Would you believe that before this past weekend I had never tried rhubarb? I’d heard enough people say they don’t like it, or mention its tartness that I was a little intimidated by it. However, this past week, a very kind coworker who has a rhubarb plant in her backyard brought some into work and I decided it was time to give it a try. I had recently stumbled across a rhubarb crumb muffin recipe in a cookbook, and I figured this was the perfect time to try it.

Surprisingly (to me at least), I loved the muffins and the rhubarb. The tartness really wasn’t as noticeable as I expected, and it was a nice contrast to the sweet crumb topping of the muffins. The muffins themselves were light and fluffy, and very moist from the rhubarb. Overall, these were a hit, and a great first experience with rhubarb. Mike would rather have blueberry muffins (always his muffin of choice), but I actually prefer these. I have enough rhubarb left for another recipe, but now I’m not sure if I should try something new or just make these muffins again since I liked them so much! Does anybody have any good rhubarb recipes I just have to try?? Leave a comment or send me an email – I’d love to try your favorite recipes! 🙂

Rhubarb Crumb Muffins

Yield: Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

Crumb Topping:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup firmly packed dark or light brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
5 Tbsp salted butter, kept cold, and cut into 1/4 inch cubes

Muffins:
2 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Grease 12 muffin cups or line with muffin wrappers.

Make the crumb topping: Mix together the flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Add the butter and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture forms small crumbs. Set aside.

Mix the rhubarb and confectioners sugar together in a small bowl and set aside. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy, about 1 minute. Slowly mix in half of the flour mixture until it is incorporated, then half of the milk. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then repeat. Gently fold in the rhubarb mixture.

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups and sprinkle the crumb topping on top. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a center muffin comes out with moist crumbs.

from Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook

Cranberry Orange Bread – doesn’t that flavor combination just make you think of Christmas? I made this bread last weekend using the cranberries I had left after making the cranberry relish. (Side note: does anybody know how long cranberries will last in the fridge?)  If there are any cranberries wasting away in your refrigerator, go get them right now and make this bread. If not…well, this bread is worth a quick trip to the grocery store.

 The bread itself is sweet and dense and a little crumbly. The cranberries are tart, but when surrounded by the sweet bread, you barely notice the tartness. As I said above, the flavor pairing of orange and cranberry is perfect for Christmas and is absolutely delicious. The bread gets better as it sits, so I’d recommend making it a day in advance of when you want to serve it.

Mike liked this bread a lot more than I thought he would. I thought he’d be turned off by the cranberries, but considering how much he’s eaten, I don’t think that was a problem.  As for me, I love this bread. I just may start stockpiling bags of cranberries in the freezer (like my mom!) so I can make it year round.

*Note: The recipe makes 1 normal size loaf of bread. I made two smaller loaves because I think they’re cute and because all of my normal size loaf pans were already in use.

Cranberry Orange Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
zest of one orange
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 ounces butter, melted
1 egg
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Directions:

*Note: original recipe called for 1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts. I left them out due to a nut allergy in the family, but I think they would be a great addition!

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, orange zest, cranberries and walnuts if using. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, granulated sugar and egg. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and stir to combine. The dough will be on the dry side and almost resemble sugar cookie dough.

Press the dough into the greased loaf pan and sprinkle sugar over the top. Bake for about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. The top of the loaf will be a rich golden brown. Let cool before slicing.

If the cranberries are too tart for your taste, serve with butter and honey on top. I like it with just butter, but Mike prefers the butter and honey.

adapted, slightly, from Eat Live Run

These are exactly what they sound like – muffins that taste like doughnuts! At first glance they seem kind of plain. There are no add-ins (although I’m sure you could come up with some great additions!), no outstanding flavor combinations – they are just simple little vanilla muffins with a hint of nutmeg. And yet, even in all their plainness, these muffins are very, very good. Sometimes it’s the simple things that taste the best.

They have a cake-like texture, and the cinnamon sugar topping is just like icing on the cake. You really can’t go wrong when something is dipped first in melted butter and then in cinnamon sugar. The topping takes the taste from good, but plain, to “wow this tastes just like a doughnut!” (which might have been the exact words Mike used when he ate his first muffin). These would be delicious as mini-muffins, or you could even get fancy and top them with a powdered sugar glaze. With so many options, there’s really no reason not to make these muffins. They’re sweet, and kind of old fashioned, and they make a great breakfast addition.

Doughnut Muffins

Yield: Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients:

Batter:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg, to taste
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 cup milk

Topping:
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar (I used 1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1 Tbsp cinnamon)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease a standard muffin tin. If using paper muffin cups, spray the cups with cooking spray to ensure that they peel off the muffins easily.

In a medium-sized bowl, cream together the butter, oil, and sugars until smooth. Add the eggs and beat to combine. Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla.

Starting and ending with the flour, alternately stir the flour and milk into the butter mixture. Make sure everything is thoroughly combined. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared pan, filling the cups nearly full.

