting him eat the entire ice cream sandwich was maybe not the best idea.
but he was just so cute biting off each piece.
and so happy about it.
gave chase a bath,
sean cleaned up puke,
brennan and max put themselves to bed.
ground breaking.
then chase puked on my two more times.
at which point i decided i'd better just stop trying to feed him pedialyte pops and apple juice and just put the man to bed.
sean and nurse nat agreed.
then i did laundry until midnight.
3 pairs of baby man jammies,
2 pairs of my pants, 2 shirts, 2 pairs of underwear,
and a partridge and a pair tree.
and made a batch of raspberry butter.
read my book and went to bed.
chase woke up a new man sunday morning.
puke free.
lesson learned: the baby man has no "off" button.
noted. 
SUNDAY MORNING:
the kids wake up asking for hot chocolate and whipping cream in their mouths.
chase got blueberries and milk.
i was scared to even give him that.
then i spoiled him and gave him two graham crackers.
we called that a win.
made scones.
watch church on tv all day.
mostly just wrangled our three kids.
some of the quotes i loved...

1. "what e'er thou art, act well thy part." -sis. dalton
2. "spiritual light rarely comes to those who merely sit in the darkness 
waiting for someone to flick on the switch." -pres. uchtdorf
3. "imperfect people are all god has ever had to work with. that must be
TERRIBLY frustrating to Him, but He deals with it." -jeffrey r. holland
{recipe for scones & raspberry butter here. thank you liz smailes.}
chase didn't get any scones.
max didn't want any scones.
brennan only wanted honey on his scone.
sean and i like honey AND raspberry butter on our scones.
and for me, 
the honey is almost more important than the scone.
by the end of the day everyone was crying or whining,
and brennan actually shouted hooray when he found out it was over.
"phew, im so glad that's over. good thing!"
i told him one day he will love it.
he didn't believe me.
and then i put the activity bin away.

SUNDAY NIGHT:
i decided we needed rolls.
to go with our soup.
then i decided we needed breadsticks.
and then i was all,
"sean!!! i should make CRAIGO'S breadsticks!!!"
and if you've ever lived in rexburg, idaho 
you know that i'm talking about the best bread of any stick
ON 
THE 
ENTIRE 
PLANET.
i give you the recipe with some pretty pictures to help you along...
{and A LOT of instruction and direction for those of you that don't know much about baking bread.}

-{OLD} CRAIGO'S BREADSTICK RECIPE-
{b/c if you REALLY know, you KNOW the new just isn't as good.}

ingredients:
5 cups flour
{i usually add in another full cup of flour while it's mixing}
2 tbls sugar
2 tbls salt
2 tbls yeast
2 tsp sugar
to get your yeast to rise with the
3 cups warm water
garlic salt
1-2 cups shredded mozarella cheese
freshly grated parmesian OR shredded colby jack
1 stick of butter, room temp

directions:
1. put 3 cups warm water, 1 tsp sugar, and yeast into bowl.
stir around, will be chunky.
let sit in microwave about 10 min, don't cook, 
just let sit with microwave oven door closed.
{warms your yeast right up}

2. put 5 cups flour into your kitchen aid mixer or bowl with salt and 2 tbls sugar.

3. add water mixture to flour once water mixture has puffy yeast 
starting to balloon up/makes bubbles on top of water.

4. mix with dough hook for 10 min or knead by hand on your counter for 10 min.

5. here is THE KEY to getting your BREAD RIGHT:
are you ready?
listening ears on?
here we go:
MOISTURE.
add more flour if it is too runny.
more water if it is too dry.

EM'S TIPS
FOR GETTING YOUR DOUGH RIGHT:
always give it at least a few minutes of mixing 
to see if it needs more of anything.
add water and/or flour in 1/4 cup measurements 
a little bit at a time to get it right.
see pictures below for what the dough will look like
as it is mixing with the correct amounts of MOISTURE:) 
as the dough hook is going or as you are kneading your dough on the counter {10 min for both}, you want the dough to be elastic and make "spiderwebs" on the sides 
of your kitchen aid mixing bowl.
if you are kneading on your counter-top, 
think rubber-band, but softer.
as you are getting the right MOISTURE mix with your dough,
THINK GAK from when we were kids, {if you know what that is}
that you have just thrown up onto the ceiling of your bedroom
{even though your mom told you absolutely DO NOT throw that up stuff onto the ceiling of your bedroom},
and you are standing there watching it slowly stretch itself off of the ceiling and down onto your floor. or head.
whichever.
and then your mom walks in right as it falls off 
and it leaves a big huge blue mark on your ceiling.
memories:)
different climates can do different things, 
so this is why you want to look for the "spiderwebs" to form 
on the sides of the bowl to see the elastic appearance.
do you see my web-slinging dough down there?
spider-man done right.
 {see elastic "spiderwebs" shown above picture and the below left hand picture}

6. when the 10 min of kneading is up you'll want to take a spatula and scoop around the sides and bottoms really well, to really absorb all of the flour. i do this once or twice during the kneading process too. the dough will form around the dough hook as it mixes {as shown on the picture on the right above}.

