Name: St Pat’s Irish Soda Bread
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 70 min
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; ½ cup white sugar (Use ? cup if you like your Soda Bread a little less sweet.); 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon Kosher salt; 1 ½ cups raisins (I use a mix of golden and craisions. Just use your favorite raisin.); 2 teaspoons caraway seeds (Optional. (Not really.)); 1¼ cups buttermilk; 1/2 cup sour cream; 1/2 cup melted butter (melted (I use salted butter.)); 2 eggs (lightly beaten); 2 Tablespoons butter (melted); 2 tablespoons buttermilk

St Pat’s Irish Soda Bread

March 15 By Renée ♥ 9 Comments

Perfected and approved by real Irish persons, for your pleasure, this Irish Soda Bread is amazingly easy to make.

As you may know, St Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday. In fact, I love all things Celtic – even my wedding ring has emeralds and Celtic knots on it – and I’ve always had a thing for Ireland and the Irish people. I can literally take on a light brogue just thinking about it. (In fact, as I write this, I’m falling into it).

My affinity for Ireland dates back to before I can remember, so it should be no surprise that every St. Pat’s Day is a real celebration at our house. On that day each year, I serve up a feast of “Once-a-Year” mashed potatoes (so called because they are so rich and creamy you should only eat them once a year), slow-cooked corned beef, corn, cabbage, and soda bread; and then I usually throw in something new year to year to mix things up. But before even one fork full passes, I deliver my compulsory pre-St Patrick’s Day dinner monologue (which I will share with you one of these years) about the fascinating and inspiring life of the real man who become St Patrick. It takes all of about three minutes, and my kids sigh and groan and laugh through it every year. At this point, they can repeat it almost verbatim. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Today I am sharing with you one of my most prized St. Pat’s recipes: my Irish Soda Bread. Perfected and approved by real Irish persons, for your pleasure, this Soda Bread is amazingly easy to make.

(If you are interested learning more about St Patrick, I highly recommend reading How the Irish Saved Civilization [affiliate link] by Thomas Cahill.)

St Pat’s Irish Soda Bread

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Servings 12 servings

Author Renée ♥︎ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup white sugar Use ? cup if you like your Soda Bread a little less sweet.
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 ½ cups raisins I use a mix of golden and craisions. Just use your favorite raisin.
2 teaspoons caraway seeds Optional. (Not really.)
1¼ cups buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup melted butter melted (I use salted butter.)
2 eggs lightly beaten

Brush on Top

2 Tablespoons butter melted
2 tablespoons buttermilk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease a 9-inch round cast iron skillet or 9-inch round baking pan.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, raisins and caraway seeds.
In a medium bowl, buttermilk and sour cream and melted butter. Blend in eggs.
Fold the flour mixture into the liquid mixture, mixing just until well combined. Knead dough in bowl about 10 to 15 strokes. Dough will be very sticky. Mound the dough in the prepared skillet or pan using a spatula or wooden spoon. (Don’t use a mixture for this – it will bake up too heavy.)
In a small bowl, combine 2 Tbls. melted butter with 2 Tbls. buttermilk; brush the mounded dough/loaf with this mixture. Use a sharp, wet knife to cut an ‘X’ into the top of the loaf.
Allow dough to rest in the pan for about 20 minutes before putting into oven. (This step is optional, but the “rest” time will give you a lighter loaf in the end.)
Bake preheated oven for 60 to 75 minutes. You can brush the loaf with the buttermilk/butter mixture once or twice during baking if you wish. Test loaf for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center – it should come out clean.
Let cool and turn bread onto a wire rack.

More for St. Patrick’s Day from GHW

Irish Blessing {Free St Patrick’s Day Art Print}

Shepherd's Pie is classic comfort food. One bite of this time-tested family favorite will wrap you in a blanket as warm as a winter fire. It's just that good. {Recipe} | The Good Hearted Woman

Classic Shepherd’s Pie

St Patrick's Day Emerald Sunrise | The Good Hearted Woman

Emerald Sunrise {Includes Kid-friendly Option}

Easy Basic Sweet Vanilla Crepes

December 1 By Renée ♥ 4 Comments

If you’ve ever been intimidated by crêpes, try these Easy Basic Sweet Vanilla Crêpes and you’ll wonder why you ever worried.

