Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

Recently, a reader sent me the following email:

I love the fact that you bake most of your breads and have tried to start doing that more often, but my question is this: How much does it save you to bake all of your breads, rolls, buns, english muffins,etc. especially when you can get them at ALDI for next to nothing? Have you ever figured it up to see the savings or do you do it more for the healthy part of it? Just curious!
Thanks!

-Sara

Sara is not the only reader who’s wondered this, and I’ve never even sat down to figure out the nitty-gritty price details either. So, I thought a Wednesday Baking post devoted to this topic would be good for me and for you!

First off, I should say that in my mind, homemade bread is more about eating really good, really fresh bread than it is about saving money.  I could probably buy uber-cheap bread at the store and save some money over homemade, but I infinitely prefer the experience of eating homemade bread, especially when it’s warm from the oven.  You really can’t buy bread like that from the store.

There is some pretty good bakery bread out there, yes, but I’m pretty sure that buying truly good bread would cost me way more than it costs me to make truly good bread.

Though not every bread I bake is healthy, I do bake partly because I can control what goes into my breads. I never have to worry about what preservatives are in my bread or whether or not there’s high-fructose corn syrup in the ingredients.  I never have to worry about finding hydrogenated oils or soy products in our breads.  I can use freshly ground whole grain flours when I bake (though I don’t do that all the time!), and you can’t get that at a bakery.

Even when it comes to the more indulgent breads I make like Cinnamon Crisps or Overnight Cinnamon Rolls, I still think what I make is better than what you can buy at the store.  I use butter, not hydrogenated butter substitutes, I use real ingredients in my frostings (no stabilizers or fillers…just butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla), I use local eggs, and I use unbleached flour.

I know about all the ingredients in our breads, and that makes me happy.  Nothing unpronounceable or unrecognizable goes into what I bake (Michael Pollan would be proud!).

I also like to bake my own bread because I can make whatever variety I want. I don’t have to search the local stores for cardamom bread…I can just bake my own.  I don’t have to try to find a bakery that makes Cinnamon Crisps because I can make my own.

Ok, but what about the cost?

To do am Amy Dacyzyn-like comparison, I bought a loaf of super cheap white bread from Weis.  It’s a one pound loaf and it cost $.99.

Here’s the ingredient list.

Basically, this bread consists of flour, water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, oil, salt, gluten, and a bunch of preservatives that I am too lazy to type out.

However, I am very certain that this bread fails Michael Pollan’s real food test if only because it contains azodicarbonamide (it’s hard to pronounce and I don’t know what it is!).

My sandwich bread recipe is probably the most similar to this type of bread, although my recipe calls for milk instead of water.

I’ll go through the ingredient list and do a price breakdown so that we can figure out what’s cheaper…store bought or homemade.

5 3/4-6 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

I often get my flour for $.99/5 lb bag.  However, let’s assume that you’re paying $2.50 for that bag.  That means each cup of flour costs $0.125.  So, six cups of flour costs $0.75.

1 pkg (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast

I buy my yeast in bulk, which is the only way to go if you want to save money by baking.  Yeast in packets is way, way, too expensive.  Two pounds of yeast costs me about $3.50.  As best I can figure, this means that each 2 1/4 teaspoon portion of yeast costs almost $0.03.

2 1/4 cups milk

The cheap store-bought bread contains water, not milk.  Water costs a negligible amount, so I’m not even going to count that in the cost per loaf.

2 tablespoons sugar

There are 180 tablespoons of sugar in a 5 pound bag.  Generic sugar can be had for $2.50/bag, which makes each tablespoon cost $.013.  So, two tablespoons costs $.026, and we’ll round it up to 3 cents to be generous. 

1 tablespoon butter or vegetable oil

The store bought bread uses oil, so that’s what we’ll use too. Generic vegetable oil is usually about $3 for 48 oz, which means that each tablespoon costs $o.03.

2 teaspoons salt

Generic salt is $.50 or less (I think it’s $.33 at Aldi), and there are 122.75 teaspoons in a 26 oz container.  So, two teaspoons of salt costs $o.008. ‘

So, the ingredients for this recipe (which makes two loaves) comes to $0.818.  We’ll round it up to $0.82 to make things simple.  This makes two loaves of bread, though, so the ingredients for a single loaf only cost $0.41.

What about electricity costs for the baking, though? Mr. Electricity estimates (though he thinks this is high) that an hour of 350 degree baking costs $.24.  This assumes a price of $.012/kwh, which is higher than what I pay (I pay below $0.10/kwh).

So, the half hour of baking this bread calls for would cost $.12, and we can assume this is probably on the high end of things.

If I baked only one loaf of bread at a time (I almost never do that!), the ingredients would cost me $.041 and the baking would cost me $0.12.  That’s still only $0.53 for a loaf of bread. If I bake two at a time, the cost per loaf goes down to $0.47/loaf.

