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. 

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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!

 

Orange Cardamom Cake

A beautiful flavor combination, orange and cardamom. I like to bake with cardamom when I can, it reminds me of my grandmother. I have great memories of being in her kitchen on a summer morning eating sourdough pancakes and aebleskivers.

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1½ tsp salt
1½ tsp cardamom
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup milk
1 cup butter, room temp
1½ cups sugar
1 Tbl orange zest
4 eggs, room temp
1 Tbl vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°. Liberally spray a bundt pan with non-stick spray and dust with flour. In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cardamom, set aside. In measuring cup, stir together orange juice and milk, set aside.

In large bowl of mixer, cream butter, sugar, and orange zest. Mix in eggs, one at a time, add vanilla and mix until all is well incorporated. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with the orange juice & milk. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour cake batter into prepared bundt pan, spread evenly. Bake 40-45 minutes, until pick inserted comes out clean. Cool in pan on cooling rack for 15 minutes. Invert and cool completely on cooling rack. Drizzle with orange glaze (recipe below).

1½ cups powdered sugar
3-4 Tbl orange juice
Whisk together to desired consistency and drizzle over cake.

Mtn Dew Bread

For fun, and in honor of my brother Tyler’s birthday, Mtn Dew Bread! In our Fam we love Diet Dew and Diet Coke, so, the breads you see pictured below are made with Diet Dew on the right and Diet Coke on the left. The Dew Bread is our favorite!

3 cups flour
4½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 Tbl sugar
3 Tbl butter, melted & slightly cooled
1 (12 oz) Mtn Dew Soda (I use Diet)

Preheat oven to 350º. Spray a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with non-stick spray. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add butter and Mtn Dew; stir just until combined. Pour into prepared loaf pan, sprinkle with sugar, if desired. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, or until golden brown on top and pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Buttery Parker House Rolls

I wanted to eat the whole pan of these buttery, tender rolls!

3 cups all-purpose flour
2½ tsp yeast
3 Tbl sugar
1½ tsp salt
1/4 cup potato flour or 3/4 cup dried potato flakes
3 Tbl butter, softened
1 cup milk
1 large egg
3 1/2 to 4 Tbl butter, melted; for brushing on rolls

In large mixing bowl, or in bowl of electric mixer, combine all ingredients (except the 3 1/2 to 4 Tbl melted butter at the end), mixing to form a shaggy dough. Note: to speed rising process, whisk together milk and egg, and heat gently just enough to remove refrigerator chill; then add to remaining ingredients. Knead dough, by hand (10 minutes) or by machine (7 to 8 minutes) until it’s smooth.

Place dough in lightly greased bowl, let rise for 90 minutes; it’ll become quite puffy, though it probably won’t double in bulk. Transfer dough to a lightly greased work surface, divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, roll or pat the dough into an 8″ x 12″ rectangle. Brush dough with light coating of melted butter. You’ll have butter left over; you’ll need it for the other half of the dough, as well as for brushing on top of the baked rolls.

Cut dough in half lengthwise, to make two 4″ x 12″ rectangles. Working with one rectangle at a time, fold lengthwise. You’ll now have a rectangle that’s about 2 1/4″ x 12″. Repeat with other piece of dough. Cut each rectangle crosswise into four 3″ pieces, making total of 8 folded rolls, each about 2 1/4″ x 3″. Flip rolls over (so that their smooth side is facing up), and place them in lightly greased 9″ x 13″ pan. Repeat with remaining piece of dough, making 16 rolls in all. Arrange 4 rows of 4 in the pan, with the longer side of rolls going down longer side of pan. Gently flatten rolls to pretty much cover bottom of pan.

Cover pan, and let rolls rise about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until they’re puffy but definitely not doubled. Towards end of rising time, preheat oven to 350°. Bake rolls for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re golden brown and feel set. Remove from oven and brush with remaining melted butter. Pull apart to serve. Recipe found at kingarthurflour.com.

More Rolls!