If you can make a pancakes, you can make crêpes. Before you get started though, here are a few tips that will make the process even easier.

Crêpe Batter

Crêpe batter should be thinner and smoother than pancake batter – just thick enough to thoroughly coat a wooden spoon. If your batter seems too thick when you take it out of the refrigerator, add additional milk 1-2 tablespoons at a time until it reaches the desired consistency.
Crêpe batter can be made the night before and left in the refrigerator until you are ready to make them.
When pouring crepe batter into the pan, I pour with my my left hand and simultaneously swirl the the pan with my right hand. (I’m mostly right-handed.) The batter sets up very quickly, and this allows me to distribute it around the pan before it sets.

Flipping Crêpes

Crêpes are ready to flip when the edges start showing the slightest color brown and the center is no longer glossy.
I don’t actually use a spatula to “flip” my crêpes. Instead, I use the spatula to gently lift the edge up enough so that I can get hold of it, and then I flip it quickly using my fingers. I cannot, however, encourage you to do this because it may lead to burnt fingers, and I will not be responsible for that. So whatever you do, don’t flip your crêpes with your fingers. 😉

Filling Crêpes

The are two basic methods for filling crêpes: the Roll and the Quarter-fold (or Cone). For most applications, I personally prefer the Roll method, but that’s just me. However, the Quarter-fold method makes a better presentation for unfilled crepes that just have toppings.

Serving Crêpes

Sweet Vanilla Crêpes can be served plain with just a dusting of powdered sugar and a sprinkle of lemon juice, or filled with your favorite sweet filling.
I prefer to serve my crepes with the second side out: I think it is more interesting to look at. Nevertheless, this is in direct conflict with common practice, which is to hide the second side. It’s all just a matter of personal taste as far as I’m concerned, but I thought you should know… just in case you are planning to host a group of snooty French gastronomes for brunch, because then you will probably want to put the browned, first side out.

5 from 1 vote

Basic Sweet Vanilla Crêpes {Recipe}

Author Renée B. ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups milk* see note
3 eggs
4 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour sifted
3 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup melted butter

Simple fillings or toppings for sweet crêpes include:

A dusting of powdered sugar and a sprinkling of fresh lemon juice
Fresh fruit
Whipped cream
Jam or jelly

Instructions

Put all the ingredients - the milk, eggs, vanilla, flour, sugar, salt and melted butter - in a blender and blend until smooth.
Allow crepe mixture to sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour before using.

To Prepare Crêpes:

Heat a crêpe pan (or an 8- or 9-inch non-stick sauté pan) over medium-low heat. It is important to find the right temperature for crêpes. They are not supposed to be all brown and crispy. Start your pan on medium low and work from there.
If you are worried about your crêpes sticking, rub a little coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil over the surface with a paper towel. Remove any visible oil before proceeding.
Pour 1/4 to 1/3 cup crêpe batter into the middle of the heated pan. Immediately swirl it around to create a thin flat crepe that reaches just slightly up the sides of the pan. I usually lift it off the burner for this step: it makes it much easier to manipulate the pan.
The crêpe is ready to flip when the edges are just beginning to turn brown and the batter in the middle is no longer glossy or wet looking.
Using a large, thin spatula, flip the crepe and cook another 15-20 seconds.
If you are making another crêpe, don’t let the pan set empty on the burner for more than a few seconds or it will get too hot.

“Hey, Renée! That’s a pretty groovy little crepe pan you have there! Where’d you get it?”

Well, yes it is, and thank you for asking! I received this sweet crepe pan as a gift from Anolon, for attending a class they sponsored at IFBC 2015 called “How to Create Standout Holiday Content.” Besides being the perfect size and shape to create beautiful crepes, it has a hard-anodized PFOA-free non-stick coating that is (drum-roll, please) safe for Metal Utensils and guaranteed for life. So cool. So far, I am loving it.

