Breads, Muffins and Scones

Grandma’s Yeasted Buttermilk Dinner Rolls

November 12, 2020

Thanksgiving is going to be weird this year – very weird. Rather than getting together with family and friends, we have been asked by those who are trying to protect us from harm to stay home for the good of ourselves and those we love. So OK then…how do we make the best of that situation, and retain a little of the happiness the holidays bring? I’ve decided to take the bull by the horns and pretend we are actually doing what we usually do, which is to go to my brother Gary’s house for a family feast. My sister-in-law Ivory is from South Carolina, and her food is always full of southern charm and delicious. I will REALLY miss the macaroni and cheese she always makes, and her banana pudding is so good it almost makes a person weep. Ivory always has a huge turkey in the oven, and often Gary will put a smaller bird on his outdoor rotisserie. This is in addition to the other various hunks of meat he prepares out there, and well as the best grilled/smoked vegetables I’ve ever had. I will try not to dwell on what we are missing, but focus on what we usually contribute. This usually entails Dick grilling a ton of asparagus with just the right amount of smoky char. I make Apple Crisp and have been adding a Salted Caramel Sauce on the side. But the dish I bring that’s most popular are these Yeasted Dinner Rolls. I plan on making batches of them this year to share with family and friends. This will probably just involve running up to their front door, ringing the doorbell, and leaving a dozen or so of these dinner rolls with a jar of Strawberry Jam, but at least it’s a connection to what this holiday is all about – being thankful and sharing with others.

These dinner rolls are my attempt at coming close to the delicious rolls my grandma Liz used to make. As a young aspiring baker, I’d watch her assemble dozens of at a time, tossing an armload of dough around like it weighed nothing, and tearing off perfectly shaped rolls that she would let rise by her wood stove. She never measured anything, mixing and baking by feel alone – and they were perfect. I have fond memories of eating as many as I possibly could every Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve – or as many as I could get my hands on. Grandma had seven children and hordes of grandchildren, and when everybody got together it was like a small city which means you had to move fast before my seemingly huge uncles with even larger appetites beat me in line.

Grandma did not have a recipe as you may have guessed, so I spent years trying to get as close as I could to what she did so effortlessly. I finally got to where I think she might be proud, and I owe it all to Julia Child because this is pretty much her recipe. If you have a bread machine laying around, haul it out and use the dough cycle for this recipe – that’s how I handle it. These dinner rolls can be made grandma’s way, with just your two hands and a sturdy wooden spoon. There isn’t much better on the planet than biting into one of these babies. Slathered with butter, of course. Recipe adapted from ‘Baking with Julia’.

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No Knead Artisan Bread

March 10, 2020

Due to the recent virus scare in our world, more and more people are choosing to stay at home rather than go out. This is a good strategy for avoiding crowds, but the question arises as to what to do with all of that ‘at home time’. Here’s one option: how about you learn how to make a delicious bread that requires no technical knowledge, no special ingredients, is fun to do, and tastes delicious?

If you thought you’d never be able to make an artisan loaf of bread at home with a crisp crust, soft center with big air pockets, and an amazing flavor, I’ve got good news – yes you can and it’s easier than you could imagine. In this recipe, you spend five minutes mixing the dough the day before and allow for a slow room temperature rise overnight. No kneading required! The next day, just form the loaf and let it rise again, then into the oven it goes. An hour later you have a delicious loaf of bread. More good news: This recipe is very forgiving, so no worries about making a mistake. The recipe says to let the mixed dough sit for 12-18 hours. I’ve let it go for 24 hours with no problems. In fact, the last time I made this, we lost power at our house during the last 15 minutes of baking. I just let it sit in the oven for that amount of time, and it turned out beautifully. Make it plain or add chopped olives or some cheese for fun. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

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Vegetarian Chili with Skillet Corn Bread

March 3, 2020

There’s a lot to be said for creating chili from scratch and watching it slowly simmer over a warm stovetop for hours as it develops deep flavor. On the other hand, on many days there is also even more to be said to opening some handy cans of good quality tomatoes and beans, adding some other odds and ends, some savory spices, and just going for it. This is where we are with this chili. It’s a do it yourself kind of recipe, and I am leaving it entirely up to you as to how much heat you would like to add (since I am personally a wimp in that department and don’t add any myself), and how much other stuff goes into or on top of it. This chili comes together in minutes, and will fill your house with the mouth watering scents of tomatoes, onions, chili powder and cumin. While you’re heating up the chili, grab a cast iron skillet, melt some butter, and pour in an easy, made from scratch cornbread batter. Cast iron skillet cooking gives you an almost crispy outer crust and a moist and creamy interior. Serve it warm, slathered with butter and honey, and you’ll soon see what a perfect marriage it makes with the spice of the chili. Enough said, now let’s get down to business and to this thing.

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Pumpkin & Cranberry Bread with Pumpkin Seed Brittle and Cranberry Compote

October 10, 2019

I’ve adjusted my seasonal frame of mind to Fall mode, which translates to being all-in on my Fall baking routine. On an expedition to the pantry, I grabbed a can of pumpkin and a package of dried cranberries which seemed like a good start, and the result was this Pumpkin & Cranberry Bread. This recipe makes two generous loaves, is moist and rich with plenty of pumpkin and warm spices, and then gets a just-right little boost of sweet and tart with dried cranberries. You can stop right there if you want, but there’s also a Cranberry Compote to spoon over your bread that is loaded with both fresh and dried cranberries. And for the crunch factor, there’s a Salted Pumpkin Seed Brittle that is sweet and crunchy with an added welcome salty finish for balance. All delicious on their own, but the three together makes for an exceptionally happy Fall memory. Put a log on the fire, grab a good book and a hot beverage, and for Pete’s sake, don’t skimp on the Pumpkin Cranberry Bread. Colder weather requires we keep our strength up.

