Lemon Blueberry Bread

I was applying for a scholarship back in the day (which was a Wednesday) and I remember one of the essay questions had asked me what was my long term goal?

I knew. I KNEW! My little 18 year old heart was definite in it’s answer … owning a Bed & Breakfast. It would combine all the things that I loved along with the knowledge I was going to obtain at college for hotel/restaurant management.

Funny how your goals change – I currently don’t have a clue what my goals are … isn’t that a kick in the head!

However, if I were to have a B&B then this Lemon Blueberry Bread would be served.

I love having “dessert” for breakfast – I love dessert period, exclamation point.

This is what you would call a quick bread – to me it’s like a large muffin (I’m not bluffin’) that you share.

The tanginess of the lemon comes through in every bite thanks to the lemon juice, lemon yogurt, and lemon peel that is used in the recipe. The plump blueberries with it’s mild sweetness complements; it gives you a break from the acidity that is lemon. This bread is also dense yet moist. It’s a great contradictory food to break your fast with or have featured during brunch.

Lemon Blueberry Bread
Adapted from King Arthur Flour’s Lemon Bread

Ingredients:Bread
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup lemon yogurt ( I used Chobani Lemon Greek Yogurt)
1 teaspoon lemon rind, grated
2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup blueberries, fresh or thawed

Glaze
1/4 cup lemon juice, fresh
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until combined. Beat in one egg at at time into creamed mixture. In a separate bowl whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind and set aside. Sift together the remaining dry ingredients; flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. Add 1/4 dry and 1/4 wet ingredients to the creamed items until fully incorporated. Gently fold in blueberries into batter. In a large (8 1/2 inch x 4 1/2 inch) greased loaf pan add batter and bake for approximately 50-60 minutes.

While bread is baking make your lemon glaze. In a bowl whisk together lemon juice and sugar until sugar has dissolved, set aside.

Once bread has completed baking and is still hot poke with holes using your poker du jour (I like to use a wooden kabob skewer) through out the bread. Then spoon the lemon glaze over the bread and allow it to soak into it. Let the bread cool for approximately 15-20 minutes before removing it from the pan and slicing to serve.

Makes 1 loaf.

Sweet Potato Bread

A few weekends ago the age old question of – “What should I make?” struck me.  After perusing through my cabinets and with holiday season upon us … I decided to make a Sweet Potato Bread.  Of course, I could have gone with the ever popular Pumpkin Bread. Since, I don’t like Pumpkin anything, I nixed that idea.

It seems that Pumpkin and Butternut Squash are the most popular items for autumn. I don’t care for either. Picky eater table of one!

I love Sweet Potatoes — okay I love Sweet Potato Pie and Candied Sweet Potatoes. I chose to see this bread making experiment as a challenge – step out my comfortable box and try something different.

It’s great to stretch one’s boundaries from time to time. It’s even better when it’s a success.

This particular Sweet Potato Bread is more like a sweet/spicy bread with undertones of Sweet Potato.  Moist like the Banana Bread and finished off with a crumb topping.   Dare I say if you were doing homemade gifts this would be a great gift to give!

This year I am going to do homemade/ quasi homemade gifts for my family, except for my youngest nephew – I don’t have a way of making a homemade or even semi-homemade iPod.

I hope you will also enjoy this recipe as much as my office guinea pigs did!

Sweet Potato Bread
Adapted from My Kitchen Café’s Buttermilk Banana Bread

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 ¼ cup baked & mashed sweet potatoes or 1 large sweet potato baked and mashed

4 tablespoons buttermilk

½ teaspoon of vanilla bean paste

1 tablespoon of robust molasses

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

¼ teaspoon of nutmeg

Pinch of ground cloves

½ teaspoon of allspice

¼ teaspoon of ground ginger

1 ¾ cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

¼ teaspoon of salt

1/8 teaspoon of baking soda

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.

In a bowl cream butter and sugar together; add eggs one at a time until incorporated.  Add in the following: mashed sweet potatoes, buttermilk, vanilla bean paste, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and ginger; mix all together.

Add the dry sifted ingredients into the wet mixture; mix until combined.

Pour mixture into a large greased loaf pan (9 ¼ x 5 ¼ inch) and bake for 55 -60 minutes.

