Category Archives: bread

Best Ever Cornbread Recipe

Posted on August 20, 2011 | 23 Comments

Whenever I make homemade baked beans, I always make up a batch or two of corn bread to go with them. We call it “cowboy food”, although I’m sure the cowboy version would have been a lot simpler and probably not nearly as tasty.

I got this recipe from my mom (Irene), after having tried it at her place and commenting on how good it was. The texture is great – really moist and tender, not dry and gritty. The “secret” is in the sour cream. If you’re into soaking, you can do that, too, and I’m sure you could make it with whole wheat flour, although I admit, I normally use white. I recommend full fat dairy, raw and organic if you can get it.

Irene’s Corn Bread Recipe

1 cup flour
1 cup corn meal
1/4 cup sugar (maple syrup should work, too)
2 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum free)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup sour cream
1 egg
4 tablespoons butter, softened

Preheat oven to 400 F and grease a 8″x8″ square pan or 9 inch round pan. *Note – if using a pyrex baking dish (which I prefer) I drop the temperature to 375 and bake a little longer, probably 20-25 minutes, maybe a bit longer, until a toothpick tests clean.

Blend dry ingredients together. This may require you climbing on the counter to get closer to the bowl and ingredients. (My son made corn bread almost all on his own this past week.

Mix in softened butter. Blend in milk, sour cream and egg. Beat until moist. Pour into greased pan and place in preheated oven. Bake around 15 – 20 minutes, until surface starts to crack and edges pull away from pan. Center should test dry with a toothpick.

If you would like to soak the flour, mix the flour and corn meal with the butter, sour cream and milk the night before baking (or at least 8 hours before). Cover and allow to sit at room temperature (the sour cream will naturally ferment the mixture and prevent spoiling).

When ready to bake, add the rest of the dry ingredients and the egg. Mix well, add additional milk if needed if texture seems too dry. I have tried this once and it worked, it just made the bread a little more crumbly and moist.

Enjoy warm or at room temperature with plenty of butter or baked beans. Makes 16 servings.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope your family enjoys this recipe as much as we do. It’s a wonderful side dish for many autumn soups and stews, such as bean soup with ham. Please share if you feel so inclined.

Note: I had originally said that honey should also work in the recipe, but several people raised concerns about this so I switched it to maple syrup. It’s a fairly small amount of sweetener, either way. I leave it at your discretion.

This post has been added to the September 1, 2011 linkup at It’s a Keeper.

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Leftover Mashed Potatoes? Make Potato Bread

Posted on July 31, 2011 | 13 Comments

Quite often when I make mashed potatoes for supper, I end up with just a dab (less than a cup) of potatoes left – not really enough for another meal.

So how do you stretch a small amount of potatoes into another meal sized portion? One option is chicken and gnocchi soup, another favorite option is potato bread.

Most of the “potato bread” recipes I’ve seen used powdered mashed potatoes – not something I keep in my pantry My husband used to be a fan of store bought potato bread when we were first married – you know kind that resembles cotton candy in bread form? (Pretty sure they use potato flakes…) I was tickled to finally find a recipe that uses real mashed potatoes. I throw mine in just the way I serve them – butter, milk, salt and pepper included.

That recipe I use is based on one from The Bread Machine Cookbook V (this book is a bargain on Amazon.com – available used starting at $0.01).

Potato Bread Recipe Using Real Mashed Potatoes

7 ounces cooked potato (you can use leftover mashed potatoes, or cook up a small potato and mash it)
Water, enough to equal 1 3/4 cup when combined with the potato

(I put the potato into a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup, and add water to bring the level up to 1 3/4 cup)

2 tablespoons softened butter
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar (or honey)
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 1/2 cups bread flour (I usually use a mix of fresh ground wheat berry flour and pre-milled flour)
2 teaspoons dry yeast or 1 1/2 teaspoons saf-instant yeast

If using a bread machine, select “wheat”, “sweet”, or “white” setting, do not use a timer.