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Skillet Cornbread with Honey Butter

October 3, 2019

When I was a kid, one of my favorite suppers was when Neeners would make cornbread and scrambled eggs for supper. Need I tell you that I drenched the warm cornbread in Log Cabin Syrup after adding plenty of butter? And yes, the syrup always made its way onto the scrambled eggs too. Money was tight in those days, but when cornbread arrived, we felt like we were eating like royalty. In fond remembrance of those days, here’s my own favorite cornbread recipe. Butter is melted in a cast iron skillet, and the batter is poured in right before popping it into the oven. Serve this warm with honey butter and you’ll see what I’m talking about. But if you’d rather drench it in butter and syrup, I won’t blame you one bit. This recipe is so easy; you won’t ever want to open a box of corn muffin mix again. Plus, it’s made with lots of real butter – that’s pretty much all I need to hear.

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Roasted Pear Muffins with Pear Chips

September 27, 2019

Fall is in the air, which gets me thinking favorite about Fall foods (big shock). As part of this mental excursion, I got to wondering about the fact that I had never seen a recipe for pear muffins before so did some recipe snooping and found such recipes exist, but not very many. I think this might be because pears, all by themselves, are not really what you would call ‘flavor bombs’, and to my mind require roasting and some cinnamon to get the ball rolling. Always up for a challenge, I set out to make a pear muffin that would be all about the pear and capitalize on that roasted pear taste that is irresistible. First, we’ll roast up some diced pears in cinnamon sugar, then add them to a batter that has lots of brown sugar to enhance that roasted concept. When all was said and done, the experiment resulted in a super moist muffin that smacks you right in the face with nice little pieces of roasted pear. If you want to get really crazy, you can make some pear chips to decorate the tops. Not at all required, but kinda fun.

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Zucchini & Lemon Bread with Lemon Sugar Topping

August 29, 2019

I recently read that Zucchini Bread was the most frequently made and the most ‘gifted’ away bread of any other variety….it is also the one most likely to be thrown out by the recipient of said ‘gift’. This is likely due to the fact that zucchini all by itself is seriously lacking in the flavor department. Zucchini can also contain a whole lot of moisture, and if we don’t address that issue our bread ends up looking, and tasting like a flavorless hunk of sea sponge. I know this from first hand experience while creating this recipe, which was not a good one. The only person who would eat that first attempt was my mother, who said “Hey, you can’t be Martha Stewart every day – get over yourself”. That comment was enough to get me back to the drawing board, and the result is this Zucchini Lemon Bread is bursting with fresh, citrusy flavor. We squeeze the living daylights out of the grated zucchini, which goes a long way to eliminate that spongy element of my prior attempts, and then top the whole thing off with a generous crackling crust of lemon sugar. It’s fun to make, it’s easy, and I guarantee nobody will be secretly tossing this out if you can make yourself give it away.

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Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel Topping

July 11, 2019

This recipe has ended my search for the perfect Blueberry Muffin. For years, I was disappointed because even though they always looked delicious, biting into one was a major disappointment due to either stinginess on the berry elements, not much structure, or muffins so sweet they wanted to give me a headache. I had sworn off blueberry muffins altogether until I met these guys…. They have a nice, firm texture that can hold up to the tons of blueberries inside and is just the right amount of sweetness. They’re topped with a buttery, crunchy streusel and just a little whisper of cinnamon that’s guaranteed to put a big smile on your face. This recipe, like so many others, appears to have a long and winding history. I first discovered it when my niece, Toni, made some for us from a recipe she found on Pinterest. I made a few tweaks just because I can’t keep my hands off of any recipe, and this is the result. After all, this is the world of cooking – everybody has their own spin on the classics, and that’s a very good thing. …

Boysenberry Coffee Cake with Oatmeal and Brown Sugar Streusel

April 25, 2019

I love boysenberries and found myself with quite a few bags in the freezer after an overzealous picking session last summer. Since I also happen to love coffeecake, this seemed to be a fine answer to my dilemma. The solution to the aforementioned dilemma was this easy as can be boysenberry coffee cake, brimming with berry goodness. The bottom layer is the rich and buttery cake base. Next there are frozen berries of course, since that was the point of this whole exercise to begin with, but also generous dollops of boysenberry jam in the center to pump up the berry flavor and add to the moistness of the cake. The streusel topping is lots of brown sugar and plenty of oatmeal for a nice crunch. This recipe should work with any type of blackberry, so if you have marionberries or other variety of blackberries laying around, go for it!! This cake is so addictive I had to hide it from my husband… OK, he hid it from me…but I found it.

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Cinnamon Applesauce Bread with Roasted Caramel Apples

November 8, 2018

I will admit that this recipe took three tries before it hit the mark. The first attempt was OK but lacked fresh apple flavor. With the second attempt I added so much fresh apple for flavor that the end result was more like a brick than a bread, and the only person who would consider eating it was my mother, Neeners. Back to the drawing board, and pulled the reins in a little on the fresh apple element. Now we had ourselves a moist applesauce bread with just enough fresh apple kick. Never satisfied, it seems, I figured what’s the harm in roasting some apple slices and piling them right on top of each slice? All that was well and good, but it needed a finishing touch – enter the best and easiest caramel sauce you’ve ever made. Drizzle it or drench it over the whole works – up to you. I, for one, drench. Happiness on a plate.

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