What about the time cost?

Bread baking does take a few hours from start to finish, but actually requires very little hands-on time.  It takes me about 10-15 minutes to make a batch of dough, and then the dough needs to rise for an hour.

It then takes me another 5 minutes to shape the risen dough into loaves, at which point the dough needs to rise for another 30-45 minutes.

And then it takes me all of about 1 minute to put the risen loaves into the oven, where they bake for 25-30 minutes.

Add in another few minutes for doing dishes and wiping counters, and I’d say there’s maybe a 25 minute hands-on time investment.  I have bread baking down to a science, though, so I think I get it done in less than 25 minutes.

What’s the bottom line?

A loaf of storebought white bread costs $.99 (though it might be less at Aldi.  Readers?).

A loaf of homemade white bread costs $0.47-$0.53 plus a 25 minute time investment.

So, without including the time factor, homemade bread is cheaper or at least as cheap as most storebought white bread (the cheapest I’ve ever seen bread for was $.33/loaf), especially if you take into consideration the fact that a loaf of homemade bread weighs more than 16 ounces.

Once you add in the time factor, though, storebought bread wins.  Even assuming a minimum wage time value, 25 minutes of effort bumps the homemade bread cost way up.

Why don’t I give up baking my bread?

Mainly it’s because I like good bread.  Comparing a loaf of freshly-baked homemade bread to a loaf of processed, airy bread isn’t really fair…it’s almost like comparing apples and oranges.

It would be much more fair to compare a loaf of homemade bread to a loaf from Panera, and if I did that, the homemade bread would win hands-down price-wise.

So, it’s much cheaper to satisfy my desire for good bread by baking my own than by buying good bread.

Along those same lines, once you start getting away from bargain basement bread comparisons, homemade bread really starts to gain an advantage.  Whole grain bread, English muffins, bagels, cinnamon swirl loaves, coffeecakes, dinner rolls and the like are all fairly expensive, and I am positive that the homemade versions save me money.  Maybe making sandwich bread doesn’t save me a bundle, but making cinnamon bread does.

What should you do?

I don’t know…that’s for you to decide!  Your time, your tastes, and your priorities may be different than mine, so I can’t say whether or not you should take up yeast baking.  I’m positive that I’m going to keep baking most of my family’s baked goods as long as I’m able, but that might not be the best choice for you.

If you are a happy baker like myself, though, I think you can rest assured that at the very least, you’re not putting yourself into the poorhouse by baking from scratch.

Readers, what do you think?  I’m really interested to hear your thoughts on this topic!

Today’s 365 post: Hand-Me-Ups

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

This bread recipe comes compliments of my grandmother, who saw it in a magazine and sent it to me. She’s from Norway, where cardamom is a favorite spice, so this recipe caught her eye.

Unfortunately, she lives in Illinois, which means that the odds of me being able to share a loaf with her are slim to none. Pictures will have to suffice. Although if she comes to visit, I will be sure to bake a loaf or two.

This recipe produces a soft, relatively dense bread, much like cinnamon bread except without the cinnamon. So if you don’t like the peppery taste of cardamom, you could always just leave it out, and you’ll end up with a plain sweet bread.

We’ve sort of tried it that way, though not on purpose. The first time I made this bread, I used cardamom that was past its prime, so the bread really didn’t taste like cardamom at all. It was a good sweet bread, but there was barely even a hint of cardamom. So, this time I bought cardamom from an open bin so that I could buy only as much as I needed, and the bread I made with this fresh cardamom was much better.

I give a different variety of bread to my parents each month of the year, and last week, I brought one of these loaves to their house.  Unfortunately, Joshua placed our heavy swim bag smack dab on top of the loaf, which made it very…dense.  Ahem.

However, my parents still ate the entire loaf and even enjoyed it, so perhaps there’s no way to mess this bread up!

To start this dough, combine yeast, water, and a bit of sugar.

Then heat the milk, sugar, butter, and salt together to 115-120 F.  Pour the milk mixture into a mixer bowl and add eggs, cardamom, and 3 cups of flour.  Once that’s mixed together, add the yeast mixture.

The dough will be pretty runny at this point.

Add enough flour to make a soft dough, and turn the whole mess out onto a floured counter.

Knead the dough for 3-5 minutes, or until it’s smooth and elastic.

Place the dough back into the bowl, cover it with a wet tea towel, and let it rise for an hour.  Punch it down, divide it into 6 pieces, and roll each piece into an 8 inch rope.

Braid 3 ropes together and repeat with the other 3 ropes.

You can place the braids, as-is, onto a greased baking sheet, or you can do like I do and place them into 4×8 loaf pans.

Cover the braids with a wet tea towel and let them rise until they’re doubled, about 30-45 minutes, depending on the temperature of your house.