I normally mix the dough in my Bosch Universal Plus Kitchen Machine and then bake it in the oven. (I finally bought a Bosch after killing three different bread machines. It’s more expensive, but can handle double batches of whole wheat bread without a fuss, unlike lighter machines.)

I add everything into the machine and mix for 6-8 minutes, adding additional flour if needed. Add the last of flour slowly – you want a soft, elastic dough. Too much flour will give you a harder dough and a drier bread. If kneading by hand, mix wet ingredients with yeast until thoroughly blended, then add dry ingredients, adjusting flour as needed to give a soft, elastic dough.

Let bread rest and rise for around 20 minutes, then punch down and allow to rise again. (This develops the flavor and gluten of the bread.) Once doubled in size, form dough into loaves and place in greased bread pans. A single recipe makes one large loaf or two smaller loaves. I usually divide the dough into two 9×5 pans. This way I get two loaves and pop one in the freezer to keep it fresh. (Although, the last time I made this bread, the first loaf was inhaled as soon as it came out of the oven, so I didn’t need the freezer.)

Preheat oven to 350F. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks. Try to wait for the bread to cool before cutting, if possible. When you cut open a steaming loaf of bread, much of the moisture escapes as steam, leaving the remainder of the loaf dry. Of course, if it all disappears within a matter of minutes, this is a non-issue.

This recipe produces a moist, dense loaf that is great for sandwiches and toast, and holds for the better part of a week. For longer storage, it freezes very well, in case you want to make a double or triple batch. I had a slice of it lightly toasted with butter for breakfast this morning. (I like to observe the 1:1 bread:butter ratio.)

I hope your family enjoys this recipe as much as my family does. If you do, please pass it along.

Duncan’s "Meat in a Loaf"

Posted on May 31, 2011 | 9 Comments

A while back, my youngest requested “meatloaf” for supper. I was somewhat taken by surprise, as I was not aware that he preferred meatloaf as a meal. Just to make sure we were both talking about the same food item (he can a be rather creative in his wording at times), I described the dish that I thought he was requesting – ground beef, bread crumbs, eggs, seasonings, all baked together in a loaf shape. As it turns out, it was a good thing I asked, because he had something entirely different in mind.

What he was looking for was meat in a loaf, that is, meat inside a loaf of bread. I had thrown together something like this together when I ended up serving a crowd unexpectedly and wanted to stretch some leftover spaghetti sauce into a meal. Here’s what I did.

Duncan’s “Meat in a Loaf” recipe

Enough raw bread dough to make two loaves of bread (you can use the recipe for Homemade Buns, or your own favorite recipe)

Leftover meat sauce, 1 to 1 1/2 cup per loaf

Shredded cheese, about one cup per loaf

For this post, I made two different types of loaves, one beef and one chicken. I combined the leftover beef spaghetti sauce with cheddar cheese, and the leftover cooked chicken Alfredo sauce with some mozzarella.

To form the loaves, roll the dough into a rectangle about 9″x13″. Spread your fillings down the center third of the dough, meat first, then cheese on top. Stay about one inch away from the narrow ends of the rectangle. Fold both sides of the dough in towards the center, pinch to seal (think “closing a purse” not “rolling a jelly roll”). You want to end up with a long, narrow loaf. Place loaves side by side on a large baking sheet that has been greased or covered with reusable parchment paper.

Allow to rise until about double in size. When dough is almost ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F. Bake loaves 30-35 minutes, until evenly browned. Cool 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Best served warm.

Here’s the beef:

And here’s the chicken:

Paired up with some garden veggies or a big old salad, this is a quick, economical way to stretch leftovers into a larger meal. Since I make my own spaghetti sauce and Alfredo sauce, I know exactly what’s in it.

I hope you and your family enjoy Duncan’s Meat in a Loaf, too.

This post has been linked to Pennywise Platter Thursday for 6/2/2011 at The Nourishing Gourmet .