Bake the muffins for 15 to 17 minutes, or until they're a pale golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle of one of the center muffins comes out clean. Remove them from the oven and, using a fork, tip the muffins sideways in the pan to keep the bottoms from steaming. (See picture) Let them cool for a couple of minutes, or until you can handle them.

While they're cooling, melt the butter for the topping. Dip the top of each muffin in the melted butter and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Serve warm, or cool on a rack and wrap airtight. Store for a day or so at room temperature.

adapted, slightly, from King Arthur Flour

We love this bread. I’ve made it quite a few times in the past and it always gets eaten quickly. It’s a quick bread, but it’s actually good for you! It’s not of the traditional loaded with sugar and oil variety, but instead is made with whole grains, oatmeal, and plain yogurt for moistness. It’s delicious. Not overly sweet, but perfect for breakfast or a snack.

Our favorite way to eat it is with butter and a little bit of honey drizzled over the top. It’s also great with peanut butter. I haven’t tried it myself, but I’ve even heard it’s good toasted. Mike loves it when I make this, and I really like being able to quickly make a loaf of bread, without the kneading and rising, and knowing that it’s actually good for us. It’s a nice switch from other less healthy (but still delicious) quick breads out there.

(more…)

This is my mother-in-law’s signature recipe. And today is her birthday. What better day to feature this delicious recipe on my blog? The whole family loves this bread. For every holiday, family gathering, etc, it is specifically requested that she make it. It’s not that it’s hard…it’s actually really easy and quick to throw together. But for some reason, no one makes it quite like she does.

This is one of Mike’s favorites. It’s perfectly sweet, with a soft texture. It tastes like dessert, but because it’s bread, you can justify serving it as a side dish. As I said, Mike loves it and prefers it over any other quick bread I’ve made. And if you’re looking at the pictures thinking that it doesn’t look like anything special, Mike thought the same thing. Direct quote from my husband: “your pictures don’t make it look nearly as good as it tastes.” Not sure what that says about my photography, but at least you know how much he likes this bread 🙂

Oatmeal Brown Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup boiling water
1 cup quick cooking oatmeal
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter or margarine
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Stir together oatmeal and water. In a separate bowl, beat together sugar, brown sugar, and butter. Beat in eggs. Add remaining ingredients. Add in the oatmeal mixture and pour into greased bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes to 1 hr.

from Linda Gundy

I love pretty much any type of quickbread or muffin. Check out the bread label on this blog for proof of that statement. I was looking for a new bread recipe to test out on my Sunday School class last week, and I saw this one on tastespotting. It comes from one of my favorite baking sites, so I knew it would be good. Plus it’s easy and I happened to have all the ingredients on hand. (Sadly, whether or not I have to go to the store is actually the real factor in a lot of the recipes I choose to try. But when it gives me results like this bread, I’d say my system is working). The bread itself isn’t overly sweet, and is perfect combined with the gooey cinnamon swirl in the middle and the crunchy cinnamon sugar on top. The texture is great, and when served warm with some butter on top, it’s absolutely delicious.

*Note: I actually somehow forgot the “swirl” portion of cinnamon swirl bread. I layered the batter and cinnamon mixture in the pan, took a picture, and put it in the oven without swirling it. It still tasted great, but I think it would have a more traditional presentation if I actually followed the directions. I’ll remember next time (and there will be a next time).

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Ingredients:

1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted (*I used walnuts, because I already had them)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup cooking oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the bottom and sides of a 9″x5″x3″ loaf pan. Combine 1/3 cup of sugar, pecans, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

Combine 1 cup of sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat egg. Then, stir in milk and oil. Make a well in the flour mixture and add the egg mixture. Stir just until mixed. Do not overmix.

Pour half of the batter into loaf pan. Sprinkle with half of the cinnamon mixture. Repeat. With a wide rubber scraper or spatula, swirl mixtures together with a down and up circular motion.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until done. Cool in pan for about 10 minutes. Then, cool completely on a wire rack.

from Bake or Break

I’ve been wanting to make this bread for awhile. A friend gave me some over a year ago and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I don’t know why it took me so long, but I made it to take with me to Christmas Eve last week, and it was just as good as I remembered. The cinnamon chips are definitely the star of this recipe. Their rich sweetness just seems to melt into and flavor the rest of the bread. The texture is soft, and just a little bit crumbly, and definitely leaves you wanting more. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it over Christmas, and Mike and I had no problem finishing off what little was left. Mike rated it a 4 just out of the oven, but dropped it to a 3.75 at room temperature.

Cinnamon-Chip and Pecan Loaf Cake

Ingredients:

1 16oz package Pillsbury nut bread mix
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp butter, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1/2 cup cinnamon chips
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9x5x2 inch loaf pan.

Using mixer beat bread mix (not the package of nuts) and 1/2 cup butter in large bowl until crumbly mixture forms. Transfer 1/2 cup crumb mixture to small bowl and add the remaining 2 Tbsp butter and mix with fingers until moist clumps form (for streusel).

Stir sour cream and eggs into remaining crumb mixture in large bowl. Mix in cinnamon chips, cinnamon, allspice, and nut mixture from package.

