Author: Cori Cooper

At high elevation, buttermilk is your best friend, guys! The added fat content keeps the baked good moist. I substitute it for milk in almost every recipe I have. In those rare cases where buttermilk would affect the taste in a bad way, I use whole milk. It really does make a difference.

Don’t worry! All products made from this blog are fat and calorie free. Go ahead and believe that, you have my permission!

Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients

¼ C. Butter, softened

1 C. and 2 TBSP Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla

2 C. all purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

½ tsp Baking Soda

½ tsp Salt

1 C. Buttermilk

1 tsp Cinnamon

Instructions:

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add 1 cup sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk.

Mix just until moistened. Transfer half of batter to greased bread pan.

Combine cinnamon and sugar. Sprinkle ¾ over batter. Top with remaining batter and sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool the rest of the way.

We call this cake bread. Because it tastes like dessert! It’s the very first bread I ever learned to make. It’s so wonderfully easy, even those of you who feel like you stink with yeast can totally do it. True story!

Yield: 2 loaves but easily doubled or tripled

Ingredients:

2 ½ C. Warm Water – warm to the touch tap works great!

1 TBSP Yeast, active dry, not instant

¼ C. Sugar

3 C. Flour

1 TBSP Salt

¼ C. Butter

At high elevation you always want to start with a little flour and increase gradually. In this recipe, you’re looking for a lightly tacky dough, it’s shouldn’t stick to your finger if you tap it. I usually end up adding about 2 more cups of flour, but it really depends on the day.

Instructions:

Pour water into a small mixing bowl, sprinkle in yeast and add 1 TBSP of the sugar. Let yeast dissolve without stirring. Yeast will form a tan coating over water in 5 minutes. Do not let stand long enough to get foamy because it will lose life.

While yeast is dissolving, sift together 3 C. Flour and salt in large mixing bowl. Add butter to flour mixture and cut with pastry blender until resembles crumbs. Add yeast mixture to flour mixture and mix lightly with your hand or a spoon. This is called a sponge. It helps yield a lighter, fluffier loaf of bread.

Cover with plastic wrap and let stand 10-15 minutes.

Here’s where you can get a little funky! I like to mix with my hands! Don’t judge! You can use a stand mixer, but I find that mixing by hand insures that I don’t add too much flour, because I become one with the dough.

You know?

Gradually add more flour to sponge, adding only enough to make a soft dough. Turn onto well floured surface and knead 8-10 minutes, adding flour only as necessary to prevent sticking,

Return dough to bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise one hour or until doubled. Punch down and divide into two portions. Shape into loaves and put in greased loaf pans, let rise for 20-30 minutes depending on how hot your kitchen is.

If they rise too high, they will fall in the oven. A flat failure.

Bake 30-35 minutes at 350. They should be a light golden brown. Rap the top of one of the loaves with your knuckles. When they are done they will sound hollow.

Cool beans right?

Remove loaves from pans to cool on wire racks.

I am a Mountain Girl

But I am NOT a farm girl!!

I used to pretend like I could be, but it was exhausting, so now I am content to not be! 🙂

Here’s why

I feel for EVERYTHING! No guys, you don’t understand, I mean, EVERYTHING! Spiders? Catch them and take them outside. Flies? Let them buzz around until they die. Bees? Shoo them out a door.

One year we had a horrible grasshopper problem in our garden. We called it the Plague of Locusts! It was so bad, they were eating everything. Someone told me they filled pickle jars with grasshoppers to get the pests out of their yard and threw the jars in the trash. I tried that y’all, and I felt so sorry for the suffocating grasshoppers that I couldn’t throw the jar away, I just let them go, back in the yard.

Our garden stunk that year.

We have cats. Two killer cats. Two killer cats of death!

Sometimes I wish I could program them to leave the birds and the bunnies, just kill the gophers and don’t do it where I can see it!

If anyone figures out how to do that, please let me know.

Frequently, I’ve rescued baby bunnies from their clutches, before the bunny was too far gone to escape with it’s life. But the other day, I heard a sound like a baby crying in my garage.

