Pastry Braids

Hope you didn't think this was a daily blog:) It's not that I don't have the time I suppose. It's more that I can't afford the supplies for daily baking and I absolutely do NOT need to have yummy baked goodness tempting me. I lost 50 pounds (weight watchers online) in 2010 and ran/walked a half marathon in October 2011 and I really would like to maintain a somewhat healthy & active lifestyle:)

Of course one must indulge occasionally and I was itching to do some baking, so last week I thought up a little pastry. I've seen this braid technique all over the internet lately and I ALWAYS have basic baking ingredients on hand, so I knew I could come up with a dough easily. I'd been stumbling around online and came across a recipe that appeared to be for copycat refrigerated crescent rolls. I'm a big fan of those, they are so versatile for savory and sweet bites. I'm still working through some christmas cookie pantry items, so I had partial bags of  chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and caramels. That sounded delicious warm and melty in pastry dough, so I got to work.

The crescent roll dough recipe was easy enough, but it makes a TON of dough. I cut the recipe in half and STILL had enough dough for two large braids. I split the dough, used half for a savory braid and the other half for the sweet braid. Two notes about the dough...1. it was much stickier than I thought, I might add more flour next time, probably 1/2 cup and see what happens....2. it did NOT taste or have the texture of those refrigerated crescent rolls.  It was perfectly yummy and still perfectly versatile, but not the end result I expected.

Braid Dough (cut in half from original recipe)

1 cup milk

1 package of active dry yeast

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, beaten

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I'd actually go for 5 cups)

Heat milk to 110 degrees, add yeast, stir until dissolved.

In large mixing bowl (or a kitchenaid in my case:) ), cream sugar, shortening, and salt. Add eggs, mix well. 

Add half the flour, then add milk mixture, mixing until flour is moistened. Add remaining flour and either knead by hand or let your kitchenaid dough hook do all the work for about 6-8 minutes. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in warm place until doubled about 1 1/2 hours.

Now for the fun:) Roll out half the dough into a rectangle. Use kitchen shears or a pizza cutter to cut strips 1/3 of the way toward the center on both long ends of the rectangle. Fill in the middle with your choice. For the savory version, I used shredded chicken, shredded cheese, salsa, and green peppers. For the sweet version (pictured), I used:
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 ounces peanut butter chips
6 caramels (cut into a very small dice, about the same size as the chips)

Next fold over strips one at a time, alternating sides each time. You really can't mess this up. The strips nicely tuck themselves in this way, and on the last strip, you can just tuck it under so the edge doesn't show. Melt a little butter and brush the top. I chopped up some pretzels (I love a good salty sweet treat) and sprinkled them over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees about 30 minutes. 

mmmmm.....melty goodness.

It got at least 12 slices.

The savory one with the chicken, I sliced thicker, as it was dinner and you need a little more substance:)

OK, both were yummy! BUT I would change a couple things next time.....

1. DOUBLE the insides. The bread to filling ratio was a little off and I LOVE bread. But filling was just too skimpy in both versions.

2.  I think I'll use kosher salt instead of pretzels. The pretzels were fine out of the oven while they were warm, but they were soggy as left-overs. And most of it fell off before it ended up in my mouth anyway.

3. I would use a caramel sauce instead of caramel candies. Again, warm, it was perfect....but room temperature, those seized right up and just stuck in my teeth.


The filling possibilities are endless! Will definitely continue to improve and create the pastry braids!!!