Brush the loaves with a beaten egg and sprinkle them with a bit of white sugar.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the loaves are lightly browned.  Because this dough is fairly dense, you’ll not want to err on the side of underbaking, or you’ll end up with doughy loaves.

If you choose to bake the braids on a baking sheet I imagine the baking time would need to be shortened.  I haven’t tried that myself, though, so you’re on your own.  I’d start with 20-25 minutes, and then just keep an eye on the loaves until they seem done.

Remove the dough from the pans/sheets and let it cool on wire racks.

Cardamom Braids-makes 2

Printable Cardamom Braids Recipe (my printable recipes now have a photo.  Yay!)

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
4 1/2 cups flour
1 beaten egg for glaze

In a small bowl, combine yeast, warm water, and 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Set aside.

Heat 1/2 cup sugar, milk, butter, and salt to 115 F. Pour into a mixing bowl and add beaten eggs, cardamom and 3 cups of flour. Mix well; add the yeast mixture. Mix until combined, then add enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface; knead 3-5 minutes. Place in a bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise 1 hour.

Punch dough down; divide into 6 pieces. Roll each piece into an 8-inch rope. Braid 3 ropes together to form a loaf; repeat with remaining ropes. Place loaves into 2 greased 8×4 inch loaf pans. Cover with a wet tea towel; let rise 45 minutes, or until doubled.

Brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for 30 minutes, or until loaves are brown. Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.

Today’s 365 post: Normally, I like to get in close.

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

(apologies for the belatedness of this post! Normally I post recipes I’ve baked on a previous day, so I can get the post put together promptly. Today, though, I’m posting a recipe that I made this very morning, which explains my tardiness. But, I thought a late post would be better than no post! )

A lot of the recipes I post in the Wednesday Baking series don’t exactly fall under the “Good for You” category, but today’s recipe really, really doesn’t belong in that category.

However, it does fall into the “Uber-Delicious” and “You should eat these every now and again” categories. Unless, of course, you are allergic to wheat flour and copious amounts of butter and sugar.

I made these for the first time last month for the women’s prayer group that meets at my house once a month (I always bake something for us to eat after we pray). I don’t usually make recipes for company unless I’ve tried them before, but I went out on a limb this time, and I was glad I did.

The consensus among all of us was that these cinnamon crisps are really, really yummy. In fact, they were so tasty, I think we are going to have them again after this coming Saturday’s prayer meeting.

This recipe comes from my trusty 1973 Better Homes and Gardens bread cookbook, which houses many of my favorite yeast bread recipes.

I have surprisingly few pictures of the dough prep because I made this dough at 5:15 this morning after Mr. FG left for work. And even in August, it’s awfully dark at 5:15.

My lightscoop saved the day, though, so I do have a few photos.

Like most of the bread recipes I use, this one starts with a yeast/flour mixture and some warmed milk, butter, sugar, and salt.

And like usual, you add the warm liquids to the dry ingredients, beat the mixture for a few minutes, and then add enough flour to make a kneadable dough, which should look like this.

and after you knead the dough, you should put it into a bowl and cover it with a wet tea towel, like so.

Let the dough rise for an hour, or until it’s doubled in size.  Punch it down, and divide it into two equal pieces.  Let the pieces rest on the counter for 5-10 minutes, then roll them out into a 12×12 inch square.

Now, the recipe says to mix butter, sugar, and cinnamon together and then to spread this mixture over the dough.

That’s not really the easiest task in the world, though.

So for one half of the dough, I brushed it with the butter and then sprinkled the dry cinnamon sugar mixture over top.

This was definitely easier, and there was no discernible difference in the end result.  So, go with whatever method you prefer.

Roll each dough half up into a log shape, and cut each log into 12 pieces (you can use dental floss or a knife with small serrations).

Place the rolls onto greased baking sheets.  Since these get a lot wider before you’re done, don’t crowd them.  I’d say that 6-9 rolls fit well onto a standard baking sheet (I put too many on mine and butter and sugar leaked out onto my oven floor!).

Using your hand, flatten each roll to about 3 inches in diameter.

Let the rolls rise for about 30 minutes (I don’t cover mine).  Cover them with a piece of waxed paper (I use one piece for both pans), and use a rolling pin to flatten rolls to about 1/8 inch thick.

Once the rolls are flattened, brush them with melted butter (I know!  More butter!).

Then sprinkle them with more cinnamon and sugar (and chopped pecans, if you want).

Then cover the rolls with the waxed paper again (I reuse the waxed paper from earlier in the recipe), and run the rolling pin over them again, just to kind of smush the sugar and nuts into the rolls. (Do you not love the technical terms I use??).

Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven (I turn mine on while I’m topping the rolls) for 8-10 minutes.