Nana’s Old-fashioned Pumpkin Gingerbread

September 30 By Renée ♥ 8 Comments

Perfect for the autumn holidays, this Old-Fashioned Pumpkin Gingerbread will fill your home with the scent of the season and your tummy with delicious goodness.

This post may contain affiliate links, but don’t worry – they won’t bite.

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around last year, I swore I’d never read, make, post, or eat another “Pumkin+anything” recipe as long as I lived. And yet, here we are. Why? Because a year has past, and like bad breakups and childbirth, time has a way of softening the sharp edges of our memories.

I’m one of those bakers who is always fiddling and tweaking my recipes, so of course I made a few changes to my old standard recipe this time too – most notably the substitution of coconut oil for butter. Wow, what a difference that made! All those sweet spices danced across my tongue with whole new level of rich, gingerbready goodness! Just to make sure it wasn’t just my imagination, I made two more batches (all for you, my friends), with equally delicious results. In fact, when I shared it with the family, my mother-in-law Carol even told me I was (and I am quoting her word-for-word here), “A damn good cook.” That’s high praise indeed!

Old-fashioned Pumpkin Gingerbread

Course Quick Bread

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 1 loaf

Author Renée B. ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

Follow The Good Hearted Woman on Pinterest for more great recipes!

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup powdered milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces unrefined coconut oil or butter [1/2 cup melted]
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325° F. Spray loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, powdered milk, baking soda, baking powder, ground spices, and salt. Set aside.
In a small, microwave-safe bowl, heat coconut oil in microwave for 30 seconds to melt. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl, beat eggs until the are lemon colored. Add pumpkin, brown sugar, molasses, warm water and vanilla. Mix on low to combine. Add coconut oil and mix thoroughly.
Stir in dry ingredients until well combine. (You can also mix this by hand.)
Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Tap pan on counter a few times to get out the air bubbles, and then bake in preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Loaf is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow loaf to cool in the pan on a wire rack until he pan is cool enough to touch; at least 10 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Dust loaf with powdered sugar if desired.

Hint: Spray your measuring cup with non-stick cooking spray before you measure the molasses, and it will slide right out. Or you can do what I do and just use the same measuring cup that you used for the melted coconut oil and eyeball the molasses.

I love it when things look as good as they taste! To create this lovely harvest-themed loaf, I used my beautiful new pumpkin loaf pan.

Disclosure: This post may also contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. While clicking these links won’t cost you any extra money, they will help us keep this site up and running – and (relatively) ad-free!! Please check out our disclosure policy for more details. Thank you for your support!

You Say Zucchiana, I Say Banini {Recipe}

September 16 By Renée ♥ 3 Comments

Is it Zucchiana Bread? Banini Bread? Whatever you want to call it, this amazingly moist zucchini-banana bread is the best of both worlds!

It seems like every mother’s child, grandmother, pappy, poppy and shirt-tail cousin remembers their favorite “best ever” quick bread, and the person who made it for them too. For me, it will always and forever be my mother’s banana bread – fresh out of the oven or cold from the fridge – it didn’t matter. It was always, every time, Perfect. The only way to make it any better was to slather a thin layer of fresh butter over the top of a thick slice and eat it slowly, savoring every bite like it was my last.

Try as I might, I’ve never been able to replicate mom’s banana bread. Something’s always missing. Maybe it’s the smell of our turquoise kitchen, or the slick yellow and chrome kitchen table I sat at to eat. Maybe it’s just my mom in her brown flour-covered apron. Whatever it is, her recipe is likely long lost, along with her fading memory, so unless I stumble on it tucked between the pages of one of her many hoarded cookbooks, it may well be gone forever. But I keep trying.

With zucchini season in high gear, my latest attempt took a turn away from straight banana bread. For this, I merged my banana and zucchini bread recipes into what turned out to be an amazingly tasty loaf. After making a number of batches, I attribute this bread’s soft texture and rich flavor to the fact that, for the first time in years, instead of subbing in yogurt as I usually do, I went with full-fat ingredients. If you are trying to cut fat, you can always sub it back in, but keep in mind that the relatively small amount of fat used is balanced by the fact that most of the moisture (and a lot of the sugar) in this bread comes from fruit and vegetable sources.