My baby is in third grade.

So, yeah, I thought I was losing it.

Then I remembered. When bunnies are dying, they scream, and it sounds exactly like an infant.

I only wish I were joking.

I grabbed the broom and headed to the garage to rescue the poor thing, but I was too late. It was, literally, mortally wounded.

No I didn’t cry!

Okay, maybe a little.

I told you! I am NOT a farm girl!

Also, I took a deep breath, closed the garage door and let the cats finish the job. It was the right thing to do. As I walked away, I kept repeating to myself, let the cats be cats. Just let the cats be cats. It’s better this way.

Why the heck am I telling you this!?

Because I realized something. How often do we try to change the way something is? A person, a thing, a circumstance, an event, a prognosis, a choice?

Have you noticed, most of the time, we can’t. We really can’t change it. It is what it is.

Learning to accept what is, I think, is one of the most challenging things we do in this life. But you know what? It’s worth it. Just like anything, the more we try, the better we will get at it and eventually, we will be so much happier if we learn to accept the things we really can’t change.

Even if that circumstance, or whatever it is we have no control over, really stinks!

And, you know, we can have peace with it, by choosing how we think about it. Cause the truth is, we always get to choose how we think about things. It’s not good or bad until we think it is.

Nothing is a fact until we decide it is.

So, take a deep breath with me friends, and let’s practice letting the cats be cats.

whew!

How do you walk?

Have you ever thought about it? Do you pay attention to how you walk? What do you do with your arms? Are your strides long and fluid? Or shorter and fast? Where do you look? How do you walk?

And why would you even want to know that?

Walking is automatic right? We just do it. Who cares HOW we do it, as long as it gets done. Right?

Right?!

Hmmmm. I’m not so sure.

Just recently, I noticed something interesting about the way I walk. I was hiking a beautiful trail with my family. At least, I think it was beautiful. I didn’t really know for sure at the moment.

Then, somewhere along the hike, I had a thought.

It popped up out of nowhere.

My mind was blissfully blank. I was just walking and being and not paying much attention to anything, really.

And then this thought.

Am I enjoying myself?

My first reaction was, Sure, I’m hiking with my family. This is my favorite. I always enjoy myself.

But this thought was persistent. Like – NO! Really! Are you really!?

And then I suddenly noticed something.

I was walking with my head down, starting at the dirt on the path, watching each step I took.

I was looking at dirt.

Dirt is not super enjoyable.

So, since I realized what I was doing, looking at dirt, I lifted my head and looked around me.

It was GORGEOUS. The forest lined with tall, tall trees that seemed to graze the sky. Sunshine glinted through the leaves, making some of them look translucent. Shadows danced in the breeze like flighty little fairies. The smell of pine lingered in the air, bringing such a feeling of peace.

And I was staring at the dirt.

Now, here’s what’s interesting. For the rest of the hike, it was HARD for me to keep my head up. I must have been walking with my head down for, like fifteen years, because my head kept trying to drop, like it was magnetized to the ground. It took a super concerted to keep looking up.

Interesting huh?

How often, in life, do we concentrate on the dirt, when there is magic in the air around us?

Do we stare at our dirt? Other people’s dirt? The dirt in the world in general?

Why would we do that?!

Dirt is super boring!

What would happen if we stopped looking at the dirt and started seeing the beauty around us?

Oh friends, I think we would all feel SO much better.

For sursies, we would enjoy ourselves, and our lives and each other so much more.

So, let’s look up and see what we can see.

You with me?

Who loves Bagels! Ooo, ooo, ooo! Pick me!

Who hasn’t tried to home bake bagels because they seem complicated too make?

This bagel recipe is easy, practically fool proof and has ruined me forever for storebought!

Note – they turn out best if you make the dough the night before and refrigerate it.

Also Note – I don’t give you an exact flour measurement, you’re looking for a tacky texture that doesn’t stick to you but tries to.