You should remove these from the baking sheet promptly because the melted butter and sugar will kind of glue them to the baking sheet otherwise. 

These are yummy fresh from the oven (though you should let them cool for a few minutes before eating them), but they’re also really tasty after they’ve cooled down for an hour or two.  At that point, the melted butter and sugar cool and become a little bit crispy, and I actually think these are at their best that way.

Cinnamon Crisps-makes 24

(you can find a printable version on BH&G’s website, right here.)
Dough
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg

Filling
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. In a large mixing bowl combine 2 cups of the flour and the yeast. Heat milk, the 1/4 cup granulated sugar, butter, and salt just until warm (120 degree F to 130 degree F) and shortening almost melts. Add to flour mixture; add egg. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl constantly. Beat 3 minutes on high speed. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.

2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic (3 to 5 minutes total). Shape into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl; turn once to grease surface. Cover; let rise in a warm place until double (1 to 1-1/2 hours).

3. Punch down; divide in half. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Roll each dough half into a 12-inch square. Combine the 1/2 cup granulated sugar, the brown sugar, 1/4 cup of the melted butter, and the 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon; spread half of the mixture over each square. Roll each up into a spiral; seal seams. Cut into 12 slices. Place cut sides down on greased baking sheets 3 to 4 inches apart. Flatten each slice to about 3 inches in diameter.

4. Cover; let rise until nearly double (about 30 minutes). Cover with waxed paper. Using a rolling pin, roll to 1/8-inch thickness; remove paper. Brush rolls with the remaining 1/4 cup melted butter. Combine the 1 cup granulated sugar, pecans, and the 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Sprinkle over rolls. Cover with waxed paper; roll flat again. Remove paper. Bake in a 400 degree F oven 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately transfer from baking sheets to wire racks; cool. Makes 24 crisps.

Today’s 365 post: My favorite jam

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

I showed you all my English Muffins in my What I’ve Been Up To post and also on my 365 blog the other day (though that was mostly about my griddle!), and a LOT of you asked for the recipe. Fortunately for you, I was already planning on posting the recipe, so I’ve got pictures in hand. Or rather, on my hard drive.

English Muffins aren’t actually English…they just got their name because they resemble crumpets, which are indeed from England (I know this tidbit because I read way too many baking cookbooks as a teenager. I lived a wild life in those years. ).

But, they are yummy nonetheless, and it’s kind of fun to make these at home. Homemade English muffins are even more unusual than other types of homemade bread, so if you can manage to get your English-muffin-making skills down pat, you can handily impress your friends and family.

The dough is really not that much different than most bread doughs…it’s the cooking method that’s odd. These are cooked on a griddle or in a dry frying pan, which means that you don’t have to turn on your oven (which is just about perfect at this time of year).

To start, dissolve the yeast in a cup of warm water.

Then heat the milk, sugar, salt, and butter to 110 degrees F. This is cooler than the temperature required for most of the recipes I use, and that’s because we’re adding the warm liquids to the dissolved yeast instead of to a yeast/flour combo.

Add the warm liquids to the yeast mixture along with 3 cups of flour. Beat for 3 minutes on medium speed (or mix well by hand). The dough will be more like batter at this point.

Add enough flour to make a soft dough (don’t add too much flour…err on the soft side!). Turn it out onto a floured surface,

and knead for 3-5 minutes, or dough is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough into a bowl (I usually just put it back into the messy mixing bowl and call it good.), cover it with a wet tea towel, and let it rise for an hour.

Punch the dough down, and divide it into half. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes or so. This will relax the gluten in the flour and will make the dough much easier to roll out.

Sprinkle your counter generously with cornmeal. Place each dough half on the cornmeal and roll or pat it out into a 1/2 inch thickness.

Now you’ll need a biscuit cutter or something similar (Cook’s Illustrated recommends this set.)

Dip it into flour, and use it to cut rounds out of the dough. I dip it into the flour between each cut. Place the cut muffins onto an ungreased baking sheet. Do. Not. grease the pan. It’ll bring you grief later if you do.

When you’re finished cutting out the rounds, you’ll be left with some scraps.

Shake them off, and combine them together to form a ball. Let the ball rest for a few minutes to relax the gluten and then pat out the scrap ball to make more muffins. Your very last muffin will probably look all gnarly like this, but it’ll be ok.

Cover your pans of muffins with a dry tea towel. Normally I use wet tea towels to cover dough, but if you use a wet one for English muffins, it’ll be really, really hard to transfer them to the griddle.  You want to keep them dry. Let the muffins rise for 30 minutes.

Heat a skillet or griddle to medium hot. Before I got my awesome electric griddle, I used to use multiple skillets on the stove. An electric griddle is SO much easier, though.