Pour batter into pan. Sprinkle with streusel.

Bake about 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto rack to cool.

Variation: Can make 4 small loaves. Adjust baking time to 35-40 minutes.

These are good. Very good. Mike (who is something of a blueberry muffin connoisseur), says they just might be his favorite. Although, really, I’m not sure he can be trusted – often, whatever he happens to be eating at the time is his favorite. That aside, however, these really are great muffins. Moist and tender and delicious, Mike even went so far as to say they “crumble in your mouth” (in a good way). Although, once again, that might be because he tried to eat it approximately 30 seconds after it came out of the oven.

I’m not sure of the difference between browned butter and melted butter (other than its color of course). However, something about the flavor of these muffins is unique and wonderful, so I’ll go ahead and attribute it to the browned butter. Add in the streusel-like topping and the moist, crumbly texture, and this is a winning recipe – one that would be perfect for Christmas morning.

Browned Butter Blueberry Muffins

Yield: Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

7 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup whole milk
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh blueberries (I used frozen black raspberries with great results)

For the Topping:
3 Tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Put a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper or foil liners

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Keep an eye on the butter. Melt and cook down the butter until little brown bits appear in the pan. The crackling will subside and butter will begin to brown fairly quickly after that. Keep a close eye. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

In a small bowl, whisk milk, egg, yolk and vanilla until combined. Add the brown butter and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add milk and butter mixture all at once and stir gently to combine. Gently but thoroughly fold in the berries. Divide the batter among muffin cups and spread evenly.

To make the topping combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the batter in the cups. It may look like too much topping, but use it all - it definitely cooks down.

Bake until golden and crisp and a wooden pick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack for 15 minutes then remove from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

from Joy the Baker

We had one lone bottle of beer in the refrigerator. Leftover from who knows when…possibly from when we moved into our house. Neither of us are big beer drinkers, and I’ve been slowly using up our small suppy on a variety of beer bread recipes. I’m glad I found this recipe for the last bottle, because it was the best yet. Soft and slightly sweet, with a crispy buttery crust. It was great hot out of the oven last night – perfect for a late night snack. But it might have been even better for lunch today – toasted, with a little extra butter. Good enough for Mike to rate it a 3.75. This is my new go-to beer bread recipe. Good enough that I might even buy beer solely for the purpose of making this bread. 🙂

Honey Beer Bread

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. honey
1 bottle (12 ounces) beer
4 Tbsp. (half stick) butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9″ x 5″ x 3″ inch loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Using a wooden spoon, stir the beer and honey into the dry ingredients until just mixed. Pour half the melted butter into the loaf pan. Then spoon the batter into the pan, and pour the rest of the butter on top of the batter. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Makes 1 loaf. Best if served immediately, although leftovers taste great toasted!

from gimme some oven

Last week I got a huge zucchini from someone at work. I think it was the biggest zucchini I’ve ever seen. Mike insisted on grating the whole thing, and we got over 10 cups of grated zucchini out of it. This turned out to be good timing since I had 2 new zucchini bread recipes I wanted to try.

The first recipe, Orange Pecan Zucchini Bread, was from tastykitchen. This bread is great! It has orange juice and orange zest in the batter, and an orange juice glaze on top to give it a nice orange flavor. It’s nice and sweet and light and the glaze is a great touch. Mike rated it a 4 and told me that I should always make “the orange kind” of zucchini bread.

For the second recipe, I decided to try to make it a little healthier. I used a more standard zucchini bread recipe that I found online, but used half whole wheat flour and substituted applesauce for half of the oil. I really like this bread too. It’s not quite as sweet as the orange pecan recipe, but it’s nice and cinnamony and moist. It’s great right out of the refrigerator with a little bit of butter on it. I don’t think Mike rated it, because he’s too busy eating the orange pecan zucchini bread. But I would definitely recommend this bread, especially if you want something a little healthier.

Orange Pecan Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:
4 whole Eggs
1-½ cup Sugar
2 cups Shredded Zucchini, Unpeeled
⅔ cups Orange Juice
¾ cups Canola Oil
3-¼ cups All-purpose Flour
1-½ teaspoon Baking Powder
1-½ teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
2-½ teaspoons Cinnamon
½ teaspoons Ground Cloves
1 whole Grated Peel Of An Orange
¾ cups Chopped Pecans
1 cup Powdered Sugar
2 Tablespoons Orange Juice

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF and grease and flour the bottoms of two loaf pans. I use 8″ pans, but 9″ would work as well. In a large bowl or a mixer, beat the eggs until they are a deep lemony yellow. Beat in sugar, and then stir in shredded zucchini, orange juice and the oil. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and orange peel. Fold in chopped pecans (or nuts of choice).
Bake at 350ºF for 50 to 55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, cool slightly.
When bread has been removed from the oven, mix together powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of orange juice. Add additional orange juice in 1 teaspoon amounts if it is too thick. Spread glaze over baked loaves while still warm. Allow to cool completely. Wrap tightly and store in the fridge.

Healthier Zucchini Bread