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Breads
Banana Bread with Chocolate Chip Streusel
I can’t believe a whole week slipped by me without doing a post. I kept procrastinating and before I knew it, the week was over. It’s been a hectic week and I’m happy for a day I can rest and relax. Maybe I’ll catch up on some reading. In the mean time, this is my first attempt at making banana bread and it was inspired by this recipe. I’ve never been a huge fan of banana bread but the chocolate chip streusel gives this loaf a whole different taste. Use very ripe bananas for this to get the full banana flavor. Pecans would work if you don’t have walnuts.
Banana Bread with Chocolate Chip Streusel
Ingredients
- 2/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 3 very ripe mashed bananas
- 3 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9×5-inch metal loaf pan.
- Stir chocolate chips, brown sugar, and walnuts together in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Sift all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into medium bowl.
- Beat sugar, butter, and egg in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in mashed bananas and milk. Add dry ingredients and blend well.
- Spread half of batter in loaf pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel.
- Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.
Cooking time: 50 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 12
How to Make Light Whole Wheat Bread
For a long time, yeast was my nemesis. We just didn’t get along. I didn’t know when to stop kneading bread so all of my attempts at yeast breads were pretty horrendous until I found “no knead” bread recipes. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
This particular recipe came from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is made with part white wheat flour and part all purpose flour. Mix flour, water, yeast, salt and you have bread dough. Let is rise is a draft free spot for a couple of hours and it’s ready to bake. The best part about this dough is that you can put it in the fridge and bake it in small batches whenever the hankering for fresh bread hits. The dough will last up to 14 days in the refrigerator.
Light Whole Wheat Bread
Ingredients
- 3 cups lukewarm water
- 2 packets of yeast
- 1 1/2 tbls salt
- 1 cup white wheat flour
- 5 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
Instructions
- Mix water, yeast, and salt in a large bowl or storage container.
- Add flour and mix until well combined. Don’t over mix.
- Loosely cover bowl or container and allow to rise for 2 hours in a draft free place. The dough should rise and flatten out. (I let mine rise in the microwave because my house is drafty).
- From here you can either refrigerate the dough until you’re ready to use it or it can be baked immediately. If refrigerating, cover but not in an airtight container.
- If baking immediately, heat oven to 450. Put metal pan on lower oven shelf as oven heats. Put a 1 lb ball of dough on baking stone and place in oven. Add 1 cup water to metal pan and bake for 35 minutes or until a dark brown.
- If baking after refrigeration, allow dough to rest on stone for 40 minutes before baking.
Notes: This dough should be really wet. If it’s too dry add a few tablespoons of water. Handling this dough with wet hands will make it a little easier to manage. I mix and store my bread in a 14 cup Snapware container. This recipe makes 4 loaves.
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Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits
Every good southerner loves a fresh buttermilk biscuit whether they want to admit it or not. I’m not talking about the ones you pop out of the tube and into the oven. I’m talking about the real deal, hand mixed, kneaded, and cut with a biscuit cutter biscuits - warm from the oven with a little butter.Unfortunately, biscuits are such a fat fest that they’ve been relegated to “treat” status at my house. When I saw this recipe for Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits in America’s Test Kitchen - ”Healthy Recipes”, I got excited. A relatively healthy biscuit I can eat without completely wrecking my day? Is it really possible? Yes. It’s possible for only 6 fat grams and 150 calories each.
The original recipe calls for regular whole wheat flour but I had white wheat flour in the pantry so that’s what I used. If you use regular whole wheat flour your dough will be somewhat darker. Some of the butter called for in regular biscuit recipes is replaced with light cream cheese. Make sure the butter and cream cheese are frozen solid so they can be cut into the flour easily. Kneading helps give you tall light biscuits but be careful not to over knead. It will make them tough.
Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients
- 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 oz. light cream cheese (about 3 Tbsp)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (10 oz)
- 1 cup whole-wheat flour (5 1/2 oz)
- 4 tsp. sugar
- 1 Tbsp. baking powder
- 3/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 1/4 cups cold lowfat buttermilk
Instructions
- Dice the butter and cream cheese into 1/2 inch pieces and place in the freezer for 1 hour.