TIP: I like to sprinkle some raw sugar on the loaves just before I pop them in the oven. It gives the tops a thin glazed texture, and I think it makes the bite feel more interesting on the tongue. (For reference, the small loaf above on the right was sprinkled, and the loaf on the left was not.) Enjoy!

Zucchini Banana Bread

Course Dessert

Cuisine Comfort Food

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Servings 2 large loaves

Author Renée B. ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

3 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup white sugar
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
3 ripe medium bananas mashed (or two large)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup raw sugar optional

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325°F.
Grease and flour two 8x4 bread loaf pans (or just spray them with nonstick cooking spray).*
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixture, beat eggs until they are light yellow and frothy. Add sour cream, oil, white and brown sugars, grated zucchini, bananas, and vanilla.
Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly to combine. Do not over mix.
Fold in walnuts.
Divide batter evenly between loaf pans.
Sprinkle loaves with raw sugar. (optional)
Bake in preheated oven for about 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the loaf pans for 15 minutes on a wire rack before removing. Allow to cool completely.

Recipe Notes

You can also use one large loaf pan and two small ones, or five small loaf pans, or (about) 24 muffin cups, or any combination that makes you happy. Just be sure to adjust cooking time to compensate for the smaller pans.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

June 30 By Renée ♥ 12 Comments

It’s been nearly twenty years since I had homemade tortillas for the first time, and the memory is as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. I watched fascinated as our cousin Leah, the daughter of long-time missionaries born and raised in Mexico, rolled out one tortilla after another, flour motes dancing with each turn of her pin. In well-practiced rhythm, she rolled, flipped, turned, and fried each one with machine-like consistency, quickly building a stack of warm, floury flat-breads tall enough to feed our small army of children. Soft, flavorful and tender, Leah’s tortillas made nearly every tortilla I’d eaten up until then taste like flattened papier-mâché. Watching her work was a moment of pure grace, and I remember feeling immense gratitude for her efforts.

If you have never made homemade tortillas, it’s high time that you do. And once you do, you will never go back to store-bought. (OK, maybe you will sometimes, for the convenience, but after these, those store-bought tortillas will never taste the same again.) But here’s the biggest secret of all: homemade flour tortillas are surprisingly fast and easy to make!

My flour tortilla recipe is an adaptation of “Flour Tortillas Diaz.” I love that it doesn’t call for lard or shortening, and the tortillas it makes are soft and pliable even after they have been sitting for some time.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

Course Bread

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Author Renée B. ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cups warm water not HOT

Instructions

Mix together flour, salt and baking powder. Drizzle in the olive oil and mix with your hands.
Mix in a little water at a time with your hands until you have a soft dough. (The dough should be soft but not sticky. You can always add more flour if you need to.) Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, adding flour as needed if the dough gets sticky.
Form the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic or cover with a towel. Let rest for about 20 minutes. (This allows to gluten to rest.)
Divide dough into 2” balls (about the size of a golf ball). Flatten a dough ball with your palm and dust each side with flour, then roll into a 5-6” circle. Turn and flip each tortilla a few times as you roll them out. [See note]
Heat a frying pan or griddle over medium heat. Do not grease or spray with cooking spray. Place a tortilla in the pan and cook until it bubbles a little – around 20-30 seconds. Flip it and cook the other side 20-30 seconds.
Place cooked tortillas in a tortilla warmer, or inside a folded kitchen towel. The steam from the hot tortillas softens them.

Recipe Notes

It takes about the same amount of time to roll out a tortilla as it does for to fry one, so after you roll the first few, it is easy to get into a rhythm of cooking one and rolling the next at the same time.

Want to make an awesome tortilla warmer like the one in the picture above? Check out my tutorial here!

