Breads & Muffins

  • The Zesty Ginger Scone with Raisins & Orange Glaze

    April 21st, 2012

    I went a bit scone-crazy a couple of weeks ago, which wasn’t hard to do (because I have always loved a good biscuit- especially ones with glaze that drips off the edges and sometimes pools underneath).  I did this because I wanted to participate in Pastry Chicago’s Scone Competition (a cool organization that puts on […]

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  • Hot Cross Buns

    April 8th, 2012

    I have a little bit of explaining to do.

    I screwed this recipe up (read here for the details), but in the spirit of salvaging a recipe (especially a recipe that takes a crapload of time to prepare, what with the whole yeast-rising-time and all), I turned the unrecognizable buns into toast. (My mistake was relatively benign… the buns looked strange upon taking them out of the oven, but they smelled and tasted PDG. The Kitchen Guinea Pig eagerly approved of the taste test. So naturally I took the baked bun block, used a serrated knife to cut it in half across its belly, and then into bread-size slabs, perfect for the toaster. Wouldn’t you have done the same thing?)

    Anyway, I am confident to present this recipe to you, because I know it works out just fine if you don’t do something stupid like add an extra egg in. Please, make the buns- unless the toast version has totally inspired you. Next time I’ll make the buns, because I so miss the icing cross that goes on top of the former. (Hm. How wrong would it be to put icing on the toast?)

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  • Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Muffins

    March 31st, 2012

    Fluffy, moist, healthy (sort of), and just the right amount of sweetness from the cinnamon chips… that’s what these muffins are all about, baby. And once you slather a pat of butter on each half when still warm from the oven, you’ll have the right amount of salty richness, too.

    Other than the cinnamon chips, the key to this recipe is the buttermilk~ it gives it a nice depth and tang. The good news is that buttermilk is low in fat, and with oatmeal as a star player in this recipe, you won’t need to fear the muffin top- and I’m talking about the kind that spills over your jeans, not the literal top of the muffin. (But you knew that.)

    Enjoy!

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  • Impossibly Healthy Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Chunks

    March 25th, 2012

    I grew up loving banana bread, and had no idea the Fannie Farmer Cookbook recipe my Mom used was a virtually fat-free one until finding the recipe online last year. (I have distinct memories of spreading gratuitous amounts of margarine on the bread– negating the whole fat-free thing, of course. Not that I cared about fat when I was nine years old.) (And yes, we used margarine. But my Mom also smoked a pack a day when she was pregnant and so we can chalk that and the margarine thing up to “they didn’t know better back then”.)

    I stumbled upon my own Official Favorite Banana Bread Recipe around 1999 and have been almost faithful to it ever since. (I found a fluffy chocolate banana muffin recipe that caused my eye to wander last year, but it was a short-lived affair.)

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  • Zesty Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Glaze

    March 4th, 2012

    Muffins are perfect for lazy bakers.

    You know how it goes- you have a hankering to bake something… and you have a lemon in the fridge calling out to be zested, and yet you don’t want to go to the trouble of beating anything together. And you don’t want to go to the trouble of bringing a stick of butter to that perfect room temperature either (please tell me you’ve accidentally melted many a stick in the microwave in an impatient quest to soften butter, too).

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  • Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

    February 25th, 2012

    Oh, yeasty-cinnamonny smelling loaf of wonder, why can’t you take just a bit less time to make? Like 2 hours less, give or take? You’re delectable, especially when toasted and slathered with butter, and yet you’re a pain in the ass. And you don’t care, because you know that I’ll keep coming back, in a dysfunctional relationship sort of way.

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  • Banana Nut Bread

    Banana Nut Bread

    January 27th, 2012

    This one’s a winner.

    If you like your banana bread dense and bananaey and amazing, then get yourself ripening a bunch of bananas pronto. The riper the banana, the better the bread. Truer words have never been spoken.

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  • Easy Herby Parmesan Focaccia

    January 9th, 2012

    The Husband hinted that I hadn’t made focaccia in a while, so I snapped out of my (life-long, decidedly permanent) sweet spell and put on the savory hat.

    For some reason I always think that it takes So Long to make focaccia, so I don’t do it often. Yet every time I pull out the recipe and begin, I’m reminded that it’s actually quite easy… and if you skip the step of fermenting the yeast ahead of time (which I have done here for this recipe), it’s actually a pretty quick bread to make. In light of that, I might fill our kitchen with the smell of yeasty, herby, cheesy wonder a bit more often.

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