Gently place the muffins, cornmeal side down to the griddle. This will not be an impossible task as long as you’ve (1) covered your counter with cornmeal before rolling the dough out, (2) have not greased the cookie sheet and (3) have not covered them with a wet tea towel. Trust me, skipping those 3 steps will make the transferring stage an exercise in frustration.

Cook the muffins for about 10 minutes on the first side and then flip them over and cook them for another 10 minutes on the reverse side.

The first side will look more flat, like this.

And the second side will have a nice brown circle.

Cool the muffins on a wire rack. To serve, you’ll want to split them in half. Simply take a fork and insert it into the side of the muffin, repeating all the way around the muffin.

Here’s what the inside should look like.

Of course, English muffins are not meant to be eaten all pale like that. You really should toast them first. When I’m serving these to our whole family, I like to place them on a baking sheet and put them under the broiler, as that’s a much faster way to toast multiple muffins.

If you prefer flavored English muffins, you can replace some white flour with whole wheat flour, or you can add a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of raisins.

Store any leftover muffins in a plastic bag for no more than a day or two. Since the dough has very little fat and sugar (those are preservatives), the muffins will not stay fresh for longer than that, so freeze them if you’re not going to use them up quickly.

Homemade English Muffins
printable English Muffin recipe

1 cup warm water (105 F)
1 pkg (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons butter
5-6 cups all purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water in a mixing bowl. Combine milk, sugar, salt, and butter, and heat to 110 F. Add to yeast mixture along with 3 cups flour. Beat for 3 minutes. Add enough remaining flour to make a soft dough and turn out onto floured surface. Knead for 3-5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place in a bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise 1 hour.

Punch dough down, and divide in half. Let dough rest for 10 minutes. On a surface generously sprinkled with cornmeal, pat or roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into circles with a floured 3-inch biscuit cutter. Place circles onto ungreased baking sheet. Cover with a dry tea towel and let rise 30 minutes.

Place risen muffins gently onto a medium-hot griddle or skillet and cook for 10 minutes on each side. Cool on a wire rack. Split with a fork and toast before serving.

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

This week, I bought a 20 pound box of New Jersey blueberries (which are sort of local…just a few states away!), which means I have blueberries on the brain. We’ve been eating them by the handful, on yogurt, on cereal, and in fruit salad, but I do like to do some baking when I have fresh blueberries. Of course, you can bake all year long with frozen blueberries, but they’re not quite as nice to use…even straight from the freezer, they almost always bleed and turn the batter/dough an unappealing green shade in spots.

I found this recipe in a Pillsbury cookbook when I was a teenager and I used to make it for my family, as my parents have a number of blueberry bushes along the side of their house. I haven’t made it as often since I got married, as cheap blueberries are harder to come by now! But with 20 pounds on my hands, I thought a loaf of two of this bread was appropriate (I’m going to be making some blueberry streusel muffins too, of course).

This is a quick bread(it rises with baking soda and baking powder, not with yeast), which is good news for those of you who quake in your boots at the mere mention of yeast or kneading. If you can operate a mixing spoon, you can totally make this.

Before you start, turn the oven on to 350 F.  That way it’ll be hot when you’re ready to bake your bread.

First, you’ll need to mix all the dry ingredients together. A whisk is GREAT for this.

Second, mix up the milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla (and lemon peel if you want).

(when I first combine these ingredients, the milk bubbles caused by the oil were much larger.  Zoe peered into the measuring cup and asked me why I put rocks in!)

Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients along with the blueberries (if you’re using frozen blueberries, mix the batter first and then fold in the berries).

Don’t overstir your batter…if you do, you’ll develop the gluten in the flour, and your bread will be tough.  Pour the batter into greased 9×5 inch loaf pans (I think you could use 4×6 pans as well…you’d just want to maybe bake them a little longer).

Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack.  Quick breads can be beaten while they’re warm, but they’re a bit easier to slice if you let them cool completely.

Blueberry Oatmeal Bread-makes 1 loaf
Printable Blueberry Oatmeal Bread Recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup quick cooking rolled oats
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cup oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
2 eggs
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw)

Heat oven to 350 F.  In a large bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well.  In a small bowl (or a measuring cup), combine milk, oil, vanilla, lemon peel and eggs; blend well.  Add to dry ingredients all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Gently fold in blueberries.

Pour batter into greased 9×5 inch loaf pan.  Bake at 350 F for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan.  Cool completely on wire rack.

Today’s 365 post: What can I say?  We’re easily entertained!

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

Like last week’s Chocolate Parfait Bars, the recipe for these bars comes from my maternal grandmother, a.k.a. The Dessert Queen. Oddly enough, these layered bars call for exactly 0 almonds…the almond flavor actually comes simply from almond extract, which you should be able to find at most any grocery store.

I suppose that makes these a little inauthentic, but I don’t really care because I think they’re delicious.