7. PAM spray your bowl {i should have used a bigger bowl},
plop your dough down into it,
cover and let rise in your microwave for about 1 & 1/2 hours.
OR if you're a procrastinator like me,
heat your oven to 200* and turn OFF.
boil a pot of water and put on bottom shelf.
put bowl of dough on top shelf.
with pot of water and oven turned OFF.
then shut door with everything inside.
{don't forget to turn your oven OFF.}
watch it rise faster than a NY minute.
works like a charm every time. 

{pictured below: rising your down in a closed space, like your microwave, 
the old fashioned way for about an 1 and 1/2.}

{above: after 1 & 1/2 hours of rising, doubled in size, ready to go}

{pictured below: rising your dough the speed method, with steam and a preheated oven.}
--i had to scoop dough off of the shelves after i took this 
b/c a ton dropped down. yep, should have used a bigger bowl.--

8. once your dough has doubled in size {see picture above}, punch down right into the middle of it.
BAM! just like that. then pull the dough away from the sides and plop it down onto a well floured counter.

9. roll it out into the best rectangle you can muster. 
mine looked more like a bad circle.

10. cut 7 strips or however many your rectangle will allow. 
my pizza cutter was a GEM for this part!

11. and then about halfway through i decided to cut those strips in half horizontally 
to make one set of  rows on top, and one set of rows on the bottom.
{see picture below}


12. i cut each strip in half vertically too 
b/c the full length ones were getting out of control.
{shown above and below}

13. then i braided two pieces together.
over under.
over under.
over under.
and so forth.
i pinched the tops together,
and i pinched the bottoms together.
{don't worry about being neat, tidy, or perfect--i promise it won't matter.}
{at the end of each braid mine got really thin and looked GHETTO.}

14. then i had to carefully smoosh each long braided strip to fit into my two hands without ripping them, 
while i moved them onto the PAM SPRAYED cookie sheet. 
like ducks in a row.


15. then i left them on my counter for 20 minutes to rise some more.
the recipe said to let them rise for 45 min, but i didn't have 45 min.
{say it with me: "PRO-CRAS-TI-NAY-TOR"!}
{good job}
20 min was fine.
you just want them to start looking puffier.
more squished.
like this:


16. then i buttered and seasoned with the salts.
i used almost an entire stick of butter.
heavy on the garlic salt, easy on the lawry's.
{or no lawry's at all if you want less salty}


17. bake @ 400* for 12 min., 
then sprinkle shredded mozarella & cheddar cheese over the tops 
{the recipe said to use Parmesan, but i was out--
only used about 1/4c cheddar just for the darker colors i knew would bake on,
i will be using Parmesan in the future b/c i usually have it anyway},

 18. bake for 8 more minutes.
aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddd.......
{pause for effect}
BEHOLD!!!
basically,
i could die today and feel like i had experienced everything great there was to experience in the world.
all in a breadstick.
overstatement?
you'll have to see for yourself.
make sure you eat one piping hot.
or 5.
whichever.
if you can stop at 1 you deserve some kind of self restraint medal.
you now have a reason to make your monday a happy one.
you're welcome in advance.
:):):)
the missionaries in our ward are gonna be SOOOOO happy 
we are on their dinner schedule for saturday night.
they just don't know it yet!
THE END.
.....
P.S.
when i originally posted this,
i included a 1/2 cup whey in the ingredients b/c my friend said that when she worked at Craigo's way back when 
byu-idaho used to be good ol' Rick's, they put it in.
i did NOT use the whey b/c it was expensive, and i just didn't have it laying around my house the sunday i made it,
but man people got themselves all riled up over the fact that i listed it as an ingredient.
throw it in,
don't throw it in,
i don't think it makes a difference.
it's bread.
it tastes amazing.
eat it.
and be happy:)

25 comments:

Susan Anderson said...

Yum, I wish I were a more successful baker!

=)

PS. My hubby would be fat if he were married to you. ;)

Laurel said...

Found this on pinterest last night and I already have the dough rising! I worked at Craigos right before they switched to the flat, less delicious cheese breadsticks. During my first pregnancy I would nearly eat an entire order by myself! When you say its all about the moisture, how much moisture are we talking? I feel like the dough is pretty runny and I had a hard time figuring out what the spiderwebs were supposed to look like. I tried not to add too much more than 4 cups and I kneaded it for a little over 10 minutes trying to find the "webs". Hopefully this recipe is forgiving because I am very excited!

Laurel said...

Found this on pinterest last night and I already have the dough rising! I worked at Craigos right before they switched to the flat, less delicious cheese breadsticks. During my first pregnancy I would nearly eat an entire order by myself! When you say its all about the moisture, how much moisture are we talking? I feel like the dough is pretty runny and I had a hard time figuring out what the spiderwebs were supposed to look like. I tried not to add too much more than 4 cups and I kneaded it for a little over 10 minutes trying to find the "webs". Hopefully this recipe is forgiving because I am very excited!