Perfect Buttermilk Biscuits

May 29 By Renée ♥ 4 Comments

Mr. B isn’t usually very big on bread at meals; biscuits in particular have always been a head-shaker for him. If there was a Goldilocks of biscuits, he would be it. He said whenever anyone made them, they were always too hard, too soft, too dry, too bland, too salty, too sweet, too floury, too, too… too biscuity. Until last night.

We were having 13-Bean Stew for dinner, and at the last minute, I decided to make some biscuits using a new recipe I have been working on. A few bites in, Mr B looked at me mid-biscuit-bite and nodded enthusiastically, “Weese roar rewwy rood!” Swallowing, he said it again for emphasis, “These are really good!” I think even he was surprised that he liked them.

These really are perfect buttermilk biscuits – the lightest, flakiest biscuits I’ve ever made. After dinner, we ate them with fresh strawberry freezer jam for dessert. Then we ate them again for a late night snack. We finished them off this morning with our eggs and a little more of that fabulous Hood Strawberry Jam. (Tutorial coming next week!) I made another batch of biscuits this morning just to be sure I had every thing right. (Plus, I had to take pictures 🙂 ) They will be gone by the end of snack-time today, I’m sure.

Perfect Buttermilk Biscuits

Course Bread

Cuisine Comfort Food

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 12 biscuits

Author Renée B. ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt or 1/2 tsp if you use salted butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar
7 Tbs butter sliced into 1 Tbs pieces and chilled in freezer
3/4 cup buttermilk
A little extra buttermilk for brushing on the tops

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Sift flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and sugar into a large bowl.
Slice butter very thinly and work it into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. (I could tell you I use a pastry fork or blender, but that would be fibbing – I usually use my fingers.)
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the buttermilk into it. Stir just enough to combine.
Turn the dough onto a floured surface and pat it down. Roll the dough ½ inch thick and fold in half. Roll it out again to ½ inch thick.
Using a round biscuit cutter or the top of a drink glass, cut biscuits out.
Transfer the biscuits to a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Brush the tops of the biscuits with additional buttermilk.
Bake in preheated oven about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Italian Easter Dove Bread

April 18 By Renée ♥ 1 Comment

Italian Easter Dove Bread is a tradition with a long and colorful history that dates back as far as 572 A.D. The most popular legend, however, comes from Italy’s Lombardy region and the Lombardian victory over Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa. According to legend, two doves (representing the Holy Ghost) miraculously appeared over the battle field.

However it began, the popularity of Colomba Pasquale (literally, “Easter Dove”) swept across Italy, until it became what is now the unofficial national Easter bread.

This is a deliciously rich, sweet egg bread is very easy to make, and I highly recommend it to novice and expert bread-bakers alike. Wrapped well, it will taste even better then second day, perfect for pre-Easter preparation.

Novice baker or in a hurry? You can also make this bread with a prepackage bread mix. Just follow the directions as instructed on the package, reducing the liquid by 1/4 cup, and adding the anise, zest, and dried fruit. After the dough has risen once, follow the directions for shaping the Dove.

Disclaimer: I had schedule this post to go live nearly a week ago – giving you plenty of time to prepare for Easter. All I had to do was get a picture of the finished product, which I had cooling on a rack on the counter. Enter Patches, our Blue-Tick Heeler mix, who is completely untrustworthy in the kitchen when left to her own devices. In other words, the dog ate my homework.

Italian Easter Dove Bread

Course Bread

Cuisine Holiday

Prep Time 2 hours

Cook Time 1 day 6 hours

Servings 1 large loaf

Author Renée B. ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 cup milk"
4 1/4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
2 Tbls butter cut in four pieces
1 tsp orange zest
2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp anise seed
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup dried cranberries craisins
1 egg white
2 tsp water
14 blanched almonds

Instructions

To prepare dough in an electric bread maker:

In a glass measuring cup, whisk eggs and egg yolk with enough milk to make exactly 1 ½ cups of liquid. Pour into bread machine or mixer.
Add flour, sugar, salt, butter, softened butter, orange zest, and anise in that order. Make a small indentation in the top and add the yeast.
Set the bread machine to the Dough cycle. When it beeps to add additional ingredients, add the craisins and golden raisins. (If your bread machine doesn’t have this feature, just add the craisins and raisins after the dough is thoroughly mixed, but before it completes the kneading process.)
When the dough process is complete, turn the dough out onto your countertop, cover with a clean cloth and let it rest another 5 minutes.
Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease.

