Zero Fat Biscuits

Tender and fluffy with really good taste in a non-guilty zero fat biscuit. Some recipes are low fat but this one is zero. Using non fat yogurt to replace the butter and milk, you still get great rise and texture. Plus, just a few ingredients will get you there.

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Healthier Whole Wheat Banana Bread

A healthier banana bread with mostly whole wheat, less fat and sugar. Drop the calories by over a third and the fat by 75%. It's time to fell less guilty for that great taste.

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Cinnamon Sugar Swirl Quick Bread

A scrumptious quick bread. Simple enough for a family breakfast but eloquent enough for gifting.


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Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Chucked full of chocolate, topped with cinnamon sugar and infused with banana. This is a different take on banana bread. Like all quick breads, an easy beginner recipe.

This is sometimes call "Willie Nelson’s Famous Banana Bread" and the first post I find about it is at Everybody Likes Sandwiches . There are some variations but really they are all about the same.
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Easy Grilled Cornbread

Moist with a nice corn taste. A simple side for grilling season. And like a "good" side dish, you cook it on the side of the grill you're not using at the same time as the main dish.
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Old Fashioned Banana Nut Bread

An excellent old fashion banana nut bread that your grandmother would have made. Deep banana taste that is moist and nutty.
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Stand Mixer Rustic Peasant Bread

I love a rustic bread. It needs to have a ruff texture and wonderful taste. Add a crunchy crust and I'm in heaven. It is not the most beautiful of breads but it is extremely tasty with a great crust and texture. Quick and easy with no hand kneading and a little over 2 hours and you're eating bread.

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Cheddar Bay Biscuits a la Red Lobster

I may not be the biggest Red Lobster fan but the Cheddar Bay Biscuits are pure evil. Oh so tender and moist and just exploding with flavor. This is my own take on these garlic-cheddar fat loaded devils. (Maded without Bisquick.)

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Grilled Drop Buttermilk Biscuits

I ask you WHY NOT? I have been on the search for grilled sides this spring and I have tried this several times but I now have it right. Really the answer was quit simple. All I needed to do was turn down the heat and rotate the pan... Dah...

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Quick 'n Easy Honey Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Another stand mixer recipe. What good is that KitchenAid stand mixer that sets on your counter? Yes, it impresses your friends and family but really when was the last time you cracked it open and fired it up. Well do it tonight and make this healthy dinner rolls.

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Stand Mixer Whole Wheat French Bread

What good is a KitchenAid stand mixer if it doesn't do the work for you? Since awarding my Julia Child's Bread the #1 rating for 2010, I have though of repeating it but now I wanted minimal work with some whole wheat for a healthier outcome.

With minimal hand kneading (that you can probably skip if you're morally opposed to manual work) this is for the lazy out there. I used the Julia recipe as a guide. I sub in a cup of whole wheat flour and upped the water to make up for that.

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Focaccia Bread is So Easy

An easy recipe if you have a stand mixer. I had several recipes for Focaccia bread saved in my to do link files but really didn't get inspired until Noble Pig published their top 10 for the year. I looked back at the other recipes but the Noble Pig one appeared to fit my needs.

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From Scratch Cornbread in a Jiffy

Ummmm cornbread. I wanted a bread side for my chicken tonight. I would usually just do drop biscuits but I wanted a different taste tonight. In 30 minutes, I had it.

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Multigrain French Bread

A very nice multigrain bread (a Batard) that really is not a lot of work and relatively quick. Adapted from a Cooks Illustrated recipe.

I again had intentions of following a recipe but I had my reasons to run a-muck again. First I didn't want two large loafs of bread. This is Cooking for Two after all. Second I just got a new "toy" a Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch™ Nonstick Perforated French Bread Pan. And lastly I couldn't find the 7-grain hot cereal that CI used so I got Bobs Red Mill Muesli. Olive oil for butter and I didn't do the oats nor the seeds in the original recipe.


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Julia Child's French Bread - Simplified

Julia Child's French Bread is the ultimate in Artist Breads. A wonderful loaf, simplified to the essentials to get it done with less fuss. While speed was not a goal, it was a total of 5 hours from start to cooling rack. The results are GREAT. Thank you Julia.
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Julia Child's French Bread- kind of - version 1

April 6, 2010 update: go to newer easier version HERE

So I'm out of bread. And I'm home all day so time is no problem. No rush to get it done and raised. So given time and a stand mixer, can you do a better bread. I don't have time for the 18-24 hour traditional no knead and I want to use technology to conquer the world. I have watched a couple of videos with Julia Child's on bread making. The last one included 850 (yes that is right) hand kneads.

So I want to do a Julia inspired bread but without the work. Google time again and I found a wonderful site Sugar and Spice . I don't know who's recipe it is since I have seen the same recipe probably word for word on multiple sites, but she presents a lot of material very nicely. I copied the recipe but it (only the recipe) was still 9 pages long. OH MY.

