My Homemade Bread

I make this bread every Saturday afternoon, the smell in the house is amazing and we wait with anticipation. When it comes out of the oven, I cut a very large slice off one end of a loaf for me and a very large slice off the other end for my husband. We put lots of butter on our slice and eat while the butter melts into the warm white pillowy goodness. Anyway, we like it, hope you will too! 😊

5 3/4 cups flour

4 1/2 tsp dry yeast (2 pkt)

1/2 cup very warm water (approx 104 degrees)

1/4 cup sugar

1 3/4 cup warm milk (I use Almond Breeze Hint of Honey)

1/3 canola oil

2 tsp salt

Add flour to bowl of a stand mixer, make a well in the center. Sprinkle the yeast in the well and pour the warm water over the yeast and sprinkle the sugar over the water. Let sit until foamy. Add warm milk, oil, and salt. Mix until combined, then knead for 2-5 minutes for a smooth dough. Transfer to sprayed bowl, cover with plastic and let rise until doubled about an hour. Turn dough out of bowl, divided in half, and form two loaves. Place loaves in greased loaf pans and let rise again until doubled. Preheat oven to 375^o. Bake 34 minutes, cover with foil half way through the bake to prevent over browning. Remove from oven, let stand in pans about 5 minutes then remove to cooling rack. Enjoy!

Frosted Sugar Cookies 2.0

It’s Hospital Week! Time to celebrate all those who work so hard to mend, heal, and tend us when we can’t do it ourselves. Thank goodness we have somewhere to turn.

This sugar cookie is not rolled out and cut with cookie cutters, it’s rolled into balls and rolled in sugar. I love the little crunch the sugar gives on the outside but it’s still soft on the inside.

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temp
• 2 tsp real vanilla
• ½ tsp almond extract
• 4 1/2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350^o. In electric mixer, cream butter and oil, whip until light and fluffy. Add sugar and powdered sugar, mix until thoroughly combined. Mix in eggs, vanilla and almond extracts. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly mix dry ingredients into creamed mixture, just until combined, do not over mix.

Using cookie scoop, scoop dough, make a ball, roll in sugar and place on cookies sheet. Place balls about 2”-3” apart and press down slightly with flat bottomed glass. Bake about 10-12 minutes, watch and remove just before they start to brown. (I bake mine 10 minutes). Cool cookies on baking sheet until they are firm to move to cooling rack. Cool completely before frosting. Makes approximately 24-26 cookies.

• 3/4 cup (12 Tbl) butter softened
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 tsp almond extract)
• 2-3 Tbl heavy cream
• gel coloring (your desired color)

With electric mixer, cream butter until lighter in color. Slowly mix in powdered sugar, add extract and heavy cream to make desired consistency. Mix in desired coloring. Whip until smooth and fluffy. Frost completely cooled cookies.

Small Batch Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

There is one very ripe lonely banana sitting on the counter. I refuse to throw it away, let’s transform it into something sweet!

4 Tbl butter, melted and cooled

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 very ripe banana, mashed

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup chocolate chips, I used mini and reg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line or spray 5 or 6 muffin cups, depending if you want 5 smaller muffins or 6 larger muffins (I made 5).

Stir together melted butter, egg and vanilla. Add sugar, brown sugar, and mashed banana, stir until well combined. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, stir just until dry ingredients are incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Scoop into prepared muffin cups. Put a few chocolate chips on top to make your muffins bake shop pretty if desired.

Bake 20-22 minutes, until center of muffins are set. Enjoy your treat!

Classic Corn Bread

Chili is in the crockpot and I’m thinking about making my favorite go to cornbread. The recipe calls for sour cream, and I’m out. So, here is an easy recipe using ingredients that are usually in the kitchen, and it’s so delicious! Yes, it has a lot of butter! ☺️

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbl baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400°. In a large bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add milk, eggs, and butter, stir just until all ingredients are combined. Pour batter into sprayed 8×8 baking pan. Bake 30-35 minutes, or until center is set. 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bundles

Here is a quick and easy treat. Cinnamon, peanut butter, and chocolate crunchy bundles of happiness!

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bundles

6 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal

1 cup sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

1 cup peanut butter

Line a cookie sheet with parchment, wax paper, or Silat. Place cereal in large bowl. In a saucepan, combine syrup and sugar over medium heat. Bring to boil (stirring constantly) remove from heat and stir in peanut butter. Pour over cereal and gently fold until cereal in completely covered. Scoop out onto prepared cookie sheet, I use an ice cream scoop. When cool and set up, make drizzle.

Drizzle

2 Tbl peanut butter

1/2 cup milk chocolate Chips

In microwave-proof small bowl, melt together peanut butter and chocolate chips in microwave. Drizzle over each bundle.

Blueberry Pie Bars

Fresh blueberries in a creamy filling, with a shortbread crust and easy to eat bars. This is a new favorite bake and take goodie!