To shape the Dove:

On a lightly floured board, roll dough into a 10"x8" rectangle. Cut into two 10"x4" rectangles.
Place one rectangle on the prepared baking sheet, and pinch middle to make wings.
On the second rectangle, pinch for head and body.
Cut seven 2 inch slashes for tail and fan out.
Cut two 2 inch slashes for each wing and fan.
Cover and let Dove rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350°. Combine egg white and water and brush onto dove. Place almonds on feathers as shown.
Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Recipe Notes

You can also make the dough by hand. Just mix it up in your mixer, knead it as you would any bread dough, and let rise once before shaping.

Bread Pudding Muffins

October 1 By Renée ♥ 2 Comments

Over the course of my life, I must have thrown a thousand bread heels away. When I was a kid, they were just so much more crust, which I was not big on at all. Then, as an adult, the heels on “store bread” always seemed to get pushed off, by both me and my kids because, let’s face it – they are usually thin and dry and not all that appealing. (Wow. Talk about your First World problems.) Sure, I’ll use them for French toast, or the last sandwich face in a pinch; nevertheless, they tend to be the last piece left and more often than not, they get tossed. I know – terrible habit, but it’s the truth.

Homemade bread heels are another story. Because, first of all, I made that bread, dang-it! With my own two hands!! Plus, everyone in the house seems to like the homemade bread heels, especially if they can snag one while the loaf is still warm. But even with that kind of demand, I usually still have a little bag full of bread heels by the end of the week – particularly when I am on a bread-making binge – and I just don’t have the heart to throw them away. Last week, I found myself with a four little heels and a couple of stray pieces of stale-ish bread – not nearly enough to make a whole pan of bread pudding, but just the right amount for making our little family Bread Pudding Muffins for breakfast. They are so easy to make, and take less than 20 minutes start to finish.

Bread Pudding Muffins

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 8 muffins

Ingredients

About 2 cups of stale bread 1/2 -3/4-inch cubes I had three heels and two extra old pieces
A generous handful of a combination of raisins craisins and/or chopped nuts
2 eggs
3/4-1 cups of milk or almond milk
3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar depending on how sweet you like things
1 teaspoon of cinnamon and maybe a dash of ginger or nutmeg if you like it.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°. Spray a standard muffin tin with cooking spray. You probably won’t need all the cups – when I made this the other day, I only used seven of them.
In a medium bowl, combine bread cubes and raisins/nuts and set aside.
In a smallish bowl, beat eggs with a fork and then stir in milk. Add spices and brown sugar. Pour egg mixture over dry bread mix and stir to combine. Let set for a minute so the bread can absorb the egg mixture. (If it seems too dry, add a little more milk.)
Spoon mixture into muffin cups and bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until set.
Serve warm or cold. Either way, everyone will love you.

Recipe Notes

This recipe is extremely flexible – just use what you have on hand. Makes a great breakfast or after-school snack.

Kaylen’s Bread

September 17 By Renée ♥ 74 Comments

Want to make someone feel really special? Want to feel great yourself? Give a loaf of homemade sourdough bread!!

^{This post may contain affiliate links, but don’t worry – they don’t bite.}
Last month, I embarked on a new adventure – I started the of growing a sourdough starter and learning how to use it. Last week, after lots of research and careful thought, I made my very first loaf of sourdough bread.

I’m not great at following much of anything to the letter, so I didn’t use one particular recipe – instead I studied a few that were recommended for beginners and put something together that made sense to me. And it turned out wonderfully!! My little loaf of bread was gone so fast that I barely had time to take a picture!!

My First Loaf of Sourdough Bread

Sourdough bread is more than just delicious and pretty though.