This recipe makes about 8 bagels, depending on the size.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C. Warm to the touch Water

1 TBSP Sugar

2 tsp Active Dry Yeast

3-5 C. Bread Flour (Important! It’s higher in gluten and gives you that chewy texture that makes a bagel a bagel!

2 tsp Salt

Instructions:

Pour the water, sugar and yeast into the bowl of a stand mixer. Do not stir. Let it sit for five minutes or until it all dissolves and increases volume.

Turn on the mixture and add the salt. Gradually add flour until you get the texture you want. Tacky, not sticky or shiny.

Knead the dough for 10 minutes on a well floured surface until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough in a greased bowl and place in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, place the bowl on the counter and let rise until it comes to room temperature.

Remove dough and divide into 8 pieces. Form a round ball with each piece. Press your finger through the center of the ball to make a hole, forming a ring, this gives you the bagel shape. Mold and stretch the dough until the hole is the size you want, keep in mind that it will shrink up as the dough rises.

Put each shaped bagel on a greased cookie sheet to rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. DON’T ADD ANYTHING TO THE WATER! Reduce the heat to simmer. Depending on the size of your pot, place 2-4 bagels in the water. Boil for 1-2 minutes on each side. The longer boil will make a chewier bagel.

If you want to top your bagels with stuff like sesame seeds or poppy seeds or whatever, do it when you take them out of the water.

Place boiled bagels on a greased baking sheet.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

Cool on racks for 5 minutes.

Best warm with whipped cream cheese.

Drool with me, will ya?

Most Hiking Trails have a Trail Overview.

This is the big billboard type thing somewhere near the trailhead that usually has a map and some kind of summary that sounds sorta like this:

(Fill in the Blank) Trail is a (So many Miles) trail that features beautiful wild flowers and is good for all skill levels. The trail offers a number of activity options and is best used from (Month to Month). Dogs must be kept on leash.

Whatchathink? Kind of amazing huh? Gives you a pretty good idea what the trail is all about. I now know that this trail is pretty, good for kids and restrained animals!

How handy!

Have you ever thought about people in this way?

(So and So) is an (age) (descriptive adjective) (gender) who does these things (list of verbs). As an added bonus, (my thoughts on the subject)

Sometimes I do, I’m not proud.

Have you ever thought this way about yourself? My guess is, it’s a lot more specific and a lot less kind.

Why are we so mean to us?

I would NEVER say outloud to someone else some of the things I have thought about me. Can you relate?

So, yeah, that’s gotta change.

I want to share with you some thoughts I’ve been playing with, do you want to play too? Here we go, are you ready? And a One and a Two and a… GO!

WE are ALL AMAZING.

That’s it.

Just kidding, that’s not it. But that’s HUGE!

We are ALL AMAZING. I don’t care what we look like, think like, speak like, have done, will do or are doing. I don’t care if it’s the WORST!

Our value was set the moment we took our first breath on this earth.

WE ARE AMAZING!

Drop the Mike.

Once we establish that this is a universal truth, the fun begins.

What if, everyday, you wrote ten things you like about yourself?

What would happen?

I’ll tell you what happened for me – I challenged myself to write 20 things a day for one week. Because I like to set impossible goals, just to see what happens. Here’s what my brain did with this challenge:

Day one. This is stupid. 20 things is a lot. Why am I doing this? I want to read my book. Okay fine, I’ll just see if I can do it. scribble, scribble, scribble. 20 things. That wasn’t the worst. It only took like 10 minutes. Okay. I can do this.

Right?!

But I kept going and guess what I discovered?

I LOVE ME SO MUCH!

All of it. I LOVE all of it! Everyday I thought I would run out of things to write and everyday I discovered something new and miraculous. Sometimes it was a weakness. Sometimes it was something I thought I didn’t particularly like. But I’m learning to look at it differently, because all of it combines to form ME.

And ME is pretty dang awesome!

Does that sound prideful? I used to think so too. But not anymore. I think we’re supposed to say it. I think we’re supposed to think it. I think it’s completely ridiculous to think otherwise!