When I made this particular batch, I didn’t have quite enough almond extract, so I just added a little vanilla to make up for it, and they were still tasty. If you hate almond, I imagine you could substitute any number of extracts and come away with good results.

These bars have three layers just like the Chocolate Parfait Bars…a crust, a filling, and a frosting. The good news is that none of these layers are at all complicated to make. You can totally do this!

Before you start, turn your oven on to 350 degrees. That way it’ll be sufficiently hot by the time you need to bake the crust.

The crust is basically a shortbread layer…to make it, you simply mix 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of flour, and 1/2 cup of powdered sugar. Butter is going to make this crust taste way better than any other shortening will, but if you can’t use butter, a butter substitute will certainly work.

Pat the mixture into a greased 9×13 inch pan.

Put the pan into the oven to bake (at 350 F) for 20 minutes. While the crust is baking, you’ll want to make the filling, which is comprised of cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and almond extract. You really should soften the cream cheese before you make the filling because it’ll be lumpy otherwise.

Take the crust out of the oven after 20 minutes. It should look like this:

Pour the almond filling right on top of the hot crust, and put the pan back into the oven to bake for another 15-20 minutes.

Let the crust and filling cool completely.

To make the frosting, simply beat powdered sugar, butter, milk, and more almond extract together.

Spread the frosting on top of the now-cool bars.

Cut into squares before serving.

I store these in the refrigerator because the filling of these contains cream cheese and egg.  Plus, if you live in the same hemisphere as me, your house is probably on the warm side of things right now and the frosting on these bars would get a little runny at room temperature.

Almond Bars
Printable Almond Bars Recipe

Crust
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup powdered sugar

Mix butter, flour, and sugar. Pat into a greased 9×13 inch pan. Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for 20-25 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Filling
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and extract together. Pour over hot crust, and bake for 15 minutes. Cool completely.

Frosting
¼ cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 ½ tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat butter, sugar, milk, and extract together until smooth. Spread frosting evenly over bars. Store bars in refrigerator.

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

Today’s recipe comes courtesy of my maternal grandmother. My paternal grandmother was big into yeast baking (I’ve shared one of her recipes with you before!), but my maternal grandmother is more of a dessert baker. She has a special fondness for bars and cookies, and today’s bar recipe is from her.

Incidentally, I think I have a pretty happening grandmother because though she is in her 80s, she reads my blog every day.

Anyhow. These bars are almost no-bake (they require only 10 minutes in the oven), and unlike almost all of my other recipes, this one calls for a packaged ingredient (cake mix, to be specific). I keep meaning to do some research and figure out how to make my own alternative mix for this particular use, but I make these so rarely, it’s not been a high priority.

I make them rarely not because they’re lacking in deliciousness…no, it’s just that the combination of fat, sugar, and flour is difficult for me to resist, so it’s not good for me to have lots of cookies and bars around. Ice cream I can resist, candy I can resist, and homemade bread doesn’t even tempt me to overeat, but homemade cookies and bars are my nemesis.

So, I usually make this sort of thing when we have company or we go to a potluck, because then I can’t possibly eat the whole pan.

To make the crust for these, combine a chocolate cake mix package with 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons, or 1 stick) softened butter and an egg. A mixer makes this an awful lot easier, but you can do it by hand.

Spread the mixture into a greased jelly roll pan. If you don’t have a jelly roll pan, you can use a 9×13 inch pan, and your layers will just be a little thicker.

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Don’t overbake it, or the crust will be hard. Let the crust cool completely (it’ll look puffy at first and will then flatten out as it cools).

After it’s cooled, you’ll make the white filling. First, dissolve a package of gelatin in 1/4 cup boiling water. Make sure you stir it well so that there are no lumps.

Let the gelatin mixture cool for 5-10 minutes. Do NOT leave it for a long time because it will start to set up, and your filling will have icky lumps in it.

Ask me how I know.

Add butter, shortening, sugar, and vanilla and beat until smooth.  You can add mint flavoring and green food coloring at this point, but I’ve not tried that myself.  (Given my obsession with chocolate and mint, I’m not sure why!)

I’m guessing it would be possible to substitute more butter for the shortening, but I haven’t tried it. I use shortening very rarely…so rarely, I bought a really small can of it!

Because remember? I think smaller quantities are sometimes a wiser purchase, even if the price per pound is higher.

Spread the fluffy white filling over the cooled chocolate crust, then cover and refrigerate until firm.

When the filling is firm (it should only take an hour or so), melt chocolate chips and butter together to make the chocolate frosting.

Spread evenly over the chilled white filling. This is a little more difficult than you might imagine because the cold filling makes the chocolate firm up alarmingly fast.

I’m never one to turn out beautiful frosting jobs, but under these circumstances, things are a little worse than usual.