Crust & Topping:

• 1½ cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• pinch salt
• 3/4 cup cold butter, cubed

Blueberry Filling:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• pinch salt
• 3 cups fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Spray 13×9 baking pan with nonstick spray.
2. For the crust & topping: Stir together flour, sugar and salt. Cut cold butter into dry ingredients until you have coarse crumbs. Remove 1 cup mixture and reserve for topping. Press remaining crumb mixture evenly into bottom of prepared baking pan. Bake 10-12 minutes until set but with no browning.
3. While crust is baking, make blueberry filling: Whisk together eggs, sugar, flour, sour cream and salt. Fold in blueberries. Gently spoon filling mixture over crust as it comes from the oven. Sprinkle reserved crust/topping mixture evenly over filling.
4. Bake 1 hour. Cool completely to cut into clean, neat squares.

Check out other bar recipes in my Brownies & Bars category, there are 115 to choose from!

Lemon Fudge

In our home growing up, it was a holiday tradition to have a big pan of my mom’s Rocky Road Fudge in the fridge. This recipe for Lemon Fudge is a fun flavor twist on the classic fudge. Now we can have 2 pans of fudge in our refrigerator, choose a flavor or have both!

3-4 lemons
1/2 cup sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup butter
3 cups white chocolate chips
zest of 1/2 a lemon, very fine
yellow food coloring
sprinkles

Line an 8″x8″ square pan with parchment paper. To make the lemon simple syrup, use a peeler to peel strips of just the yellow of one lemon (you don’t want the white part). Juice the lemons until you have 1/2 cup strained lemon juice (free of pulp and seeds), I had large lemons and only needed 2. Place the peel strips, lemon juice, and sugar in a heavy-bottom saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook stirring often for 7-10 minutes, until thickened and reduced by about half. It should be the color of pale honey. Set aside.

Combine the sweetened condensed milk, butter, and white chocolate in a medium heavy-bottom saucepan. Stir over low heat just until warm and everything melts and combines (be so careful so the white chocolate doesn’t seize). Take off heat and stir in the lemon syrup, lemon zest, and as many drops of yellow food coloring to make the desired color. Pour the mixture into the lined baking pan. Top with sprinkles. Leave for 30 minutes to cool at room temperature, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Cut into squares and serve. Recipe found at sugarsaltmagic.com.

Pumpkin Pecan Muffins

I’m feeling the need for comfort food and these muffins have just the right amount of sweet, spice and crunch to make me happy :o)

Muffins
2½ cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Streusel Topping
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/3 cup chopped pecans
4 Tbl cold butter, cubed

Preheat oven to 375°. In large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, whisk eggs, pumpkin, milk, oil, and vanilla. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in pecans. Fill 12 greased or paper-lined muffin cups approx. 2/3 full.

In small bowl, for streusel topping, combine brown sugar, flour, and chopped pecans. Cut butter into mixture until crumbly. Spoon heaping tablespoon over batter in muffin cups. Bake 20-25 minutes until center of muffins are set. 

Oat & Honey White Wheat Bread

Looking for a change from my usual bread recipes and here’s a good one! This recipe makes 2 loaves, but because we were barbecuing burgers for dinner, instead of a second loaf, I made 8 burger buns. In the picture you might notice there are only 7 buns, I couldn’t wait!

1½ cups old-fashioned oats (plus a little more coating loaves)
4 Tbl butter
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp salt
2½ cups boiling water
1/2 cup warm water (about 110°)
4½ tsp (2 pkts) dry yeast
3 cups white wheat flour
3 cups all-purpose flour

In large bowl of mixer, add oats, butter, honey, and salt, pour boiling water over and let sit for about 30 minutes. Sprinkle yeast over the 1/2 cup warm water, let sit until foamy. Add yeast mixture to oat mixture and stir. Add white wheat flour and all-purpose flour, mix until combined. Knead for about 7-8 minutes. Turn out into greased bowl, cover and let rise 1 hour.

Turn dough out onto flour surface and cut in half. Shape into 2 loaves and place in greased loaf pans. Let rise until double, about 30-45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°. Bake bread 35-40 minutes (bake buns 20-30 minutes), or until temperature at center of  loaf is 200°. Remove loaves from oven, cool in pans 10 minutes, then remove from pans to cooling rack.

Cinnamon Maple Granola

A Parker summertime tradition, homemade granola. My husband’s favorite is cinnamon, my favorite is dark chocolate peanut. It’s great for snacking, eating as cereal with milk, or sprinkled on yogurt or ice cream (especially delicious on homemade ice cream!). You can follow the basic recipe and make it your own by adding your favorite ingredients.

 

5 cups rice krispies
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup rough chopped walnuts
2 cups raisins
1 cup coconut
1 cup chopped dates
1 cup craisins
3 Tbl cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°.  In large bowl, mix together rice krispies, oats, walnuts, raisins, coconut, dates, craisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  In saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar together.  Add maple syrup, salt, and vanilla.  Pour over dry ingredients and stir gently until thoroughly combined.  Spread out evenly on two cookie sheets that have been sprayed with nonstick spray.  Bake for 8 minutes, remove and gently stir and spread out again.  Bake another 8 minutes, remove, gently stir and spread out again.  Bake 8 minutes more.  Remove and cool completely.  Store in airtight container.

More Granola!