Baking in Bulk

Baking and freezing really save time.  For me, baking creates such a mess in my kitchen that baking in bulk means I have less clean up.  There are a ton of things that you can bake and freeze: breads, muffins, rolls, etc.  Or another method that I prefer is to prepare the dough (like for breads, scones, cinnamon rolls) and freeze BEFORE baking.  That way you can have "fresh" baked goods when you want them. Just pull them out of the freezer and bake.  Here are some ideas...

 {Ready for the freezer}

How about fresh cinnamon rolls in the morning without the hassle of making them in the morning?  Here is how I do them.  I use this dough recipe...

Roll Dough {For the Freezer}

5 3/4 cup flour
2 T. yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1 stick butter, softened
2 t. salt
1 1/2 cups very warm water

Place the first five ingredients in a stand mixer and mix well.  Then slowly add the warm water until the mixture forms a ball.  Let rise. Punch down and shape and freeze the dough in its preferred shape (rolls or cinnamon rolls) on cookie sheets.  Once frozen, take off the cookie sheets and place the rolls in ziploc bags.  To bake, take out rolls and place in a greased baking pan.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise.  Then bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

{Yum!}

For cinnamon rolls, I normally take them out of the freezer the night before and put them in a pan to rise overnight on the counter.  Then I bake in the morning.

Two Tips for Cinnamon Rolls:

*Make a paste of softened butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon to spread on the rolls.  See this link for more info.  This makes it easy to spread on the dough.  Here are the ratios...

1 c. packed brown sugar
1-2 T. cinnamon
1/3 c. butter

*To cut the rolls DON'T use a knife!  Use dental floss!  Yes, that is right.  Dental floss creates perfectly cut rolls.  Basically you put the floss around your log of dough and then bring the two ends together of the floss to cut the dough.  See these videos that will help for all those that are visual learners.  On the first video around 7:23 you will see how to cut the rolls.

For muffins and sweet breads I bake them and then let them cool and wrap well.  Then they are ready for the freezer.  Here are two recipes that work well for freezing...

Cran-Ban Bread  (You could substitute with other berries)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

1/2 cup oil

4 eggs

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. salt

2 t. baking soda

1 small can pumpkin

12oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Beat eggs and sugar. Mix in rest of ingredients. Bake for 20 min. I normally make mini muffins out of this.

 {Baby pear pecan muffins because everything is cuter in miniature!}

Pear Pecan Muffins

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 1/3 cup flour

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. soda

1/2 t. salt

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 T. oil

2 t. vanilla

8 oz. sour cream {light sour cream works}

1 large egg 

1 1/2 cups diced pears

{You can used drained, canned pears.  If you use fresh, you must peel the pears.}

Preheat oven to 400. Spray the muffin cups. Mix all ingredients, but gently fold in the pears last. Sprinkle with coarse sugar (turbinado sugar) on the top of the batter. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

NOTE: I didn't have any coarse sugar so I skipped that step.  They were still yummy!!!

For scones and biscuits, you mix up the dough and shape (actually cut them into the correct shape) and then freeze them on cookie sheets.  After they are completely frozen you can then bag them and put them in the freezer.  To bake, take the amount of scones or biscuits out that you want and immediately bake.  Baking time maybe be a bit longer than normal because the dough is frozen.

A collection of scone recipes

Biscuits

2 cups flour

1 T. baking powder

1 t. salt

1 T. sugar

1/3 cup shortening

1 cup milk

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture looks like the texture of coarse cornmeal. Stir in milk until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Roll out and cut biscuits. Freeze biscuits on a cookie sheet and then bag.  To bake, heat oven to 425 and bake for about 15 minutes.