Fortunately, you cut these into squares before serving them, so it’s not manifestly obvious that the frosting job is less than gorgeous.

Cover the pan and refrigerate the bars until the chocolate frosting is firm.  Cut into bars before serving (a bench knife is fantastic for this! You can see one in my little Amazon widget on the right side of my blog.).  Store any leftovers in the fridge.

Chocolate Parfait Bars
Printable Chocolate Parfait Bars Recipe

Crust
1 package devils food cake mix
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
1 egg

Mix cake mix, butter, and egg together. Spread in greased jelly roll pan and bake at 350 F for
8-10 minutes. Let cool completely.

Filling
1 envelope gelatin
¼ cup boiling water
4 cups powdered sugar
1 stick (8 tablespoons) softened butter
½ cup shortening
½ teaspoon vanilla

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water; stir to remove lumps. Let cool 5-10 minutes. Mix in sugar, butter, shortening, and vanilla and beat until smooth. Spread evenly over cooled chocolate crust. Cover and refrigerate until firm.

Frosting
1 ½ cups chocolate chips
4 ½ tablespoons butter

Melt chocolate chips and butter together; stir until smooth. Spread evenly over filling. Cover and refrigerate until cool.  Cut into bars before serving.

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

Mmmmmmm….cheesecake. It’s Mr. FG’s most favorite dessert, and he routinely chooses it as his birthday cake each year.

Incidentally, when my family and I had Mr. FG over to our house for the very first time ( almost 14 years ago) I just happened to make cheesecake, having no idea that it was his favorite.

That was probably a fortuitous start to our relationship.

Cheesecake is not the most frugal dessert ever (a chocolate cake is almost always cheaper), but it is really yummy, and a homemade one is bound to be cheaper than a store-bought alternative.

Quite honestly, though, I’ve never even looked at the price of a frozen or bakery cheesecake, so I’m yapping on a topic I  know nothing about (readers, can you help me out?  How much does a prepared cheesecake cost?)

Anyways, homemade cheesecake is really not that hard to make, and I actually think it’s easier to make than traditional cake because it requires no frosting.

The recipe I’m sharing (it’s from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook) is for a dense sort of cheesecake, because dense is the way I prefer to have mine (light and fluffy is overrated when it comes to cheesecake, I think.).

To ensure a dense, creamy cheesecake there are two important things to remember…first, don’t overbeat the batter after adding the eggs, and secondly, don’t overbake the cheesecake.  The center should be slightly jiggly when you take it out of the oven, and it’ll finish firming up as it cools.

To start, mix crushed graham crackers with melted butter. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it’s cheaper to crush your own than it is to buy the pre-crushed graham crackers.

Press the graham cracker mixture over the bottom and about 2 inches up the side of a springform pan.

In case you don’t know, a springform pan is sort of like a traditional cake pan except that the sides are a ring that can be lifted off of the pan. This makes it much easier to slice the cheesecake.

My springform pan is nothing special and it works fine, but if you’re interested in snagging a good one, Cook’s Illustrated recommends the Frieling Glass Bottom Springform Pan.  The glass bottom seems like an awesome idea because the non-stick finish on the bottom of mine is starting to fail.  And Cook’s said the glass survived several drops onto the test kitchen floor, so I don’t think breakage is a worry.

Hmm…maybe I need to put this on my Christmas list.  Or, I could always use some of my Swagbucks for it (you can redeem swagbucks for Amazon gift cards, and you can use those to buy almost any kitchen item under the sun. More info is in this post.)

Anyways!  I digress.

It’s time to make the cheese part of the cheesecake.

First, combine softened cream cheese (the softened part is really important…don’t try this with cold cream cheese!), sugar, flour, and vanilla.

Mix until it’s smooth and creamy.

Add 2 eggs and an egg yolk and mix on low just until combined.

By hand, stir in 1/4 cup of milk.

Pour into the graham cracker crust, and use a spatula to make sure the filling is even.

Place the pan into a shallow baking pan.  This will catch any filling that leaks out of the springform pan.  I forgot to take a picture of this, so here’s my finished cheesecake in the shallow pan. Just imagine it unbaked, ok?

Anyways, bake the cheesecake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes, or until the center looks almost set when you gently shake the pan.

The cheesecake will look puffy when you take it out of the oven.

But as it cools, it will flatten out quite a bit.  Worry not…this is normal and good (it makes for a nice dense cheesecake).

To help prevent cracking, 15 minutes post-oven, you’ll want to run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the sides from the pan. After another 30 minutes, you can take the sides of the pan off and let the cheesecake cool completely.

Warm cheesecake isn’t very good, so be sure to chill your cheesecake for 4 hours or so before you serve it.

I like to eat my cheesecake plain and unadulterated, but my husband and kids like to top it with cherry pie filling.

