Yeast

Get professional-looking rolls without using fancy molds.

This bread is Mickey's pride and joy. It is made by hand and has a crust on top like no other. Breadworks sells about twenty loaves every day. Try it for French toast.

Legend has it that on December 13, 1764, a gentleman in Sweden was roused in the middle of the night by a beautiful voice. He saw a young woman in white moving through his room singing. She had wings and was carrying a candle. That was Lucia the Saint. She brought light, food, and wine as comfort on what was, in the Gregorian calendar, the longest night of the year. We celebrate Saint Lucia on December 13. Children will walk with lit candles singing the beautiful Lucia carol and bringing the Lucia bread.

These are outstanding buns, substantial yet tender. The soft sides of the top-split hot dog buns are made for grilling or toasting.

A little rye flour and a bit of cornmeal give this pizza dough extra flavor°and texture.

Use one crust to make the pizza here. Chill the extra dough for up to four days or freeze for up to a month.

A basket full of freshly baked rolls adds a welcoming touch to any holiday table. Combining the crunch of a cracker with the tender yeastiness of bread, these little numbers are especially fun.

The dough gets its slightly tangy flavor from a "sponge" (a mixture of warm water, yeast, and flour that’s allowed to ferment). Timing note: The sponge needs to rest overnight; the dough needs to rise for about eight hours.

Potatoes help make the dough amazingly moist and tender.

A French take on pizza, featuring tapenade, sliced Yukon Gold potatoes, and red pepper, as well as real imported Fontina.

Walnuts are commonly paired with whole wheat, but something pretty great happens when you team them up with tangy rye and bits of sweet sautéed onion instead. A batch of these is especially tasty alongside a platter of your favorite cheeses.

Elegant and deliciously buttery, these golden fantails are an obvious choice for entertaining. Their shape resembles a blooming flower, with each petal forming a perfect pull-apart bite. But don’t worry—they are surprisingly straightforward to put together in a muffin pan.

The technique for shaping this sculptural loaf is very simple, but the result is dramatic. Once baked, the bread resembles a towering cornstalk, and each roll, or "ear of corn," is torn off the stalk by guests. But it's not just the presentation that makes these rolls worth the effort—they've got the hearty exterior of a French baguette, plus a yeasty, slightly chewy interior.

Classic shape plus not-so-classic flavors gives these rolls an element of surprise. That’s not to say the wintry blend of pumpkin and orange is overpowering; it’s actually very subtle, so the rolls go with just about anything you put on the dinner table. Leftovers would be awfully good slathered with butter and toasted for breakfast.

Who knew rolls could be so, well, adorable? But of course looks aren’t everything: They’ve got substance, too, with a satisfyingly salty crust—flaky sea salt has fantastic texture—embracing an enjoyably chewy, pretzel-like interior.

These rolls have a lot in common with brioche—both are rich and tender, and they bake up with a gorgeous browned crust. However, these are much easier to make than that time-intensive bread, and they have the added advantage of aromatic Parmigiano-Reggiano. We guarantee they’ll fly out of the bread basket.

This is my basic brioche recipe, soft, light, and intensely buttery. For those who desire even more butter, it can be increased to 6 ounces, which will also make the crumb finer, denser, and more cake-like. This is actually a very easy dough to make, especially in a bread machine, which handles this small amount of dough perfectly. TIME SCHEDULE
Dough Starter (Sponge): minimum 1 1/2 hours, maximum 24 hours
Minimum Rising Time: 10 hours
Oven Temperature: 425°F (350°F for the loaf)
Baking Time: 10 to 15 minutes for small brioche, 35 to 40 minutes for the loaf

This is my best white bread for sandwiches, dinner rolls, cinnamon swirl or herb swirl breads, and toast. I developed it to match my childhood memory of my favorite bread, Silvercup, a soft, light, and airy bread like today's Wonder Bread, which made the best toast. This homemade version has the same texture but has a more yeasty and fuller flavor. In fact, this bread is like a brioche, with less butter and no egg. It has an even yet open crumb but is softer and lighter in texture. Part of the secret of its light texture is that, like brioche, it is made from an exceptionally moist dough. Lightly toasted and topped with soft scrambled eggs, it is nothing short of ambrosial. Michael Batterberry, publisher of Food Arts magazine, tasted this bread and said, "Mmmm. . . . This is what Wonder Bread, in its soul, really always wanted to be!" TIME SCHEDULE
Dough Starter (Sponge): minimum 1 hour, maximum 24 hours
Minimum Rising Time: about 4 hours
Oven Temperature: 350°F
Baking Time: 50 minutes

This fluffy flat bread has large, irregular holes thanks to a wet, sticky dough and gentle handling during mixing. TIME SCHEDULE:
Minimum rising time: 2 1/2 Hours
Oven temperature: 475°F
Baking time: 12 to 15 minutes