One study using sourdough bread made with specific strains of bacteria found that it could reduce gluten intolerance in people sensitive to wheat gluten. While that doesn’t mean that people diagnosed with gluten intolerance can eat sourdough bread with impunity, it does suggest that the bread is more easily digested than other breads made with wheat flour. (Reader’s Digest)

In fact, that was the idea that compelled me to start investigating Sourdough.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my BFF Jenny asked me to give sourdough a go in the hopes that it will benefit her daughter, Kaylen, a beautiful young woman with some serious digestive issues. Gluten is not Kaylen’s friend. But she misses bread – real bread that does not “taste like sand” (Kaylen’s words) – a lot.

I’ve known Kaylen since she was six and love her like my own daughter – of course I will bake her bread. Last night, I dropped off the first loaf to her and here’s what I found on Facebook when I got home:

EASY SOURDOUGH BREAD - Want to make someone feel really special? Want to feel great yourself? Give a loaf of homemade sourdough bread!!

Want to feel really happy? Give someone you love a loaf of fresh bread!!

Made me cry. You just don’t get a better feeling than that, you know?

Here is my recipe for Easy Sourdough Bread, including links to those recipes I used for guidance.

4.84 from 6 votes

Basic Sourdough Bread

Super-basic. No bells, no whistles - just bread.

Course Bread

Prep Time 12 hours

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 12 hours 30 minutes

Servings 1 Loaf

Author Renée

Ingredients

3/4 cup sourdough starter unfed & room temperature
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water you may need more or less, depending on your starter's hydration. Mine is 100% hydration starter.
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

Instructions

In a stand-mixer, mix ingredients with bread hook until just combined. Let rest for 10-20 minutes. While it is resting, lightly coat a medium-sized bowl with olive oil. The bowl needs to be a big enough to allow the dough to double in size.
Knead dough with bread hook 5-10 minutes.
Remove from mixer, shape into ball and put into the oiled bowl, smooth-side down, and then flip it smooth-side up so that all sides of the dough are covered with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap.
Let rise at least 6 hours (or until double in size) folding twice during that time. (This long rise is what helps make it tolerable for folks with gluten sensitivity.)
Form bread into a boule (a round loaf) and place on a square of parchment paper. With a wet serrated knife, cut a couple of slashes on the top. (So far, I've always forgotten to do this and it wasn't the end of the world.) Cover loosely with a damp towel and allow to rise for 1 1/2- 2 hours.
In the last 30 or 40 minutes of the last rise, move your oven rack to the bottom third of oven. Put a cast iron Dutch oven with lid in the cold oven and preheat to 450º for 30 minutes.
Remove the lid from the Dutch oven and put the boule in by picking up the corners of the parchment and gently setting it in. Be very careful - the Dutch oven and lid are very hot. (I burnt myself the first time!)
Put the lid on the Dutch oven and bake for 12-13 minutes. Uncover and bake another 12-13 minutes.
Remove and place on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes. DO NOT slice the bread until it has set for 30 minutes - this is part of the baking process. Really.

Recipe Notes

If you don't have a cast iron Dutch oven, you can use a baking stone. If you use a baking stone, cover the boulé with a big roast pan lid or something like that. The idea is to create some steam for the first part of the baking process- this is what gives it that awesome chewy crust.

References for this recipe include:

How to Make Sourdough Bread – Pinch My Salt
Easy Sourdough Artisan Bread – Oregon Cottage
The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast: Breads, Pancakes, Waffles, Cinnamon Rolls and Muffins, by Caleb Warnock & Melissa Richardson

I’ve learned so much already about baking with sourdough; enough to know that what I do know barely scratches the surface, so if you are a sourdough baker and see something I’ve written that could use improvement, please leave a comment. Like most of us, I’m here to learn.

BREAD BAKING FREEBIE: Bread Making Basics is a free PDF guide available exclusively on Craftsy, featuring 24 pages of tips, tricks & recipes from incredible bakers and cake decorators. Download it instantly for free now (you can print it easily if you’d like) and enjoy it forever in the comfort of your own home or even on the go!