We are Children of God, guys. Think about that. We are flawed and weird and sometimes enormous pains in the rear, but that doesn’t change WHO WE ARE. And even better is what we are capable of creating once we start realizing this is true!

YOU are exactly RIGHT, just the way you are, today. Not the way you used to be, not how you’ll be when you lose twenty pounds, not when you’re kids behave perfectly. RIGHT NOW. You are AMAZING!

Believe it with me, friends.

Is that too hard?

Do you think believing this will make you conceited or complacent?

Let’s send those thoughts packing right now.

Conceit only happens when we compare ourselves to others and think we’re way better. Recognizing and believing our own value is not conceited, quite the opposite actually.

And complacent? Interestingly enough, loving myself exactly the way I am right now doesn’t make me kick back and think “sweet, done and done.” It empowers me. Because I accept all of it, I am motivated to do more.

What the what!?

It is so totally true.

If you aren’t really onboard yet, that’s okay! But maybe you’ll consider trying it out. Write your own overview. Put together the things that make you, you, ALL THE THINGS, then let yourself love it all.

Because you are AMAZING.

Twice a year we make Donuts, because I would rather have them fried, sugary, light and airy twice a year then baked and heathified once a month!

This recipe is for a basic glazed donut.

Now, I love playing with flavors. The words Basic and Vanilla and Classic make me squirmy, but this recipe is an exception to that. It is melt-in-your-mouth amazing. I just can’t bring myself to mess with it.

Try it out and tell me what you think!

AND Check out the Yeast Bread Tips post to learn more about Tangzhong!

Donuts

Tangzhong

1/3 C. all-purpose Flour

1 C. Whole Milk

Cook in a saucepan over medium heat until thickened and smooth. It is done when it coats the back of a metal spoon. Set aside to cool.

1 C. Whole Milk

1 TBSP Sugar

4 tsp active dry Yeast

2 Eggs

1 tsp Salt

1/3 C. Sugar

6 TBSP Butter

5-7 C. Flour

Warm Milk in the microwave until comfortably warm to the touch, not too hot or it will kill the yeast.

Place 1 TBSP Sugar and into milk to sit until frothy

Mix Eggs in Bosch Mixer with Salt and 1/3 C. Sugar

Melt Butter in microwave

Place cooled Tangzhong, Milk mixture and Butter into the Bosch with the Eggs. Mix to combine.

Add 5 C. Flour

Mix. SLOWLY add more flour if needed. Should be tacky, but not sticky or shiny

Cover and rise 30 minutes

Roll into a rectangle, cut out donuts, cover and rise 30 minutes

Heat a deep pot with Frying Oil until it reaches 375 degrees

Fry each donut for 30 seconds on each side

Mix 1 C. Powdered Sugar, ½ tsp Vanilla and 1 TBSP Milk for glaze

Dip warm donuts in glaze

These are best fresh, but if you nuke them the next day they taste pretty amazing too. 🙂

Everything is drier at high altitude, especially baked treats! Low air pressure makes baking rise faster and lose moisture. This is the pits because dry bread is for the birds! Literally!

The solution?

Tangzhong

Gesundheit!

No silly! Tanzhong is a Japanese method of cooking a small amount of flour and milk (or water) before adding it to the recipe.

NOTE: Can be used for ANY yeast bread recipe to moisten and tenderize the overall product. Loaves, rolls, cinnamon rolls, donuts….

Using Tangzhong makes it so the dough can absorb more moisture – a big deal at high altitude. Tangzhong also helps it rise higher and makes the dough less sticky – so you don’t have to add flour when kneading.

Remember this if you remember nothing else! In high altitude baking, the less flour – the better!

With yeast bread baking, I NEVER follow the recipe amount of flour. I add the bare minimum to get a workable dough.

Too much flour makes anything heavy, dry and stale.

Ew!

A basic Tangzhong for a two loaf recipe or 2 dozen rolls would look like this:

1/3 C. Flour

1 C. Milk or Water

Warm in a saucepan, stirring until smooth and thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Cool before adding it to your recipe.