Melenie said...

Is the dough supposed to be way runny? I'm kind of nervous...

Em said...

Add more flour if it is too runny. Try adding about a half cup and see if it firms up at all. Also, my friend says she does 1/4 whey in addition to the flour. Will be trying that next time:) let me know how it turns out. I need to take a picture of what my dough looks like when I am mixing it to show what I mean by "spiderwebs". I put generous amounts of flour down on my counter and then on top of the dough to roll it out and not get stuck so even if it seems a little too sticky, just add flour to the top of it as you roll it out and it will make it not be as sticky. This recipe is very forgiving. This was the first time I made it and I thought for sure it wasn't going to turn out right at all bc i wasn't doing it perfectly, but it turned out amazing:)

Anonymous said...

I have never used whey before and wondered where you can purchase it. Is it a powder or liquid?
Thanks for your help!!!

Melenie said...

Okay, so they tasted good, but they turned out way flat and was one big flat breadstick. I'll try it again but next time I'm adding at least 2 more cups of flour.

Em said...

melanie--did you let the dough rise twice? once in the bowl and then again after they were braided into breadsticks? if you did, then def try more flour, and make sure that your yeast gets puffy before you get started.

Em said...

WHEY is a milk product, but it looks like a lot like flour. you can buy it at the grocery store:)

Laura Anne said...

I have been looking everywhere for whey and not having any luck! Do you have a brand name I can look for? I am really looking forward to making these

Em said...

Laura Anne- today I had to ask my grocer where to find it and he led me to the health foods aisle. The one I wanted to buy was 100% whey protein, vanilla flavor, and the brand was naturalite I believe. Not completely sure on the brand name sorry:) When I went to put it in my cart I saw that this small circular canister was $18! $18 for whey! I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. So right then I decided that unless I could find it for 8-$10 somewhere else I would just keep making the breadsticks without it bc they taste just like craigo's without it:) I am going to see if amazon sells it. Or Walmart. Let me know if you find it for a better price.

Em said...

have added pictures of "the webs" and what the dough should look like as it's mixing. enjoy!

Unknown said...

These were pretty dang good!! Thanks for the recipe. I too had to add more flour. It looked like soup, then I added just enough to where it was still moist but not running between my fingers when I held it. I have another batch of dough going in the bread machine as we speak :) Thank you.

Em said...

Bianca--I'm so glad!!! I look for reasons to make these. Like, oh, it's Wednesday, id better make breadsticks today:) afternoon snacks have a whole new meaning:) HAHA!

Maddie and April Lloyd said...

The pictures help so much! Thank you! Just wanted to mention that whey is what is left over after you make cheese. For example if you make homemade mozzerella, the liquid that is left over is whey. It is often used in breadmaking. There is whey protein powder, expensive like you mentioned, usually to make protein shakes. But my initial thought is that you wouldn't want to use vanilla in these breadsticks. Did your friend specify vanilla/powder? Just curious. I have some and will try it if you think that is the type to use. Thanks again!

Tricia Lee Riggio said...

Love this. I worked a t Craigos and my job in the morning was making 200 trays of breadsticks for the day. I then crushed my hand in the el extricated rolling pin making a pizza bomb. Thus ended my Craigos experience. A little hint secret when we made the marinara sauce is we added the left over pineapple juice from the toppings to the red saucepan d it made it sweet. :)

Unknown said...

It seems like this has too much salt. It says 2 Tablespoons....Is this right? Also about how many bread sticks does this recipe make?

Em said...

Amber--yep 2TABLEspoons:) i love how salty they tasted! It makes a tray full. However many are in the pictures I posted, but I usually cut them in half so it spreads around more.

Telford Family said...

Okay for all you wondering about the whey. I helped manage Craigo's back in the day. Many people actually thought I was Craigs daughter-in-law. Not so just a family friend. The whey is what made the bread a sourdough recipe. And yes it is in powered form. And actually the dough rises three times. Once the dough is mixed let it rise in the original bowl, then take it out and put into a bowl, container and raise again. Then lastly when you form your breadsticks let them raise again. I couldn't count the number of breadsticks I have twisted over the years. Have fun it's a great recipe.

Baking Momma said...

I am soooooo excited to make these! I graduated from Rick's in 1995 and have craved these breadsticks ever since! I was so sad they don't have them anymore, I told my nieces going to BYU-Idaho they are missing out! Thanks for bringing back some great memories!

Em said...

Oh I'm SO glad!!! I just made them Friday night and I can't get over how they taste just like I remember. Hope they turn out just a good for you.

Anonymous said...

I would try a whey protein like bobs red mill as opposed to whey isolates for protein drinks, Just my two cents :)

losthearts said...

I was wondering if anyone had their pizza bomb recipie ??

losthearts said...

Would This recipie be the same for the pizza bomb bread ? I have been looking for the pizza bomb recipie everywhere.

Em said...

Not sure about the bomb recipe sorry!