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They All Love My Buns

June 8 By Renée ♥ Leave a Comment

Every other Thursday night like clockwork, Mr. B gathers with a bunch of his buddies for three hours to play poker and talk about man stuff. They’ve been doing this for years now, rotating houses and taking turns hosting: whoever hosts provides at least a substantial snack, and more often, a full-on meal. I usually vacate on Poker Night – too much testosterone and bragging in a confined space can make a girl woozy – but before I leave, I always try to make a good dinner for them, including a them a little something special. According to Mr. B, I’ve developed a reputation among the group as their favorite Poker Night cook, and while I admit these guys are obviously easily impressed, I’ll take it. Awhile back, I made pulled pork sandwiches (no veggies in that group!) with fresh buns and homemade coleslaw on the side, and when I got home, the first thing Mr. B said was, “Baby, the guys all love your buns!”

Making beautiful burger buns is just about as simple as it gets. I’m not even the bread expert in our family – my oldest daughter is much more talented a bread maker than I will ever be, but you don’t need much talent or finesse to make buns. Just pick your favorite bread recipe, let it rise once, form buns, let them rise again and bake. Boom!!

These Buns are Ready to Rise

Let me break it down for you.

First, make your favorite bread recipe. You can do these first steps in a bread maker like I did, or by hand – either way works fine. Below is my recipe for Cheezy Ranch Bread – one of my favorite go-to recipes for making buns – but just about any bread recipe will do.

It was my kids’ Gramma Edith who first taught me about the elegantly simple science behind bread making:

“You just need some kind of liquid, some kind of fat, some flour, a little salt, a little yeast, and a little something sweet to feed the yeast. If you have those, you can make bread. Every bread you will ever make is some combination of those things, plus whatever else you feel like throwing in.” ~ Edith H.

These Buns are Ready to Bake!

She was right. The more I make bread and I learn about the chemistry involved, the more I understand how forgiving the process can be. This knowledge can come in really handy too. For example, today I didn’t have any plain yogurt. (I thought I did, but when I looked in the fridge, I found that my 16-year old had eaten the last of it with her cereal yesterday.) So for this recipe, I substituted about ¾ cup vanilla yogurt – because that was all I had, and topped it off with about ¼ cup Greek Cucumber Yogurt Dip (from Costco). And because of all the sweeteners in the vanilla yogurt, I omitted all but one teaspoon of sugar in the recipe. (I probably could have left it all out, but that made me nervous.)

Cheezy Ranch Burger Buns

This rich, savory bread is makes wonderful burger buns - or form it into loaves for sandwich bread.

Course Bread

Prep Time 2 hours

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 15 minutes

Servings 16

Author Renée ♥

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1 cup plain yogurt
2 beaten eggs
6 cups white bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons powdered Ranch dressing mix I buy this in bulk at Winco
1 1/2 cups about 6 ozs. cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons chopped dried onion flakes
4 teaspoons yeast

Instructions

To make it in the bread machine: Layer ingredients in the order shown in bread maker on dough setting. This makes a lot of dough, and almost raises the roof on my large bread machine, so if you have a smaller machine, either cut the recipe in half, or do make it by hand.
You can find excellent directions for making bread without a bread machine here.
After the dough has risen to double its size (about an hour), divide it into 16 equal pieces. I do this by gently rolling it out on the counter until it is about 1/2 - 3/4 inch thick and cutting it into squares with a pizza cutter. If you do this, you will have little square buns. I try to round the corners up a bit before I let them rise again.
Place the dough patties on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, cover with a towel, and let them rise again.
Bake at 375º for about 15 minutes, remove from the oven, baste with melted butter (I actually just rub a stick of butter on the hot buns and it melts right in), and allow to cool to room temperature.

Recipe Notes

Recipes makes 16 burger buns or 2 standard bread loaves.

Ready to fill with your favorite burger or sandwich fixings

Now your buns are ready to slice and toast (if you’re into that kind of thing) and serve up with your favorite burger, faux meat, or sandwich makings. It’s best to eat them with a day or two, or they will keep in an airtight container for up to a week.

Buns can be frozen for later. Let them thaw overnight, or wrap in foil and thaw in a 300º oven for about 10 minutes.