Breaking Bread: Step By Step to Perfect Muffins, Biscuits, And Loaves

By Norma Borelli

Breaking Bread: Step by Step to Perfect Muffins, Biscuits, and Loaves is a full-color cookbook featuring more than 80 delicious and easy-to-make recipes by Norma Borelli, veteran baker and author of Bake Yourself Happy: Cookie Recipes for Beating the Blues.

The first chapter is a perfect crash course for baking novices, although experienced bakers might learn a few things too. It includes an explanation of ingredients and how to properly store them, what equipment is needed, proper baking techniques, and much more. Do you know the difference between a sifter and a sieve? Borelli has the answers and she shares them with you here.

The recipes in this book for muffins, biscuits, scones, quick breads, and yeast breads will suit bakers with a wide range of interests and baking experience. Recipe instructions are clear and complete, with details for yield, preparation time, and baking time, along with useful tips.

Anyone who loves bread is sure to find surprises in this cookbook, from fun classics like Giant Chewy Pretzels to reinventions of classics, like Ghoul-Busting Garlic Focaccia. There are also clever recipes for using leftover bread, such as savory Italian Croutons and Crispy Cinnamon Sticks.

Interested in an easy-to-make quick bread hot out of the oven? How about Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cake or Banana-Peanut Butter Bread? Not in the mood for something sweet? Whole-Wheat Cardamom-Nut Bread fits the bill for an easy-to-make tasty loaf to spread with melting butter.

Muffins are a hit for a nutritious snack or breakfast, and here you'll find recipes for new takes on these delectable delights. Start the day with fresh-made Bacon and Cheddar Muffins. Titillate your taste buds with Pineapple-Ginger Muffins.

Breaking Bread is a book to refer to over and over again for special treats you can become known for. It will satisfy and also leave your family and friends wanting more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543937138

Book preview

Also by Norma Borelli

Bake Yourself Happy: Cookie Recipes for Beating the Blues

Copyright © 2018 by Norma Borelli

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form or by any means, including by photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-54393-712-1 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-54393-713-8 (ebook)

Table of Contents

BREAD, BEAUTIFUL BREAD

CHAPTER 1: THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU GET OUT THE MIXING BOWL

CHAPTER 2: MUFFINS

ABOUT MUFFINS

Abracadabra Baking Mix

Apricot-Orange Muffins

Apricot-Pineapple Muffins

Bacon and Cheddar Muffins

Big Top Banana Muffins

Caraway and Cheddar Muffins

Chewy Bran Muffins with Fruit, Nuts, and Seeds

Cinnamon-Apple Muffins with Raisins and Nuts

Cranberry-Orange Muffins

Fruity Applesauce Muffins

Ginger-Pear Muffins

Ham and Cheese Muffins

Honey Whole Wheat Fig Muffins

Lemon-Thyme Muffins

Lemon-Ginger Muffins:

Lemon-Poppy Seed Muffins:

Muffins 101

Apple-Date-Nut Muffins

Apple-Raisin-Oat Muffins

Banana-Nutmeg Muffins

Blueberry-Orange Muffins

Ginger-Pecan Muffins

Jam or Jelly Muffins

Orange-Cardamom Wheat Muffins

Oatmeal-Bran Muffins

Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins

Pineapple-Ginger Muffins

Pop-Pop-Pop Popovers

Parmesan Popovers

Spiced Honey-Wheat Muffins

Strawberry-Pecan Muffins

Whole Wheat Bran Muffins

Zip-Zip Applesauce Muffins

CHAPTER 3: BISCUITS AND SCONES

Cinnamon-Orange Heart-Shaped Biscuits

Cranberry-Orange Drop Biscuits

Scottish Date Scones

Wiki Wiki Pineapple-Ginger Drop Biscuits

CHAPTER 4: QUICK BREADS

ABOUT QUICK BREADS

Apple Pie–Spiced Apple-Nut Bread

Baked Brancakes

Banana-Bran Bread

Banana-Peanut Butter Bread

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Cheery Cherry-Raisin Bread

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Bread

Cinnamon-Allspice Raisin Bread

Cinnamon-Orange Nut Bread

Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cake

Ghoul-Busting Garlic Focaccia

Honey Raisin Bran Bread

Honey Whole Wheat Bread with Apricots and Almonds

Irish Soda Bread #1

Irish Soda Bread #2

Luscious Lemon Loaf

Peanut Butter Bread

Pineapple-Macadamia Bread

Sweet and Spicy Date Nut Bread

Sweet-Spiced Pumpkin Bread

Whole-Wheat Cardamom-Nut Bread

Whole-Wheat Seed Bread

Your Choice Cornbread

Zucchini Banana Nut Bread

Zucchini Nut Bread

CHAPTER 5: YEAST BREAD

ABOUT YEAST BREAD

Batter Yeast Bread with Whole Grains, Oats, and Honey

Braided Yeast Bread

Cheese and Olive Bread

Crispy Breadsticks

Giant Chewy Pretzels

Honey-Pecan Oatmeal Bread

Napa Valley Fennel Bread

New Twist Seeded Yeast Rolls

Cheese and Herb Rolls

Oatmeal Pull-Apart Rolls

Parmesan-Herb Yeast Rolls

Soft Garlic Breadsticks

Speedy Honey Oatmeal Whole-Wheat Rolls

Stollen

CHAPTER 6: HOW TO USE LEFTOVER BREAD

ABOUT LEFTOVER BREAD

Bold Italian Fingers

Garlic and Herb Bread Sticks

Crispy Cinnamon Sticks

Garlic Crostini (Garlic Toasts)

Garlic Croutons

Italian Bread Salad (Panzanella)

Italian Croutons

BREAD, BEAUTIFUL BREAD

John Milton’s phrase the sum of earthly bliss (Paradise Lost) could well be used to describe the way we feel about hot, freshly baked bread. We get excited over it. We purr over it in restaurants. We make special trips to bakeries for it. I’ve even seen people leave supermarket checkout lines and rush back to the bakery department when they hear that fresh bread is coming out of the ovens. But if you’ve never taken a hot loaf or a pan of aromatic muffins or biscuits out of your own oven, you haven’t lived. Few things are more soothing and gratifying than making bread from scratch. Not only can you have bread that’s free of preservatives and other scary things you can’t pronounce, but knowing you nurtured a few ingredients into a plump and fragrant loaf can make you feel so capable and homey, you’ll want to crochet afghans for your pet hamsters.

But maybe you’re a little leery of making bread. A lot leery? Relax. You’re not in this alone. I’ll be right here with you. I’ll not only show you how to make marvelous quick breads, muffins, and biscuits, but I’ll tell you everything you need to know about making yeast bread. All you have to do is follow the easy steps.

CHAPTER 1

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU GET OUT THE MIXING BOWL

Note: Some of this information is excerpted from Bake Yourself Happy: Cookie Recipes for Beating the Blues).

About Your Ingredients

You can’t expect to produce superior baked goods using inferior ingredients. Here are some tips to help you choose the best and keep them at their best.

Baking Powder and Baking Soda

These are both leavening agents that cause dough to rise, but they can’t be used interchangeably. Baking soda has about four times the leavening power of baking powder, but it requires an acid to activate it, so it is often used in recipes that contain an acidic ingredient, such as brown sugar, buttermilk, honey, yogurt, sour cream, sour milk, citrus juice, molasses, maple syrup, or chocolate (except Dutch process chocolate). Baking powder is baking soda with one or more acidic ingredients added to it and it is generally used in recipes that contain no other acid.

The potency of baking powder lessens with age, so check the expiration date on your can of baking powder. Also, be sure to keep the can tightly closed because moisture in the air can damage baking powder. To test if baking powder is still active, add ¼ teaspoon baking powder to 1 tablespoon water. If the mixture bubbles, the baking powder is good.