Have you ever noticed how the simpliest things bring about the coolest results? There’s a lesson in there somewhere! 🙂

Towards the end of Spring this year, we had a gloriously beautiful day without the chilling breeze, so my family pulled out our hydration backpacks and took to the mountains.

The trail we chose that day was one we haven’t hiked in a few years. In fact, as we were walking merrily along, I realized I didn’t remember anything about it.

But I should have paid attention.

There are some basic truths in life it is important to remember, for the purposes of this post we are just going to concentrate on one – What Goes Down, Must Come Up.

That’s how it goes right?

As we followed the trail down, down, down, I was so caught up in the shadows of Pine and Aspen trees, the long dried moss on the rocks and the cool mountain breeze, that I completely overlooked the fact that we were walking down, down, down.

In the basin, the Kids had a blast. They ran around, inventing games and climbing rocks, while Handsome and I sat in the shade of a granddaddy Pine tree and talked.

When it was time to go, I called the kids, donned my backpack and turned around.

My heart sank to my toes.

It was a steep climb out.

Have you ever felt Dread? You would know it if you did. It is probably one of the least helpful emotions we carry. It likes to yell “Can’t” and “Won’t” and “Impossible” and “Too Hard” until we are as miserable as can be, then Dread points and laughs.

Which is just rude.

I can’t think of a single helpful thing Dread does. So I’m going to take away the capital letter and dismiss dread forthwith.

We all know the best way to climb a mountain is to put one foot in front of the other. If we concentrate on that and keep doing that, it isn’t long before we can look back and see just how far we’ve come.

That’s when dread is exposed for the chalatan it is.

Because, what goes down, must come up. We don’t stay stuck in the basin forever. Eventually, we start looking up, eventually we start moving up. If we keep moving forward, we move forward, leaving dread far, far behind.

No matter how steep, no matter how rocky, no matter how long, everything is conquered eventually, one step at a time.

So, tell that dread to take a hike and remind yourself that WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP.

Things always get better my friends.

Always.

Have you ever been listening to something or reading something and your mind gets flooded with inspiration – to the point where you stop reading or listening because there is so much coming in?

I had that experience this morning when I was doing dishes and listening to a Podcast from Jody Moore called “When you’re not feeling the Spirit”.

I’d started listening to the one before it, but because there was a boatload of dishes, I just let it keep going when that one was over.

And I’m super glad I did.

She was talking about how we can have the same experience as someone else but not feel the same way about it. Example was a really spiritual sacrament meeting. If two people are having the same experience but feel very differently about it, what’s going on?

The answer is – thoughts.

I am all onboard for our thoughts determining how we feel. I am a true believer in that. I LOVE that. But I had never considered that our thoughts could determine how we feel the SPIRIT.

But it makes so much sense.

If I am distracted with worrisome thoughts during a lesson, the Spirit is going to have a really hard time getting through all of that.

What we choose to think matters a ton.

So – this week for Come Follow Me* we talked about testimony, because Paul bore such powerful testimony fearlessly. My husband and I told the kids how we gained our testimonies and then challenged them to consider their own.

The first time I remember noticing my testimony was when I was 17, at EFY. The Spirit overwhelmed me. I knew it was all true. It was an undeniable experience.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t struggled with aspects of the Gospel since. I have. My faith has been tested. I have questioned. I have agonized.

But guess what I realized this morning, while listening to that podcast? I realized something that makes all the difference in gaining a testimony and feeling the Spirit. And that something is –

Choice.

I choose whether I believe.

Whether or not I recognize the Spirit in my life depends totally on what I choose to think. If I am looking for answers and thinking of doubts – I will only feel doubt.

What would happen if I chose and choose and always decide to believe that the Gospel is true? Heavenly Father is there for me, Jesus Christ understands everything I am going through, His church has been restored on this earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith and is led in these latter-days by President Russell M. Nelson.

How does choosing to think this way feel?

Probably worth considering.

*Come Follow Me is Family led, Church supported system of Gospel Study for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For 2019 the Bible New Testament is the focus of study.