Of course, you can top your cheesecake with anything you like…other flavors of pie filling, fresh fruit, fruit sauce, chocolate, to name a few.

Enjoy!

Cheesecake
Printable Cheesecake Recipe

1 3/4 cups finely crushed graham crackers
1/2 cup melted butter
3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup milk

For crust, stir melted butter into crushed graham crackers. Press crumb mixture onto bottom and about 2 inches up the sides of an 8 or 9 inch springform pan.

In a mixer bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, flour, and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Add eggs and yolk all at once, beating on low speed just until combined. Stir in milk. Pour into crust-lined pan.

Place on a shallow baking pan to catch any leaks. Bake in a 350 F oven for 35-40 minutes or until center appears nearly set when shaken. Remove from oven and cool 15 minutes. Loosen crust from sides of pan. Cool for 30 minutes; remove sides of pan. Cool completely, then chill for at least 4 hours.

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

This recipe, like the one for Garlic Pull-Apart bread, is not a start-to-finish bread recipe. Instead, it’s a way to fancy-up a pound of regular bread dough.

The two recipes are sort of similar, but unlike the pull-apart recipe, this one produces individual rolls, and it also incorporates more herbs.

To make these, you’ll need a pound of bread dough.  You can use thawed bread dough from the freezer section of your grocery store, or you can do like me and use a pound of sandwich bread dough.

When I made this particular batch of rolls, I use a combination of whole wheat and white flour.   In retrospect, I think I prefer my Italian spices on white bread, but my family scarfed down the whole wheat batch without complaint, so the whole wheat obviously didn’t render these rolls inedible.

If you’re making homemade bread dough, follow the recipe instructions up through the initial rise (i.e. make the dough, knead it, and let it rise for an hour).

First, roll out your pound of bread dough into a 12×12 inch square.

I use the term “square” loosely. 

Mix the butter and herbs together.

Spread the herbed butter over the dough and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese if desired.

Fold the dough into thirds (like we do with Cinnamon Twists), and cut into strips.

Twist each strip and place onto a greased baking sheet (I use these Vollrath baking sheets).

Cover the rolls with a wet tea towel, and let them rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Beat an egg with a tablespoon of water, and brush egg wash over the rolls.  Sprinkle with shredded Parmesan cheese. Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Italian Cheese Twists

1 pound bread dough
1/4 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon oregano
3/4 cup mozzarella cheese, optional
1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Roll dough to 12 inch square. Combine butter and seasonings; spread over dough. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese if desired. Fold dough into thirds; cut into 15-20 strips. Twist strips; place on greased baking sheet. Cover with a wet tea towel and let rise 30 minutes. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

disclosure

Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don’t call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays…no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.

This recipe is from The New American Diet, a cookbook published in the 90s, when low-fat, low-cholesterol eating was all the rage. I’m no longer convinced that low-fat eating is the way to go (I’m much more sold on Michael Pollan’s “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” idea!), but this book did have some good recipes in it.

I’m not really sure that these “doughnut holes” are a convincing stand-in for the real thing, but they are a yummy treat, and they’re a lot easier to make than real doughnut holes!

I should add, though, that these don’t really belong in any discussion about healthy eating.  Because low-fat or not, there’s little that’s nutritious about these bite-size, sugar coated muffins/doughnuts.

Hopefully, though, you’re eating more nutritious things for breakfast most of the time, things like scrambled eggs, yogurt, whole wheat toast, fruit, and granola.  If that’s the case, an every-now-and-then batch of these probably isn’t going to have a disastrous effect on your health. 

These are as simple to throw together as most other muffins, so they’re perfect for a breakfast treat.

First, mix the oil and sugar, and add in an egg, some vanilla, and some milk.

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together.

Gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The batter should NOT be completely smooth…if it is, you mixed too much.

(isn’t my green spatula awesome?  I found it at Goodwill for $.50.  Love.)

Spoon the batter into mini muffin tins.  Mine are super nonstick, so I don’t bother greasing them, but you may want to grease yours.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

While the muffins are baking, melt several tablespoons of butter.  The amount you need will depend on just how buttery you want your end product to be. 

Combine sugar and cinnamon.

You can brush the tops of the muffins with butter, or for a more decadent experience, dip the muffins into the melted butter.

Roll the muffins in the cinnamon sugar and serve warm.

Baked Doughnut Holes-makes 36

Printable Baked Doughnut Hole Recipe

2 tablespoons oil or melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup milk
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

3-4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Mix oil and sugar; beat in egg. Add vanilla and milk, and stir until combined.

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add to wet ingredients and stir gently, just until combined. (a few lumps should remain).

Fill mini muffin tins 2/3 full with batter. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Combine sugar and cinnamon. Dip each muffin/doughnut into the melted butter and then roll in the cinnamon sugar.

Serve warm!