A lot of the recipe was explanations and variations on loaf shapes. A lot on the oven. I'll strip those out. I'm just doing a large loaf and baking in my dutch oven. Still 6 pages but I want only one page. My mind can only handle one page. And it is just bread... well Julia Child's French Bread but still... bread.

So here is my simplification of the simplification. I highly recommend going back Sugar and Spice and reading her post. Very well done. and someday I will go to the original book and read.


I really (yes really) had every intention of following the recipe as much as possible and I did for 8 hours but then I ran a-muck. Actually while I could spend the 7-9 hours the recipe stated or even 12 but this just wasn't happening.

Maybe it was the house temp of 62 degrees. It felt warm to me (I have been in Michigan a long time) and I put the dough in the warmest room in the morning sun. This had been working fine. But I did up the thermostat to 72 after about 4 hours.

Maybe it was my yeast. It was the end of the bottle but it was only 4 months old and had a long time to out-date. It worked fine last week. So here is my one page version. I started to a-mucking in step 4 and from there on it's just me.

Results: 9 Should have had a little more rise. 9 for crust. 9 for Crumb. 9.5 for taste. Very near the best tasting bread I have ever had and better than the no knead loafs. Definitely worth doing in this form if you want.

Notes: Lots of fuss in the original recipe. Less in mine especially since I cut it "short" and baked it. But excellent results really. I will be repeating this with the third rise and some fancy shaping. But I'm waiting for warmer weather or I will "pre-heat" the house. New yeast is coming but I don't think that was the problem.

Other change ( yes I dare)
1) Bread flour maybe but probably not. Current AP flour is approximately equal to older French flour in protein content.
2) Mixing the yeast with all the water at the start and using 105-110 degree water. Give those little yeasteis a boost. Absolutely doing this.
3) Let the dough rest in the mixing bowl on the stand mixer in step 2. Decrease the fuss. Yep.
4) I like the large first rise if it will happen with the volume going from about 3 cups to 10 1/2 if it works. I got about 9 this time.
5) I will do the third rise and other forms if time permits.
6) I want to try this on a baking stone but the dutch over is so easy

PS it is only one page and will be less next time. YES!
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Quick Buttermilk Drop Biscuits

So you are making dinner but don't have much. A meat and veggie but nothing else. No decent bread. The home made French bread turned green yesterday... what to do. Biscuits of course. That was part of my downfall for years and I broke the habit with a low carb diet for the last several years. Now that I'm more liberal with carbs, this little suckers could be my downfall again. Oh so wonderful.

My previous version of drop biscuits had a fair rise but nothing like this. I have read many recipes over the years on drop biscuits. Some requiring hours of work. It is just a biscuit for heavens sake. I want to just wipe this out in the few minutes I have while cooking other things.


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Single-rise Crusty Bread

This is a large loaf. 9 1/2 inch diameter and 3 1/2 inch height.

A wonderfully simple bread. A crusty open crumb bread complete in 3 hours.

I read too many recipes. I mean really way too many. I get confused about what technique is where with what recipe. I see too many things I want to try. This has things from at least 4 recipes.

So this is what I wanted to do and it worked wonderfully.
1) I've done no knead breads to get texture. I don't mind kneading in my Kitchenaid stand mixer. I believe the second rise usually gives a finer texture so I'm skipping that.
2) I wanted to use ingredients that we all have setting in our kitchens.
3) I want a crusty loaf so I'm using the dutch over.
4) I wanted a bigger loaf since I was going to bake in the dutch oven and I didn't want a pancake due to the large diameter.
5) I wanted a high liquid to flour ratio to keep the open texture.
6) I would do a loose mix initially and let it set for a while to hopefully help in gluten formation.


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Faster 100% Whole Wheat No Knead Bread - Finalized

This is the final version of my 100% Whole Wheat No Knead Bread. Better than I though possible. Great crust and taste. Very good texture and only 5 hours from start to eating. A must try if you want a 100% whole wheat bread quick and easy.

My main disappointments with the first version was the amount of rise and the adequate (but could have been better) open crumb structure. Also the crust could have been more crunchy.


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No Knead Bread

This is not a low carb recipe... big surprise there. Actually after I get the hang of this with real flour, I plan on try a low carb flour substitute. But that's for another day.

This recipe or variations of it has apparently been making the rounds on blogs and internet sites for years. The originator of the technique is Jim Lahey, a New York baker. An article in The New York Times in November of 2006 apparently set off a rage through blogs and internet sites which is still going on. We first saw a post on Savory Reviews (see my blog list) this month and in-spite of our low-carbing, we must try it.

Since I first saw it, I have done some research and found lots of variations. Admittedly they all are only minor variations but I decide to give the inventor credit and some of my money. I bought his book. I will follow his recipe but many sites commented on the need for a little more salt.

A note about the Dutch Oven that is recommended. Many have knobs that will melt if heated above 400 degrees. This recipe was so popular that it was blamed for an epidemic of knob stealing to replace the melted knobs. I bought a Lodge Dutch Oven and this is my first project with it but then I found the knob melts at 400. So before my first use, I replaced the knob with a Le Creuset stainless steel knob from Amazon for $10

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