- Heat oven to 450 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat.
- Put both flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a food processor. Pulse 3 times to combine. Drop cream cheese and butter into the flour mixture and pulse until mixture looks like coarse meal.
- Transfer mixture to a large bowl and add buttermilk. Stir with a spatula until the dough comes together. Put dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead 8 to 10 times. Form dough into a 9 inch disk and roll out (or pat down) to 3/4 inch thickness. Be careful not to overwork.
- Cut out 12 biscuits and place on baking sheet. Put baking sheet on middle rack in oven.
- Bake 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet and turn oven down to 400 degrees. Bake for another 12 to 15 minutes.
- The bottom of the biscuits should be golden brown on the bottom when done.
Sweet Southern Style Cornbread
There are two kinds of cornbread lovers: those that like their cornbread sweet and those that don’t. I call this the great cornbread debate. I grew up in a household that thought sweet cornbread was a travesty so I never knew it existed until I moved to the south. The first time I tasted sweet cornbread, I thought I had found nirvana. What a huge difference a little sugar can make.
If you enjoy dry crumbly cornbread, this recipe isn’t for you. The sour cream, sugar, and creamed style corn make this bread light and delisciously moist. If sweet cornbread isn’t your thing, this bread is just as good without the sugar.
Sweet Southern Style Corn bread
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1 1/3 cups milk
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups self-rising corn meal mix
- 1 cup cream style corn
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup sugar
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425 degrees F . Grease a 9 inch iron skillet and put in oven.
- In a large bowl, add egg and beat well. Add milk, oil, sour cream, cream style corn, and cornmeal mix.
- Mix just until ingredients are combined. Remove hot skillet from oven and pour in batter evenly. This gives you that great crust on the outside.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Check doneness by sticking a toothpick in the center. If it comes out clean, it’s ready.
Sweet Southern Style Corn bread
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1 1/3 cups milk
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups self-rising corn meal mix
- 1 cup cream style corn
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup sugar
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425 degrees F . Grease a 9 inch iron skillet and put in oven.
- In a large bowl, add egg and beat well. Add milk, oil, sour cream, cream style corn, and cornmeal mix.
- Mix just until ingredients are combined. Remove hot skillet from oven and pour in batter evenly. This gives you that great crust on the outside.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Check doneness by sticking a toothpick in the center. If it comes out clean, it’s ready.
Citrusy Cranberry Orange Muffins
I have a confession to make. I’ve never made muffins. It’s not that I’m muffin phobic or anti-muffins but they’ve never been interesting enough to warrant the time and energy. Since one of my goals for the new year is to try new things, I figured it was time to mark them off my culinary to do list.
These muffins remind me of ones I’ve had at an unnamed overpriced national coffee shop chain. They aren’t overly sweet and have a nice citrusy tanginess that goes well with cranberries. If you can’t find fresh cranberries, you could use dried but plump them first by soaking them in some hot water for about 10 minutes. Don’t skip sprinkling sugar on top. You’ll need that extra sugar to offset the tartness of the cranberries. Turbinato would work well if you had some on had.
Recipe adapted from Cookinglight.com
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (about 9 ounces)
- 1 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons orange zest
- 3/4 cup orange juice
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 2 cups coarsely chopped fresh cranberries
- 1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted
- Cooking spray
Directions
Preheat oven to 500°.
1. Combine flour, 2 cups sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture.
2. Combine zest, juice, oil, and egg in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk.
3. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Fold in cranberries and pecan.
4. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray.
5. Sprinkle evenly with 1 tablespoon sugar.
6. Put muffins in 500 degree oven and immediately turn oven down to 400 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes or until the muffins spring back when touched lightly in center.
7. Run a knife or spatula around outer edge of each muffin cup. Carefully remove each muffin; place on a wire rack.
Lemon Blueberry Bread Recipe
This recipe is adapted from a recipe in Holly Clegg’s Trim & Terrific Cookbook
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