Let cool for approximately an hour before serving.

Note: You can top the batter before baking with either an evenly coating of brown sugar or a crumb topping for some extra razzle dazzle!

Until next time!
Jennifer

Mom Approved Cinnamon Rolls

Imagine a house filled with smells of yeasty bread, cinnamon, and the creamy sweetness of cream cheese icing … that was my house last week and I had to restrain myself from eating all the cinnamon rolls that were made!

When I was growing up I remember my Mom making cinnamon rolls for my sister and me. While making rolls for dinner she would make additional dough to make cinnamon rolls as a treat. What a treat it was!

We did not have much- but what we had was good enough. My Mom and Grandma are great inspirations in nurturing my love of cooking and I am very thankful for that.

I decided to finally dig out my bread machine; that I earned through a points reward system at my job. I pretty much up gave up bread baking for the last year or two since every time I tried it ended in major mondo disaster – I am talking dough not even rising or when baked it resembled a deadly weapon. However, I was bored and thinking what I could do for my next blog entry and my unpacked bread machine was looking at me daring me- challenging me to use it. Who am I to back away from a challenge? So with that thought I checked my pantry and frig to make sure I had everything I needed to get down to baking Cinnamon Rolls!

I used a combination of recipes located on one of my favorite recipe finding websites – All Recipes!
Sweet Dinner Rolls and Clone of a Cinnabon and made it my own with a few adaptations.

The Dough

1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

1/2 cup warm milk

1 egg, beatened

1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste*

1/3 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 3/4 cups bread flour

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast

1/4 cup butter, softened

The Cinnamon Portion

¾ cup brown sugar, packed

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

¾ cup soaked raisins**

1/3 cup butter, softened

The Icing

6 ounces of cream cheese,softened

1/2 cup butter, softened

3 cups confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste *

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions: Using your bread machine add ingredients as instructed. Typically it is wet to dry with creating a well in the flour to add the yeast. Set the bread machine on the dough only setting.

After the dough cycle has completed empty out onto a floured surface and let rest for 10-15 minutes. While dough is resting blend together brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Using a rolling pin shape into a rectangular shape. Spread dough with softened butter, add cinnamon mixture, and soaked raisins to the dough. Roll dough from either left to right or right to left; whichever makes you happy. Cut rolled dough into 12 pieces; cut dough in half; cut half dough into threes; cut threes into six and repeat. Place cut pieces of dough into a 9×13 greased pan. Cover with kitchen towel and let proof in a warm spot for approximately 1 hour.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and bake cinnamon rolls for about 15-17 minutes. While rolls are baking make your cream cheese icing by creaming your cream cheese and butter. Add confectioners sugar slowly until mixed. Finish icing by adding vanilla bean paste, lemon juice, and salt and mixing until incorporated.

After rolls have cooled add icing and serve!

* Vanilla Bean Paste is simply my preference. Since buying some last year; I am hooked! If a recipe calls for Vanilla Extract; I use Vanilla Bean Paste.

**Soaked Raisins; I like to add plumped raisins to any recipes that call for the sun dried treat. So by adding hot water until raisins are covered in water and letting them rest for approximately 10-15 minutes; I have soaked raisins. You can also get crazy and add a touch of alcohol to the soaking process.

The best part of this baking process is getting my Mom’s seal of approval. My Mom is gifted when it comes to cooking and yes critical (I like to think I get it naturally) so I am always trepidatious when presenting something I made to her. She bestowed to me her highest honor; “They might be better than mine” honor! Must say it made me quite happy that she enjoyed them and I hope you will enjoy them as well!

Happy Eatings!

Banana Cuckoo Crackers

I had an “Oprah Moment” when thinking about my next post. It was going to be (in my Oprah voice) CARAMEL BANANA BRRRRRRREAD! Well, what’s that saying about best laid plans? The bread looked beautiful but taste wise it was flat. It had no depth, no balance. It was too sweet. It is missing some things, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to recreate and try to fix all the wrongs and I didn’t want to flake on writing a post this Sunday. So today’s post is nothing but a pretty picture (I think) and a promise to repost when I have a recipe worth sharing!

Live. Love. Laugh.