If kept in a cool dry place, an unopened box of baking soda will keep for years, but the soda’s potency deteriorates faster once the box is opened. Like baking powder, baking soda is affected by moisture in the air, so keep it in an airtight container in your pantry. It’s difficult to keep a box airtight once it’s been opened, so it’s best to transfer baking soda to a container with a tight-fitting lid, such as a screw-top jar. There is much conflicting data on how long baking soda will last once the box is opened, but I find that, when kept airtight, baking soda will keep for at least a year. To test the potency of baking soda, mix ¼ teaspoon with 1 tablespoon vinegar. If the mixture bubbles, the soda is good. (Don’t toss leftover soda; it has numerous uses. Google Uses for Baking Soda and be amazed.)

Brown Sugar

Brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added for flavor. The more molasses there is in the sugar, the darker it is. When a recipe doesn’t specify which brown sugar to use, take your pick, according to how much you like the taste of molasses.

Never use lumpy brown sugar when baking; the lumps won’t dissolve. Squeeze the package of sugar before buying it to be sure it’s not hard and lumpy. To keep it soft and fresh, store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator or in a cool part of your pantry. If the sugar has hardened, don’t take a chance on trashing your blender or food processor by trying to chop the lumps. Put the hardened sugar in a covered microwave-safe container and zap it on low for 1 to 2 minutes per cup. Or put the sugar and a few drops of water in a heatproof bowl, cover the bowl with aluminum foil, and put it in a 200-degree conventional oven for 20 minutes. Or simply grate the sugar before using it.

Although it’s okay to substitute brown sugar for white sugar, it’s not a good idea to substitute white sugar for brown sugar in recipes using baking soda. If a recipe calls for brown sugar and you happen to be out of it, you can make some at home. To make dark brown sugar, thoroughly mix 1 tablespoon molasses with each cup of granulated sugar. To make light brown sugar, use 1 to 2 teaspoons of molasses per cup of granulated sugar.

Butter

For the best flavor and texture, use pure butter for baking. It was once thought that margarine was healthier than butter, but new findings show that the trans fats in margarines are more hazardous to your health than the fats they are meant to replace. Margarines sold in tubs have less trans fats than stick margarines and some have no trans fats at all, but tub margarine contains less fat and more water than butter or stick margarine and it will not give you the same results.

To soften a stick of butter, cut it up and let it stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Or soften a whole stick of butter by microwaving it on low for 10 to 15 seconds.

Buttermilk

Buttermilk adds a perky tang to recipes and prods baking soda into doing its thing, but you may not always have it on hand. No worries. There are several easy substitutes, such as sour milk. To make 1 cup of sour milk, put 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice or 1¾ teaspoons of cream of tartar in a liquid measuring cup and add milk to make 1 cup. (Nonfat, 1%, 2%, and full-fat milk all work.) Stir the mixture and let it stand for about 5 minutes or until it thickens. Almond, coconut, or soy milk can be used in place of regular milk, but soy milk may take about 15 minutes to coagulate. You can also substitute 1 cup of plain yogurt or sour cream for 1 cup of buttermilk, but if your yogurt or sour cream is very thick, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk to thin it. For extra tartness, you may add 1 or 2 teaspoons of vinegar or lemon juice, if you like.

Cinnamon-sugar

You can buy ready-made cinnamon-sugar or you can make your own for a fraction of the cost. To make your own, mix 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon into ½ cup granulated sugar. This will make a tad more cinnamon-sugar than what is in most store-bought jars.

Citrus Zest

If scraping citrus zest off your box grater makes you crazy, press a piece of parchment paper against the grating teeth before you start to grate. Grate over a piece of waxed paper or foil to catch the grated zest. Or invest in a microplane. This inexpensive utensil is one of my favorite kitchen tools. It makes grating zest a snap.

Freshly grated zest is best, but if you don’t have an orange or lemon on hand, dried zest, sold with the spices in most grocery stores, is almost as good. You can also substitute orange or lemon extract in place of fresh zest. Use 1 teaspoon orange extract in place of 1 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest. Use ½ teaspoon lemon extract in place of 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest.

Eggs

Large eggs are used for all of the recipes in this book.

Store eggs